Obama names four new federal judges for California

The Los Angeles Times
Three of his four appointees to the Central and Northern U.S. District Courts in California are Asian Americans.
By Carol J. Williams
August 9, 2009

Fresh from his appointment of the first Latino to the U.S. Supreme Court, President Obama has named four new federal judges for California, three of them Asian Americans, who have long been underrepresented on the federal bench.Two of the appointments are to the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California in Los Angeles, and two are to the Northern District of California in San Francisco. They will be brought before the Senate for confirmation after its summer recess.On Friday, a day after Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor was confirmed by the Senate, the president named U.S. Magistrate Judges Edward M. Chen and Richard G. Seeborg to the Northern District bench. Both have served there as magistrate judges since 2001.He also named Dolly Gee, managing partner of the Los Angeles law firm Schwartz, Steinsapir, Dohrmann & Sommers LLP, to the Central District bench. A week earlier, he named Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Jacquelyn H. Nguyen to the District Court in Los Angeles."So far, his nominations have been quite diverse in terms of race and gender," Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond, said of Obama's choices to date for 16 of the 101 federal judgeships that were vacant nationwide when he took office.Even after the four appointments to California districts, five seats remain vacant in the state -- two each in the Central and Northern districts and one in the Eastern District, which includes most of the state's prisons.Obama's nominations for California are also striking in their establishing of a "career judiciary," Tobias said, noting the president's preference for elevating sitting judges, from the magistrate courts to the district courts, and from the district courts to the circuit courts of appeal.Only Gee, 50, a labor and employment litigator and past president of the Southern California Chinese Lawyers Assn., lacks prior experience as a judge, although she was a clerk for an Eastern District judge after graduating from UCLA law school in 1984.

Full Story: latimes.com/news/local/la-me-judges9-2009aug09,0,2302892.story

New admission policy at UC system angers Asian-Americans

baltimoresun.com
Associated Press
May 3, 2009

SAN FRANCISCO - A new admissions policy set to take effect at the University of California system in three years is raising fears among Asian-Americans that it will reduce their numbers on campus, where they account for 40 percent of all undergraduates.University officials say the new standards - the biggest change in UC admissions since 1960 - are intended to widen the pool of applicants and make the process more fair.But Asian-American advocates, parents and lawmakers are angrily calling on the university to rescind the policy, which will apply at all nine of the system's undergraduate campuses.They point to a UC projection that the new standards would sharply reduce Asian-American admissions while resulting in little change for blacks and Hispanics, and a big gain for white students.
"I like to call it affirmative action for whites," said Ling-chi Wang, a retired professor at UC Berkeley. "I think it's extremely unfair to Asian-Americans on the one hand and underrepresented minorities on the other."Asian-Americans are the single largest ethnic group among UC's 173,000 undergraduates. In 2008, they accounted for 40 percent at UCLA and 43 percent at UC Berkeley - the two most selective campuses in the UC system - as well as 50 percent at UC San Diego and 54 percent at UC Irvine.Asian-Americans are about 12 percent of California's population and 4 percent of the U.S. population overall.

Full Story: http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nation/bal-te.asian03may03,0,3230843.story

Glass ceiling

The Cavalier Daily
Maria Chee
Sent: Thursday, April 9 2009

A glass ceiling often exists for women and ethnic minority groups in academia as in corporate America. It is an invisible and artificial cap on advancement, a bar to leadership level seen but not reached. It results from socioeconomic and political structural conditions, historical legacy, power relations, cultural interactions and lived experiences, among others, not from these people’s preference for supporting roles.
Asian Americans in the workforce have reported difficulty getting mentors or sponsors and exclusion from informal networks. Traditionally, Asian Americans have concentrated in the science, technology, engineering and math — the STEM disciplines, although that has been changing. Many naturalized citizens and immigrants arrived as adults for doctoral training. Some have cited the lack of competitive communication skills, social capital, and cultural understanding for operation in American organizations. Those who are American born or raised also encounter obstacles. For example, behaviors appropriate in their cultural milieu are perceived to be lacking leadership caliber in corporate America, not unlike women and other ethnic minorities.
The Asian American population is highly heterogeneous; categorically it faces the “foreigner” stereotype. Individuals and media continue to perceive and portray them as foreigners. U.S. born Asian children who are similar to other American children are found to be subject to persistent disadvantages merely because they look foreign. Glass ceiling can involve unintended and implicit biases reflected in people’s attitudinal orientations and institutional practices. The above provides just a few perspectives.

Full Comment: http://www.cavalierdaily.com/letters/2802/

Lawmaker to Asian-Americans: I'm Not Gonna Learn Chinese, So Can't You Change Your Funny Names?

