Asian Americans debate affirmative action

With the University of Michigan affirmative action case hearing only a week away, the Asian Pacific Student Coalition tackled how the case could affect the Asian American community.

"It's important because the Asian/Pacific community is usually left out of the [affirmative action] debate," said Pan-Asian American Community House Program Coordinator Yen Ling Shek.

About 20 students attended the event last night, moderated by Associate Dean and History Professor Walter Licht.

Licht opened the forum by giving background information on the upcoming hearing in Washington D.C. and the march planned for that day -- which, according to the number of buses that have been rented for the event, could be the largest student march in American history.

The first speaker was Terry Ao, a member of the National Asian Pacific American Legal Consortium, who defended affirmative action on college campuses on the grounds that "diversity is a very compelling interest."

"It's a base root for how people learn to get along and live for the rest of their lives," Ao said.

She added that the system at Michigan was aimed at enhancing everyone's learning experience, despite its detriment to the Asian community.

Political Science Professor Rogers Smith spoke next, defining affirmative action as "any kind of targeted benefit or assistance program that provides benefits to some sections of the population and not others."

Smith argued that every group in America has experienced this type of benefit, be it land grants, money or other factors -- and because these forms of assistance are nothing new in America, affirmative action is not as radical a concept as people think.

Temple Law Professor Jan Ting, however, argued against affirmative action, stating that America fought in the Civil War to establish a principle that any type of discrimination is unacceptable.

"You cannot discriminate based on race," said Ting, who then picked apart the argument that affirmative action alleviates past injustices.

"If we are trying to alleviate a problem, when have we done this enough?" he asked. "Does it go on indefinitely?"

Ting also questioned the fairness of extending this argument to immigrants who did not cause or suffer from such injustices but benefit from reparations nonetheless.

According to Ting, Asians are most affected by affirmative action because university spots that could have been theirs are given to others instead. He used University of California at Los Angeles -- a school that has seen the numbers of Asians admitted skyrocket after getting rid of affirmative action -- as an example, adding that some now call the school "University of Caucasians Lost among Asians" in jest.

The last panelist, Wharton MBA student John Chun, shared similar views as Ting, and the discussion between the two sides of the debate was often heated.

Engineering sophomore Rohini Khanna said, "I thought a lot of good points were raised, and my initial intention of figuring out different viewpoints was met."

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