'Asians in the Ivory Tower'

Inside Higher Ed

October 8, 2010

Each fall brings articles about rising Asian-American enrollments at leading colleges and universities. But according to Robert T. Teranishi, associate professor of higher education at New York University, those stories ignore broader realities -- many of them challenging -- for Asian-Americans in higher education. In his new book, Asians in the Ivory Tower: Dilemmas of Racial Inequality in American Higher Education -- he discusses these challenges. He responded to questions in an e-mail interview about the book.

Q: We've just come through another round of studies on such topics as average SAT scores, and the results show considerable Asian success. What do you make of such figures as average SAT scores?
A: The SAT scores for Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPIs) reveal two important trends that are often not recognized by educators, practitioners, and policymakers.

Full Story: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/10/08/asians

To Purchase "Asians in the Ivory Tower" at a discount, go to the AAAA Bookstore: http://www.affirmativeaction.org/bookstore.html page 19.

Report Takes Aim at ‘Model Minority’ Stereotype of Asian-American Students

The New York Times
June 10, 2008

By TAMAR LEWIN
The image of Asian-Americans as a homogeneous group of high achievers taking over the campuses of the nation’s most selective colleges came under assault in a report issued Monday.
The report, by New York University, the College Board and a commission of mostly Asian-American educators and community leaders, largely avoids the debates over both affirmative action and the heavy representation of Asian-Americans at the most selective colleges.
But it pokes holes in stereotypes about Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders, including the perception that they cluster in science, technology, engineering and math. And it points out that the term “Asian-American” is extraordinarily broad, embracing members of many ethnic groups.
“Certainly there’s a lot of Asians doing well, at the top of the curve, and that’s a point of pride, but there are just as many struggling at the bottom of the curve, and we wanted to draw attention to that,” said Robert T. Teranishi, the N.Y.U. education professor who wrote the report, “Facts, Not Fiction: Setting the Record Straight.”
“Our goal,” Professor Teranishi added, “is to have people understand that the population is very diverse.”
The report, based on federal education, immigration and census data, as well as statistics from the College Board, noted that the federally defined categories of Asian-American and Pacific Islander included dozens of groups, each with its own language and culture, as varied as the Hmong, Samoans, Bengalis and Sri Lankans.
Their educational backgrounds, the report said, vary widely: while most of the nation’s Hmong and Cambodian adults have never finished high school, most Pakistanis and Indians have at least a bachelor’s degree.
The SAT scores of Asian-Americans, it said, like those of other Americans, tend to correlate with the income and educational level of their parents.
“The notion of lumping all people into a single category and assuming they have no needs is wrong,” said Alma R. Clayton-Pederson, vice president of the Association of American Colleges and Universities, who was a member of the commission the College Board financed to produce the report.
“Our backgrounds are very different,” added Dr. Clayton-Pederson, who is black, “but it’s almost like the reverse of what happened to African-Americans.”
The report found that contrary to stereotype, most of the bachelor’s degrees that Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders received in 2003 were in business, management, social sciences or humanities, not in the STEM fields: science, technology, engineering or math. And while Asians earned 32 percent of the nation’s STEM doctorates that year, within that 32 percent more than four of five degree recipients were international students from Asia, not Asian-Americans.
The report also said that more Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders were enrolled in community colleges than in either public or private four-year colleges. But the idea that Asian-American “model minority” students are edging out all others is so ubiquitous that quips like “U.C.L.A. really stands for United Caucasians Lost Among Asians” or “M.I.T. means Made in Taiwan” have become common, the report said.
Asian-Americans make up about 5 percent of the nation’s population but 10 percent or more — considerably more in California — of the undergraduates at many of the most selective colleges, according to data reported by colleges. But the new report suggested that some such statistics combined campus populations of Asian-Americans with those of international students from Asian countries.
The report quotes the opening to W. E. B. Du Bois’s 1903 classic “The Souls of Black Folk” — “How does it feel to be a problem?” — and says that for Asian-Americans, seen as the “good minority that seeks advancement through quiet diligence in study and work and by not making waves,” the question is, “How does it feel to be a solution?”
That question, too, is problematic, the report said, because it diverts attention from systemic failings of K-to-12 schools, shifting responsibility for educational success to individual students. In addition, it said, lumping together all Asian groups masks the poverty and academic difficulties of some subgroups.
The report said the model-minority perception pitted Asian-Americans against African-Americans. With the drop in black and Latino enrollment at selective public universities that are not allowed to consider race in admissions, Asian-Americans have been turned into buffers, the report said, “middlemen in the cost-benefit analysis of wins and losses.” [To read the entire article, go to: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/10/education/10asians.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin ]

