Vinay Harpalani: An important voice on affirmative action

More than any recent Supreme Court question, the affirmative action debate has captivated Penn's campus. On Sunday, the Undergraduate Assembly endorsed affirmative action and called upon the University to provide transportation to the national civil rights march in Washington D.C. on April 1, when the Supreme Court is scheduled to hear the landmark University of Michigan cases. The UA's statement follows many other groups who have supported affirmative action. However, the Asian Pacific Student Coalition is still debating the issue -- for understandable reasons. On the surface, affirmative action seems like a conundrum for Asian Americans, who are well-represented at elite colleges in spite of the discrimination they face. However, I believe Asian Americans should actively defend affirmative action in these crucial times. By examining how Asian Americans fit into the affirmative action debate, we can see many of the subtle ways that racism operates in America. The "model minority" myth -- the idea that Asians are high academic achievers because they place more cultural value on education -- is one racist stereotype that has obscured the affirmative action debate. The high representation of Asian Americans at many elite universities is not due to culture, but rather to U.S. immigration policy. The 1965 Immigration Act gave significant preference to highly-educated professionals from Asian countries. This act was passed during the Cold War, as America needed more engineers and scientists to compete with the Soviet Union. The immediate post-1965 immigrants were among the most highly educated people from their countries. And it was their children, with the benefit of educated home environments, who overcame discrimination and became the high achievers of the model minority myth. We cannot draw conclusions about Asian cultural values from this select group. Neoconservatives try to pit this generation of Asian Americans, which includes me, against blacks, arguing that the latter simply needs to work harder to achieve. But it is completely invalid to compare educated, voluntary immigrants and their children to a group whose ancestors came here on slave ships. Moreover, the model minority myth was originally used to discriminate against Asian Americans. During the 1980s, college administrators at many elite universities, including Harvard, Princeton and Brown, limited the admission of Asian Americans who had superior academic qualifications. These schools contended that Asian American students were not as well-rounded as whites. Stereotypes of different racial groups played into the issue. Asian Americans were portrayed as one-dimensional "nerds" and "geeks," while black and Latino students were seen as unintelligent and unqualified. Whites then became the ideal middle ground -- well-rounded students who were sought at elite institutions. When Asian Americans protested this injustice, some universities conceded, but neoconservatives used this controversy to launch attacks on affirmative action, eventually leading to the Michigan cases. And even as the numbers of Asian Americans increase on elite campuses, the stereotypes still resonate. Asian Americans are underrepresented in political leadership positions -- despite their academic success. Leadership requires more than book learning; one needs initiative and opportunity. Affirmative action programs, such as the Asian Pacific American Institute for Congressional Studies, have allowed Asian Americans, including me, the opportunity to learn about politics firsthand. These programs will soon end if we do not defend affirmative action. Also, as the Cold War dissipated, so did the preferences that allowed my father and other educated professionals to come to America. Immigration visas are harder to obtain today than in the 1960s and 1970s. Most recent Asian immigrants are not well educated; they are working class laborers who lack the educational advantages that my generation had. But they still face discrimination. And these new Asian immigrants and their children will need affirmative action to help overcome this disadvantage. As stated by U.S. Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta, the highest ranking Asian American official in government, Asian Americans "will lose out if affirmative action programs are abolished. Our community will pay a price that will far outweigh any increase in Asian Pacific enrollment. [Asian American] students will find that when they enter the workforce, they may run into the same glass ceiling their parents and grandparents are running into today. This time, however, the best weapon to fight that glass ceiling -- affirmative action -- will no longer be available." Neoconservatives are not only trying to end affirmative action; they are also attacking immigration. They claim that Asian immigrants take away jobs from poor blacks and Latinos. In this way, the right wing uses affirmative action and immigration to pit Asian Americans and blacks against each other. If neoconservatives have their way, America's elite universities will again be almost exclusively white, and the growing diversity of America will be curbed. Asian Americans cannot allow this to happen. We must fight for racial equity and collective empowerment. Our defense of affirmative action is one important step in this fight. Vinay Harpalani is a Ph.D. candidate in Education and a Master's candidate in Bioethics from Newark, Del.

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