Suit Accusing Harvard of Capping Asian-American Admissions Could Be Tried This Summer

[ninjahood]

White people don't care if Asians suddenly account for 70% of the student body. Because Asians do not make them feel uneasy.

actually....

New Jersey School District Eases Pressure on Students, Baring an Ethnic Divide
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A packed Board of Education meeting this month at Grover Middle School in West Windsor, N.J., where a districtwide debate that often splits along racial lines is underway about the pressure put on students there to succeed.CreditMark Makela for The New York Times


By Kyle Spencer

Dec. 25, 2015
This fall, David Aderhold, the superintendent of a high-achieving school district near Princeton, N.J., sent parents an alarming 16-page letter.

The school district, he said, was facing a crisis. Its students were overburdened and stressed out, juggling too much work and too many demands.

In the previous school year, 120 middle and high school students were recommended for mental health assessments; 40 were hospitalized. And on a survey administered by the district, students wrote things like, “I hate going to school,” and “Coming out of 12 years in this district, I have learned one thing: that a grade, a percentage or even a point is to be valued over anything else.”

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With his letter, Dr. Aderhold inserted West Windsor-Plainsboro Regional School District into a national discussion about the intense focus on achievement at elite schools, and whether it has gone too far.

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A button produced in support of the "Take Back Childhood" movement started by Ms. Foley, a local parent who has come to see the district’s high-pressure atmosphere as antithetical to learning.CreditMark Makela for The New York Times
At follow-up meetings, he urged parents to join him in advocating a holistic, “whole child” approach to schooling that respects “social-emotional development” and “deep and meaningful learning” over academics alone. The alternative, he suggested, was to face the prospect of becoming another Palo Alto, Calif., where outsize stress on teenage students is believed to have contributed to two clusters of suicides in the last six years.


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But instead of bringing families together, Dr. Aderhold’s letter revealed a fissure in the district, which has 9,700 students, and one that broke down roughly along racial lines. On one side are white parents like Catherine Foley, a former president of the Parent Teacher Student Association at her daughter’s middle school, who has come to see the district’s increasingly pressured atmosphere as antithetical to learning.

“My son was in fourth grade and told me, ‘I’m not going to amount to anything because I have nothing to put on my résumé,’ ” Ms. Foley said.

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On the other side are parents like Mike Jia, one of the thousands of Asian-American professionals who have moved to the district in the past decade, who said Dr. Aderhold’s reforms would amount to a “dumbing down” of his children’s education.

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David Aderhold, the superintendent of the West Windsor-Plainsboro Board of Education, center, and its president, Anthony Fleres, right, listened to parents during the recent board meeting.CreditMark Makela for The New York Times

“What is happening here reflects a national anti-intellectual trend that will not prepare our children for the future,” Mr. Jia said.

About 10 minutes from Princeton and an hour and a half from New York City, West Windsor and Plainsboro have become popular bedroom communities for technology entrepreneurs, pharmaceutical researchers and engineers, drawn in large part by the public schools. From the last three graduating classes, 16 seniors were admitted to M.I.T. It churns out Science Olympiad winners, classically trained musicians and students with perfect SAT scores.

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The district has become increasingly popular with immigrant families from China, India and Korea. This year, 65 percent of its students are Asian-American, compared with 44 percent in 2007. Many of them are the first in their families born in the United States.

They have had a growing influence on the district. Asian-American parents are enthusiastic supporters of the competitive instrumental music program. They have been huge supporters of the district’s advanced mathematics program, which once began in the fourth grade but will now start in the sixth. The change to the program, in which 90 percent of the participating students are Asian-American, is one of Dr. Aderhold’s reforms.

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Ms. Foley said her son had told her while in fourth grade, "I’m not going to amount to anything because I have nothing to put on my résumé."CreditMark Makela for The New York Times
Asian-American students have been avid participants in a state program that permits them to take summer classes off campus for high school credit, allowing them to maximize the number of honors and Advanced Placement classes they can take, another practice that Dr. Aderhold is limiting this school year.