For a copy of the report, go to: http://www.nyu.edu/projects/care/reports_pubs.html

Asian Higher Education Leaders Offer Advice to Break the Bamboo Ceiling

Diverse Issues in Higher Education
by Samantha Cleaver
May 5, 2008, 22:21

When Dr. Ratna Naik was offered the job of dean of physics at Wayne State University, she was reluctant to accept. Coming from a culture that valued silence and the voices of men over women, Naik was afraid of speaking to large groups and wondered if anyone in a department with two women among 30 faculty members would listen to her anyway. After a year, she took the position.

“We have to learn the ways of American culture; it’s OK to speak up in a gentle way,” she said last week at a panel discussion about boosting the number of Asians in administrative ranks, “Breaking Through the Bamboo Ceiling: Asian Americans in Higher Education,” held at WSU.

The bamboo ceiling is a real concern that “does exist for Asian Americans,” said Dr. Yuan Zheng, professor and former chairman of the department of electrical and chemical engineering at The Ohio State University, but in the 30 years that he’s been in the United States, that ceiling “is getting thinner.” For all the Asian American graduate students, there are comparatively few faculty, department chairs or administrators. Part of the reason: Asian Americans are often focused on research, and staying at the top of their fields, rather than advancing into administration.

Still, Dr. Subrata Sengupta, the dean of the College of Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Michigan-Dearborn, has seen the number of Asian American deans increase in the 18 years since he became a dean. He has also seen Asian Americans fill the ranks of some disciplines, like engineering, faster than others.

“Some fields will break the bamboo ceiling earlier than others,” said Sengupta. “But there is a danger of perception being the root of stereotypes,” like the idea that Asians are good at math and science, but not administration or politics.

Now, the key to advancing is to engage with American culture. “As Asian immigrants,” said Zheng, “we must integrate ourselves into the American culture of higher education to break the [bamboo] ceiling.” [To read the entire article, go to: http://diverseeducation.com/artman/publish/article_11108.shtml ]

Where Do APAs Stand On Affirmative Action?

