Achievement Gap

It’s well documented that students of Asian descent are held to the highest standards in admissions. Most recently, Princeton professor Thomas Espenshade released a study that showed the extent of discrimination against these students at elite colleges. Judah Bellin, a senior at Cornell, writes:

“It’s hard to deny that the admissions process is stacked against Asian students. A study on affirmative action by Princeton sociologist Thomas Espenshade showed that when numerous factors are controlled for, Hispanic students receive a admissions boost equivalent to around 130 points on the SAT, while black students receive a boost of 310 points. Asian students, however, face a 140 point penalty. It was therefore no surprise when, after California outlawed the use of racial preferences in admissions, the representation of Asian Americans jumped significantly at University of California schools.

“We can’t really gauge Cornell’s role in penalizing Asian applicants, mostly because the admissions office is always hesitant to reveal information about minority students. However, we must pay careful attention to our treatment of Asian students. I do know of one former admissions officer who likes to boast about rejecting scores of Asians because he didn’t want them in his classes. Given the faculty condescension towards Asian students that I and many others have observed, it wouldn’t surprise me if more admissions officers acted on similar impulses.

“True, any information on this phenomenon is anecdotal. However, this will also be true years from now. We won’t uncover evidence of rigid quota systems, or committees tasked with addressing ‘the Jewish question,’ a la Harvard and Yale in the early 20th century. I suspect, though, that future interviews with former admissions officers will reveal that ‘the Asian question’ — what to do about massive numbers of qualified Asian applicants? — has been both a persistent worry and a major factor in admissions decisions.”

A couple years ago, the American Civil Rights Institute’s Ward Connerly wrote an op-ed about discrimination against students of Asian descent in the University of California (UC) system. He recounted a conversation he’d had with a UC administrator:

“I asked him why he considered it important to tinker with admissions instead of just letting the chips fall where they may. In an unguarded moment, he told me that unless the university took steps to ‘guide’ admissions decisions, UC would be dominated by Asians. When I asked, ‘What would be wrong with that?’ I got an answer that speaks volumes about the underlying philosophy at many universities with regard to Asian enrollment.

“The UC administrator told me that Asians are ‘too dull – they study, study, study.’ He then said, ‘If you ever say I said this, I will have to deny it.’ I won’t betray the individual’s anonymity because to do so would put him in a world of trouble. Yet, it is time to confront the not-so-subtle hand of discrimination against Asians that masquerades as ‘building diversity’ at many campuses.”

It’s also well documented that Asians are a non-preferred minority. The euphemism diversity applies mostly to blacks and Hispanics. Some minorities are more equal than others. If Asian enrollment goes up, well, that’s interesting, but what about blacks and Hispanics?

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If schools factor race into admissions and financial aid decisions, why not factor race into grading? Although Mark J. Perry, a professor of economics at the University of Michigan at Flint and a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, presents the idea tongue-in-cheek, it’s a valid question. Consider the following:

“Before Proposal 2, the Center for Equal Opportunity found that black and Hispanic high school students with a GPA of 3.20 and an SAT score of 1240 had roughly a 90 percent chance of being admitted to the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, while Asians and whites with the same academic credentials had only about a one in 10 chance of being accepted.

“Once admitted, though, black students were about five-and-a-half times more likely to be on academic probation than white students (36.5 percent vs. 6.5 percent) and had an average GPA six-tenths of a point below white students (2.73 vs. 3.34).

“Further, almost one out of every three black students (32 percent) failed to graduate from the University of Michigan within 6 years, compared to only one out of every nine white students (11 percent), according to the NCAA.

“Instead of attending a less competitive but still very good university, many of these students were thrust into an environment in which they were almost certain to fail. Academic mismatch did a great disservice to many minority students, who might have achieved much greater academic success — a higher GPA, a lower chance of being on academic probation, and a greater chance of graduating — at a less prestigious institution.

“If we must accept the return of affirmative action, allow me to facetiously suggest a proposal to solve the academic mismatch problem: ‘affirmative action grading’ in the classroom. Race-based preferences and double standards at the point of admission are obviously not enough to guarantee academic success and graduation. We should supplement it with a similar practice in the classroom.

“Affirmative action grading would work simply: minority students would be evaluated according to an adjusted grading scale, given longer time to take exams, and be excused from certain homework assignments. This would increase minority students’ GPA, reduce the likelihood that they will be on academic probation, and increase their chances of graduating.”

If affirmative action typically involves lowering standards to admit minority students, why are these same students now expected to compete with students admitted with higher qualifications?

Without racial preferences, minority students likely would be sorted into schools that match their qualifications, thereby raising their performance and graduation rates. Without racial preferences, minority students can sit alongside non-minorities knowing they got it based on grades and scores, and not skin color or racial group membership.

Equal opportunity begins at the individual level, and the results of that opportunity are contingent on the individual to excel. That’s all any government can or should guarantee. Equality of outcome is a fantasy even in the most homogenous society.

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