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With many Asian-American children attending supplemental instructional programs, there is a perception among some white families that the elementary school curriculum is being sped up to accommodate them.

Both Asian-American and white families say the tension between the two groups has grown steadily over the past few years, as the number of Asian families has risen. But the division has become more obvious in recent months as Dr. Aderhold has made changes, including no-homework nights, an end to high school midterms and finals, and a “right to squeak” initiative that made it easier to participate in the music program.

At a packed meeting of the school district’s Board of Education held shortly before the winter break, a middle school cafeteria was filled with parents, with Asian-Americans sitting on one side and white families on the other. Some parents and students described rampant cheating, grade fixation and days so stressful that some students could not wait for them to end. But other parents, primarily Asian-American ones, described a different picture, one in which their values were being ignored.

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Outside Grover Middle School, part of the West Windsor-Plainsboro Regional School District.CreditMark Makela for The New York Times
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Helen Yin, the mother of an eighth grader and a kindergartner, told the crowd that Dr. Aderhold was attempting to hold her and her children back. At one point, a visibly upset Ms. Yin, who moved from Chengdu, China, to pursue a master’s degree in chemistry, shouted to the room filled with parents, “Who can I trust?”

“I don’t think limitations can help,” she said later, in an interview. “If children are to learn and grow, they need experiences.”

Jennifer Lee, professor of sociology at the University of California, Irvine, and an author of “The Asian American Achievement Paradox,” says misunderstandings between first-generation Asian-American parents and those who have been in this country longer are common. What white middle-class parents do not always understand, she said, is how much pressure recent immigrants feel to boost their children into the middle class.

“They don’t have the same chances to get their children internships or jobs at law firms,” Professor Lee said. “So what they believe is that their children must excel beyond their white peers in academic settings so they have the same chances to excel later.”

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Helen Yin, the mother of an eighth grader and a kindergartner in the district, told a crowd at the board meeting that reforms by Dr. Aderhold were holding her children back.CreditMark Makela for The New York Times
The issue of the stresses felt by students in elite school districts has gained attention in recent years as schools in places like Newton, Mass., and Palo Alto have reported clusters of suicides. West Windsor-Plainsboro has not had a teenage suicide in recent years, but Dr. Aderhold, who has worked in the district for seven years and been superintendent for the last two and a half, said he had seen troubling signs.

In a recent art assignment, a middle school student depicted an overburdened child who was being berated for earning an A, rather than an A+, on a calculus exam. In the image, the mother scolds the student with the words, “Shame on you!”

Further, Dr. Aderhold said, the New Jersey Education Department has flagged at least two pieces of writing on state English language assessments in which students expressed suicidal thoughts.

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The survey commissioned by the district found that 68 percent of high school honor and Advanced Placement students reported feeling stressed about school “always or most of the time.”

“We need to bring back some balance,” Dr. Aderhold said. “You don’t want to wait until it’s too late to do something.”

Not all public opinion has fallen along racial lines.

Karen Sue, the Chinese-American mother of a fifth grader and an eighth grader, believes the competition within the district has gotten out of control. Ms. Sue, who was born in the United States to immigrant parents, wants her peers to dial it back.

“It’s become an arms race, an educational arms race,” she said. “We all want our kids to achieve and be successful. The question is, at what cost?”


Alexandra Markovich contributed reporting.

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/12/...app://com.google.android.googlequicksearchbox

 

[Chiron]

Still it's not that Asians are getting opportunities... They're just mad because they're kids have to try harder. They want to use the same, "I know the principal so you can come to the lake house with us and not worry about homework" methods they always have. But because their kids aren't built up for adversity the way minority kids are, they are cracking under the pressure. They hold positive images of Asian Americans as hard working and overly studious. There are black children that study just as hard. Maybe even harder to achieve the same things. But if black students started doing overwhelmingly better than others, the narrative wouldn't be the same. Instead of we are pressuring kids too much to keep up with black kids, It would be "is affirmative action still necessary?" They would completely ignore merit. They wouldn't think black kids are just smarter than their own like they do with Asians. That's what I was saying with that 70% thing.