Pacific Citizen,
News Report, Lynda Lin, Posted: Mar 12, 2008

Jeremiah Tsang calls himself an athlete and a scholar. At his Maryland high school, Tsang's high academic achievements in the top two percent of his class coupled with some state track championships enticed all of his choice colleges to accept him with open arms - some even with promises of a full ride.Tsang, 20, settled at the University of Maryland, College Park as an electrical engineer major. But along the way, he noticed a troubling trend - some African American and Latino classmates with comparatively inferior qualifications were getting more scholarship money to go to the same college.Outraged, Tsang did what most students do these days to unite under a common cause - he started a Facebook.com group called "Asians Against Affirmative Action." The group, which has attracted over 950 members from all over the United States, refers to a 2005 admission preference study of three prestigious private universities to support its statement that this type of diversity promotion does not advance equality. In this case, it actually hurts overrepresented Asian Pacific American students, according to the study."Diversity is good, but at what cost?" said Tsang, who is second generation Chinese American. "Promotion of diversity is a noble thing, but the ideal is not being carried out correctly."It's a sentiment that is echoed by a group, led by former University of California regent Ward Connerly, hoping to capitalize on its successful anti-affirmative action campaigns in California, Washington and Michigan to end similar programs in five additional states come November.Hanging in the balance are the academic futures of many underrepresented minority students.A Broader CrusadeAnti-affirmative action groups have launched a coordinated five state campaign to dismantle preferential treatment based on race or gender in public contracting, employment and education. The campaign - dubbed Super Tuesday for Equality - aims to get anti-affirmative action initiatives on the November ballots in Arizona, Colorado, Missouri, Nebraska and Oklahoma.Each state requires a varying number of signatures in order to put the initiative before voters, but the controversial campaign is already off to a shaky start with affirmative action proponents vowing to challenge each measure every step of the way.The Oklahoma Supreme Court recently certified an anti-affirmative action initiative for placement on the November ballot. But critics of the measure are accusing the petition-gatherers of lying to voters about what they're signing and circulating false information including pages of signatures with the same handwriting.Affirmative action proponents say they will challenge the measure once the Oklahoma secretary of state posts the notice of approval."We are very confident that we will be able to eliminate a sufficient number [of signatures] to knock the initiative off the ballot," said Donna Stern, of By Any Means Necessary (BAMN), a national coalition aimed at defending affirmative action.In Nebraska, the anti-affirmative action campaign recently failed to get the initiative placed on the ballot by a vote of the state legislature.Sen. Mark Christensen withdrew a proposed constitutional amendment (LR233CA) prohibiting preferential treatment because some lawmakers said they would not support his other bills if the anti-affirmative action measure was not withdrawn. Backers of the ban on affirmative action will now have to circulate petitions to get the initiative on the Nebraska ballot."The fact that politicians do not want the people to have a chance to debate and vote on this important issue is extremely troublesome," said Jennifer Gratz of the American Civil Rights Institute (ACRI), a national civil rights organization established by Connerly.Similar anti-affirmative action groups in Colorado, Arizona and Missouri are currently still circulating petitions for deadlines later this year."There are good 'affirmative action' programs that are intended to alleviate discrimination. However, any program that employs preferences for one 'group' based on race or gender automatically discriminates against someone else," said Gratz. [To read the entire article, go to: http://news.ncmonline.com/news/view_article.html?article_id=b8a8190cd75b1761095003b25bb49343 ]

Study Challenges Assumptions About Affirmative-Action Bans

Chronicle of Higher Education
By PETER SCHMIDT
February 8, 2008

The results of a new study on the impact of bans on race-conscious admissions policies seem to confirm what many critics of affirmative action have long suspected: It is Asian-Americans, rather than whites, who are most disadvantaged by elite universities' consideration of ethnicity and race.
Left unanswered are the likely political ramifications of its finding that Asian-American enrollment has surged — and whites' share of enrollment has actually declined — at elite universities that were forced to abandon affirmative-action preferences.
The study, the results of which are to be published this week in InterActions: UCLA Journal of Education and Information Studies, was based on an analysis of enrollment data from selective universities in three states: California, where voters passed a 1996 referendum barring institutions from considering applicants' race or ethnicity; Florida, where Gov. Jeb Bush persuaded the state university system to abandon race-conscious admissions in 2000; and Texas, where race-conscious admissions were prohibited under a 1996 federal court decision that remained in effect until the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of such policies in 2003.
The researchers behind the study, who characterize themselves as supporters of affirmative action, say in the report on their findings that the absence of any white enrollment surge at the institutions examined "can hardly be satisfying" to "those who campaigned for the elimination of affirmative action in the belief that it would advantage the admission of white students." Their report predicts a white backlash against race-neutral admissions policies if Asian-Americans continue to make gains.
In the past, many affirmative-action advocates have denounced assertions that Asian-Americans are harmed by race-conscious admissions policies. They say such claims are motivated by a desire to erode Asian-American support for affirmative action and drive a wedge between Asian-Americans and other minority groups.
On the other side of the issue, Roger B. Clegg, president of the Center for Equal Opportunity and a leading opponent of race-conscious admissions policies, said he suspected the new report was an attempt to undermine white opposition to affirmative-action preferences and to drive a wedge between whites and Asian Americans.
"Those of us who are campaigning against racial preferences are not doing so out of a desire to see an increase in the numbers for this or that group," Mr. Clegg said. "We are doing so because we think discrimination against members of any racial or ethnic group is wrong." [To read the entire article, go to: http://chronicle.com/weekly/v54/i22/22a02002.htm (subscription required)]