 

[hand2handking]

no

my mom, dad, uncles, and aunts learned english in the schools of their home country, ESL classes here, and workbooks/educational resources at home.

damn too busy doing it the right way to watch tv

 

[americangenius]

It's deeper than just being selfish. I think the majority of these celebrities are literally controlled in some type of way for the worse. Look at people like Jay,Bey,Puff, and other Black millionaires. You mean to tell me that they can buy paintings or make investments worth millions in worth. But they can't build up a community for there own people starting with schools,stores,and businesses.

Iunderstand that they dont want to lose out on future income from there professional career. But bro were losing by alot as a people out here. That's why i hate hearing income numbers on people like Dre,Hov,Bey,Diddy, and others in that bracket. I dont believe any of these celebrities are really for there own people. I dont care about there conscious songs here and there or anything.

These people can reach 5 billion a piece and still wouldn't build an all black community to better there own people. Thats how i know there not for there people when it comes to advancement of there race. There speaking about knowledge just because Black Panther just came out and its the cool thing to act like your into right now. Pac had homeless people staying with him in L.A. before he passed. He's the only 1 i could see doing that. Everybody else is just talking out here.

You're speaking with no facts. People like Dre have literally built campuses in Compton for educating the youth, with tons of support for low income. LeBron is out here supporting a city, and many of the names you mentioned are doing many things for their community. Just because you don't see it doesn't make it true. These people haven't even been wealthy for two decades, they literally just got here. The wealth necessary to build a "black wall street" is far more than a handful of entertainers can afford.

People love to point fingers while not being in a position of wealth.

 

[ninjahood]

Still it's not that Asians are getting opportunities... They're just mad because they're kids have to try harder. They want to use the same, "I know the principal so you can come to the lake house with us and not worry about homework" methods they always have. But because their kids aren't built up for adversity the

this is da problem with da Harvard suit...asians feel they're being dubbed regardless of academic acumen...a sty entrance exam is actually fair...you pass you're in, period.

 

[Nawzlew]

damn too busy doing it the right way to watch tv

Aite chief

 

[krazy88s]

actually....

Good article. That whole Princeton, NJ area really is an educational arms race. Asians and Middle Easterners are moving heaven and earth forcing their child to do this or that to compete with white people in the area, who are moving to other cities anyway

 

[ninjahood]

yeah i cant knock asians for kickin ***...if they winning let em be great...thats like me complaining about em in da arcade because i lost 2 dollars at Marvel VS Capcom 2 at Chinatown fair

 

[hand2handking]

Trump Administration Backs Asian-American Students in Harvard Admissions Lawsuit

https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/06/politics/harvard-admissions-lawsuit/index.html

(CNN) The Trump administration threw its weight Friday behind a student group that says Harvard University discriminates against Asian-Americans in its admissions process, urging a federal judge Friday not to keep years' worth of admissions records under wraps.

The move by the Justice Department forecasts the emerging fault lines in what could serve as the first major affirmative action case of the Trump administration.

The fight surrounding the secrecy of the Harvard's competitive admissions process stems from a 2014 lawsuit brought by Students for Fair Admissions, a nonprofit organization that argues race-conscious admissions policies are unconstitutional. The group includes over a dozen students who claim they were rejected from Harvard because the it engages in "racial balancing" by capping the number of Asian-Americans it admits each year.

As part of pre-trial discovery in the case, Students for Fair Admissions obtained a mountain of high school applicant files and detailed information on the inner workings of Harvard's admissions process, much of which it wants to use as evidence as the lawsuit moves ahead. Harvard claims the materials are "highly sensitive" and "highly proprietary," and has asked the judge to shield the records from public view if used in court filings.

The Justice Department has not formally joined the students' current lawsuit in federal court, but has a keen interest in making the admissions data a matter of public record now: the department is embroiled in a parallel case over Harvard's policies as it investigates a similar 2015 complaint filed by a coalition of Asian-American associations.