University of California Tries to Better Understand Asian Students

From Diverse Online
By Diverse staff
Nov 18, 2007, 22:07

The University of California is expanding the categories undergraduate applicants use to self-report their ethnicity as part of an effort to collect and better report the “complexities” of its Asian American and Pacific Islander students. It will become the first public institution of higher education in California to collect and report data specifically on Hmong, Filipino and other Asian subgroups.

“The data UC collects are a reflection of how well we are serving the diverse people of California,” said Dr. Judy Sakaki, UC’s vice president for student affairs. “My goal is for improved data reporting to spur greater accountability regarding overlooked populations in our student body.”

Next year’s undergraduate application will include 23 Asian American and Pacific Islander categories, up from the eight that are currently recorded.

The “Count Me In” campaign, a student-led crusade to get the University of California system and the state to disaggregate data so that the needs and challenges of the various Asian subgroups aren’t overlooked, played a role in UC’s decision as did calls from UC faculty for richer research data and state legislative interest.

Through aggregated data, Asians are often portrayed as academically, socially and economically successful. But in a report released last summer, the federal Government Accountability Office warned that the “Asian” umbrella masks the underperformance of some Asian subgroups, like Vietnamese and Native Hawaiians. As UC noted in its announcement Friday, a closer look at the Hmong community in California shows that 66 percent have less than a high school degree, compared to 23 percent of all California adults.

“The prevalent model minority myth can make many disadvanteged members of our community invisible to policymakers,” said Candice Shikai, a UCLA student and director of the Asian Pacific Coalition, which initiated the “Count Me In” campaign.

“Collecting data on more Asian American and Pacific Islander groups will result in a more accurate picture of how students are doing,” she added.

The ethnic data collected by UC is used in evaluating graduation and retention rates. Next year’s applications for admissions will include separate categories for Chinese, Taiwanese, Asian Indian, Pakistani, Japanese, Korean, Filipino, Vietnamese, Hmong, Thai, Cambodian, Laotian, Bangladeshi, Indonesian, Malaysian, Sri Lankan and “other” Asian. [To read the entire article, go to: http://diverseeducation.com/artman/publish/article_10217.shtml ]

Understanding Gaps Among Asian Groups

July 27
Understanding Gaps Among Asian Groups
Inside Higher Ed

Many discussions about affirmative action or demographics in higher education start with the assumption that Asian American students are outperforming everyone else and don’t need any help. That view is frustrating to many Asian Americans and some educators who say that — even if true on average — it results in too little attention being paid to members of some groups that are not doing well at all educationally.
The U.S. Government Accountability Office released a report Thursday that backs up those concerns. The report notes that by most measures Asian Americans have a higher educational attainment than other groups, with almost half of Asian Americans aged 25 or older having a four-year college degree, a percentage far greater than those for white adults (almost one third) or black or Latino adults (less than one fifth). But this overall success, the GAO found, “masks” the realities of many Asian subgroups in educational preparation and attainment.
For example, the report found that half of Southeast Asian high school students are not enrolled in college preparatory programs, more than half of Southeast Asian and Native American and Pacific Islander students are in the lower socioeconomic quartiles, and many Asian groups set aside less money for their children’s college education than do members of other racial and ethnic groups.

[AAAA Note: For the complete story, go to: http://insidehighered.com/layout/set/print/news/2007/07/27/asians

To see the GAO report, "Higher Education: Information Sharing Could Help Institutions Identify and Address Challenges Some Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders Face" go to: http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d07925.pdf ]