Justice Department lawyers wrote Friday that the lawsuit "overlaps with the legal and factual bases undergirding the United States' investigation and could directly bear on that investigation."

The department could eventually bring its own lawsuit against Harvard based on its findings, or decide to simply join the students' ongoing case as a "friend of the court."

Harvard said in a statement Friday that it is committed to safeguarding prospective students' personal information.

"We are committed to safeguarding their privacy while also ensuring that the public has the access that it is entitled to under the law," spokeswoman Rachael Dane said. "Harvard College does not discriminate against applicants from any group in its admissions processes."

A court hearing over how the confidentiality of the documents will be treated is scheduled for Tuesday in Boston. Judge Allison D. Burroughs, an Obama appointee, has said she's considering setting a trial date for early next year.

But no matter who wins the current fight over Harvard's records, any further steps by the Justice Department to side with the student group will be closely watched.

Students for Fair Admissions was created by Edward Blum, a well-known conservative legal advocate who gained past notoriety at the Supreme Court by enlisting students to challenge race-conscious admissions policies. Those high-profile lawsuits were typically waged against universities by private plaintiffs without Justice Department intervention, or the department sided with the schools by defending the educational benefits of diversity.

This story has been updated.

 

[ninjahood]

fascinating.

 

[hand2handking]

fascinating.

 

[Mr.Guy]

Its lit

 

[wballz]

Trump Administration Backs Asian-American Students in Harvard Admissions Lawsuit

https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/06/politics/harvard-admissions-lawsuit/index.html

Goes in line with Trump's campaign promises of trying to keep foreign students who are studying in elite post-secondary schools to stay in the US workforce instead of going back home.

 

[hand2handking]

Goes in line with Trump's campaign promises of trying to keep foreign students who are studying in elite post-secondary schools to stay in the US workforce instead of going back home.

foreign or asian?

i thought he was instituting travel bans and building walls for the other races of poc?

daca is keeping his campaign promise of trying to keep foreigners?

 

[sharpshooter718]

School don't teach you ****... people put too much emphasis on education when education doesn't make anyone successful...

There needs to be an education overhaul from top to bottom.

I haven't used anything pass 5th grade in my day to day life...

I learned through self education a few computer courses and L.O.X

I wish I knew about credit ,tax preparation and the importance of self education when I was 16... but nah, romeo and Juliet and discrete mathematics was much more important... foh

 

[fac3 tak30v312]

I’m jumping in late. At heart of the issue is that they’re classified as minorities while enjoying white privilege. Not only that but they do have a homeland that they can outsource them self too if they so choose

Minority admission policies are actually “poverty” admission policies. They’re not in place for affluent kids to use as a loophole to enter Ivy League schools.

Then you have to look at admission caps. If say Asians of Chinese descent only make up 5% of the population and a school like Harvard decides to cap their admission at 10% to reflect the population at large. In turn their applications are judged based the amount of students that seek to fill the available space for a given year. Those stats are aggregated and a baseline for admission created.

Now essentially you’re asking to redefine admission practices, where they are no longer used to fulfill the minority quota and population statistics (can’t remember the other word now)

Then you have to do a projection curve as to what upper management is going to look like in 15-30 years. What you’re essentially looking at is the admission of Asians at a rate that is exponentially higher than national population avg. Not to mention they’ve been exploiting the “poverty” aka minority clause for the better part of two decades

In turn the Harvard issue becomes an immigration issue.

 

[wballz]

foreign or asian?

i thought he was instituting travel bans and building walls for the other races of poc?

daca is keeping his campaign promise of trying to keep foreigners?

I remember he said foreign. From what I recall, he stated that he prefers the talent to stay here to enrich the american workforce.

Keep in mind, he is pro rich. These students are from upper echelon of their countries.

This also goes inline with poor POC essentially not being welcome in the states. That wall does not stop upper elites from Mexico at all.

 

[ninjahood]

Minority admission policies are actually “poverty” admission policies. They’re not in place for affluent kids to use as a loophole to enter Ivy League schools.

many of those asian kids qualify as poverty striken cases.

we bout to find out whats in Havard admission protocol Secret sauce soon enough..

 

[fac3 tak30v312]

many of those asian kids qualify as poverty striken cases.

we bout to find out whats in Havard admission protocol Secret sauce soon enough..

This is another issue.. How many of their parents own their own business, thus having to pay themselves a salary? For instance do they pay themselves 15 - 30K a year, and use the company to pay for all expenses. Harvard is not going to audit their company's books.

The issue with NYC 'top tier' HS is something entirely different though.. They can't come out directly and say how they do not like that now China has a direct pipeline to the elite of the American education system. For example using the NYC HS article how does a poor Asian immigrant afford to purchase a laundromat upon entry into the US? For example looking at the median cost of a laundromat in NYC, it's ~100k - 150k today, with sales in a similar range. Even going back 20 years owning a laundromat falls in line with being a middle class family, especially if you're the owner operator of the business. How are you securing the loan or the cash to purchase such a business as an immigrant?

 

[ninjahood]

Chinatown is one of da poorest neighborhoods in NYC, if those parents save their pennies to send their kids to test prep courses and invest in their future. that "all of em own laundromats" cliche aint adding up either.

 

[hand2handking]

I remember he said foreign. From what I recall, he stated that he prefers the talent to stay here to enrich the american workforce.

Keep in mind, he is pro rich. These students are from upper echelon of their countries.

This also goes inline with poor POC essentially not being welcome in the states. That wall does not stop upper elites from Mexico at all.

thats true

i was looking at it like they dont want any immigrants but youre right the rich are welcome

repped

 

[fac3 tak30v312]

actually...

To make elite schools ‘fair,’ city will punish poor Asians
By Dennis Saffran

July 19, 2014 | 2:57pm
Daniel Shapiro
In 2004, 7-year-old Ting Shi arrived in New York from China, speaking almost no English. For two years, he shared a bedroom in a Chinatown apartment with his grandparents — a cook and a factory worker — and a young cousin, while his parents put in 12-hour days at a small laundromat they had purchased on the Upper East Side.

Ting mastered English and eventually set his sights on getting into Stuyvesant High School, the crown jewel of New York City’s eight “specialized high schools.”

When he was in sixth grade, he took the subway downtown from his parents’ small apartment to the bustling high school to pick up prep books for its eighth-grade entrance exam. He prepared for the test over the next two years, working through the prep books and taking classes at one of the city’s free tutoring programs. His acceptance into Stuyvesant prompted a day of celebration at the laundromat — an immigrant family’s dream beginning to come true.




/

Its right there in the article.. The issue is not that there aren't any poor Asians kids attempting to escape abject poverty but that its middle class to lower upper class kids using the policies that were put in place for the poorest of society.

I've went to these after school tutoring programs ... and the ones that were available for inner city kids aren't there for the "brightest, most intelligent" kids in class.. It's there for poor kids to get help with their homework.. for the remedial kids so that they don't drop out of school due to poor grades. Everyone else had to pay to attend say a Kumon learning center.. Kids who's only meal is that free school lunch definitely aren't going to these classes.

Now what we're going to see is the legality of these admission caps.. are they solely based on income, grades and extra curricular.. are they attempting to cap the amount of Asians admitted due to these special clauses in place

Also when you talk about the poor of NYC Chinatown its usually the workers of the shops not the shop owners... typically the workers are the shop owners family members.. after they collectively pay off the initial debt.. they then collectively invest in other businesses.. that is the ones with strong family dynamics.

 

[equality]

As an Asian, here are my thoughts and as with any issue regarding race, generalizations have to be made to progress and conversation:

For me, this issue ultimately boils down to how much a cap on Asian Americans will benefit other minorities (Blacks and Hispanics mostly). If a quota on Asians is set, is this going to make more room for minorities who are generally economically worse off than us, and lack the access to education from Day 1?
We have to stop thinking with the mentality that this is one minority group vs another. We have to come to an alignment that benefits all minorities. I've always felt like as an Asian immigrant we have an obligation to support other groups who are under-represented and whose voices are never heard. Maybe we're a few too many generations removed to feel it, but our ancestors fought through the same struggles of assimilation and racism (albeit different types of racism) to have Asian Americans arguing to take away affirmative action from black people. Making other's struggle more for our own benefits is not the answer.

If a hard quota is needed to balance the diversity numbers for other minorities who are generally socio-economically much worse than us, then I'm going to support it. As I've gotten older I've learned empathy can go a long way. If my Asian *** was born to parents who made sure I never worried about food, shelter and education has to study harder and acquire better grades than a black kid who from south Chicago and could only ever dream of college, then I'll take that penalty because I've got it much better in life in every other area.

We can't stick to this "us vs them" mentality. We're all minorities to the dominant culture.

 

[ninjahood]

We have to stop thinking with the mentality that this is one minority group vs another

having asian quotas does just that.

 

[hand2handking]

Seal Kept in Place for Harvard Affirmative-Action Case

https://www.courthousenews.com/seal-kept-in-place-for-harvard-affirmative-action-case/

BOSTON (CN) – A plea for transparency by the U.S. Department of Justice failed to sway a federal judge Tuesday to unseal records in a challenge to Harvard University’s affirmative action policies.

Citing privacy interests in student records and admissions procedures, U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs issued her ruling from the bench Tuesday at a brief status conference.

The group Students for Fair Admissions brought the underlying suit in 2014, saying that Harvard discriminates against prospective white and Asian students by allowing race to be one of several different factors in admission acceptance.

With the parties facing a June 15 deadline to submit briefing on summary judgment, Harvard accused the group in a March 30 letter of engaging in a publicity-seeking media campaign by trying to have the supporting documents it plans to cit filed on the public docket.

Rejecting the attack on April 6, however, the group accused Harvard of using “generalizations about the ‘proprietary’ nature of the ‘inner workings of its admission process’ … to stonewall SFFA.”

“Harvard needed to bring forth compelling evidence and documentation that specific (or at least types of) documents warrant protection as a trade secret or something approximating one,” the letter said. (Parentheses in original.)

Along with this letter, Judge Burroughs received input from the New England First Amendment Coalition and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.

Identifying themselves as friends of the court, this group called the doctrine of public access “a critical part of an open and transparent justice system.”

The United States threw its hat in the ring as well on Friday, noting that the millions of dollars that Harvard takes every year gives the pubic “a paramount interest in any proof of these allegations, Harvard’s response to them, and the court’s resolution of this dispute.”

With Attorney General Jeff Sessions now at the helm, the Justice Department confirmed in 2017 that it has been investigating Harvard’s use of race in its admissions policies.

Attorneys for Harvard at the firm Wilmer Hale meanwhile responded in their own letter Monday that the efforts to make Harvard’s confidential documents public now “would render the protective order entirely meaningless.”

As for the Justice Department’s interest, Wilmer Hale attorney William Lee said it has already provided the government with all of the documents and deposition testimony at issue.

“Harvard does not, of course, dispute the department’s authority to uphold the nation’s civil rights laws for all its citizens,” the letter states. “But the Department’s belated interest in this case, and its submission on this confidentiality issue in particular, cannot help but give pause.”

Representatives for the Justice Department did not respond to an email seeking comment, did the law firm Consovoy McCarthy Park, which represents the group Students for Fair Admissions.

In her ruling Tuesday, Judge Burroughs said she would stick with the “common court practice” of letting the parties make redacted filings public while filing unredacted materials under seal.

Eric Penley with the New England First Amendment Coalition meanwhile applauded this approach.

“She’s clearly very concerned that the parties not withhold lots of stuff that shouldn’t be redacted,” Penley said in an interview after the hearing. “We thought it was a good result that she is following the law in the First Circuit, which is that there is a presumption in favor of public disclosure of filings with the court.”

In December 2015, the First Circuit blocked a group of individual students from joining the case on Harvard’s side. The students claimed that the school’s consideration of race benefitted them.