AlterNet
Posted by Tana Ganeva, AlterNet at 12:44 PM on April 9, 2009
[From the "No Comment" file... SJW]

On Tuesday, the Texas legislature heard arguments on voter ID legislation that would require photo ID — or two non-photo IDs — at the polls. An obvious necessity, of course, since everyone in the U.S. loves voting so much that there are scores of people clamoring to do it illegally. (In fact, there is no evidence of voter ID fraud in Texas).
Democratic lawmakers and several voting experts brought up the good — and oft-repeated — points that a) voter ID laws are a fake solution to a non-existent problem, and b) they disenfranchise poor, minority voters. (You know, the ones that tend to NOT vote Republican.)
Republicans, in turn, kept pushing the möbius strip argument that while there is a) no evidence of voter fraud b)voter fraud is a serious problem that needs to be addressed.
Then, Rep. Betty Brown from Terrell, Texas turned the Republican position from absurd and subtly racist to really absurd and overtly racist. Following a presentation on the voting difficulties faced by Americans of Asian descent, whose legal names don’t always match their everyday names, Brown said the following:
Rather than everyone here having to learn Chinese — I understand it’s a rather difficult language — do you think that it would behoove you and your citizens to adopt a name that we could deal with more readily here?
Can’t you see that this is something that would make it a lot easier for you and the people who are poll workers if you could adopt a name just for identification purposes that’s easier for Americans to deal with?
Yep. That’s what she said. You know what's fun? Thinking of Brown's statement as one of those "What's Wrong With This Picture" puzzles. I have this so far: 1) "learn Chinese" -- actually, at issue are Americans of Asian -- not just Chinese -- descent 2) "you and your citizens" -- in fact, the people under discussion are American citizens 3) The assumption that descendants of immigrants should accommodate the ignorance of some Americans by changing their names!

Full Story with video: http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/135938/republican_lawmaker_to_asian-americans%3A_i%27m_not_gonna_learn_chinese%2C_so_can%27t_you_change_your_funny_names_/

EEOC ISSUES WORK GROUP REPORT ON FEDERAL ASIAN AMERICAN AND PACIFIC ISLANDER EMPLOYMENT

U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
Barriers and Misperceptions Persist; Low Participation in Senior Ranks
For Immediate Release
January 9, 2009

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) today released a comprehensive report prepared by the Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Work Group containing findings and a series of practical recommendations for EEOC Chair Naomi C. Earp’s consideration. These recommendations address AAPI issues related to federal sector employment, special emphasis programs and the complaints process. The full report, entitled Report to the Chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, is available on the agency’s web site at www.eeoc.gov/federal/report/aapi.html.
“As a former EEO Director, I am aware of the serious concerns of members of the Asian American and Pacific Islander community regarding barriers to federal sector employment and advancement,” Chair Earp said. “I encourage agencies to carefully review the recommendations contained in this report as they strive to become a model employer for all Americans, including Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.”
The key recommendations formulated by the AAPI Work Group for the agency’s consideration include the following:
Creating requirements that hold senior leadership accountable for programs that enhance the selection and promotion of qualified AAPI candidates to the highest levels;
Assisting agencies on the in-depth review of workforce data for anomalies or triggers and the effective identification of barriers relating to the AAPI community;
Encouraging agencies to enlist their affinity groups to become liaisons between employees and management;
Providing internal and external assistance to AAPI employees and affinity groups seeking to engage with an agency’s EEO Office;
Re-invigorating the government-wide SES Candidate Development Program, with an emphasis on greater diversity among its participants;
Providing skill development opportunities to AAPI employees to increase their competitiveness for professional progress within the agency; and
Promulgating an Executive Order that addresses issues of discrimination against AAPI employees in the federal sector and that supports programs to encourage professional advancement.
The AAPI Work Group was formed by Chair Earp on October 11, 2007. The Work Group was diverse and was comprised of persons at various levels from a cross section of federal agencies. This was the first of such work groups organized to address issues that directly affect the AAPI community.
The EEOC monitors federal agency compliance with equal employment opportunity laws and procedures. Further information about the Commission’s work with federal agencies and employees is available on the agency’s main web site at www.eeoc.gov/federal/index.html.

Why There Still Aren't Enough Asian-American College Presidents

The Chronicle of Higher Education
From the issue dated September 26, 2008

By ROY H. SAIGO
At age 5, my grandson understood fair play. If he didn't get his turn, he'd cry, "No fair!" As caring adults, we intercede when we see children ignore or gang up on another child — we tell them, "No fair!"
Nearly 10 years ago, I wrote an essay for The Chronicle on the underrepresentation of Asian-Americans in academic leadership, especially in institutions and disciplines that have a high percentage of students and faculty members of Asian or Pacific Island ancestry. There have been changes over the past 10 years, but have things changed much for Asian-Americans? What I have found is disappointing. No fair?
Our history has many unfortunate examples of unfairness, in spite of our American democratic ideals. The anti-Asian laws of the 1800s and 1900s are an example. I first experienced discrimination as a toddler, when I was incarcerated along with about 120,000 other citizens and residents of Japanese ancestry during World War II. Our Constitutional rights were suspended, and we lost everything because of who we were, not what we had done. After the war, we returned to shame, hatred, angry neighbors, and people unwilling to hire us, and we had to start all over again. We had lost homes, cars, household goods, photo albums, and family heirlooms. My father's response was this: "Get an education. Nobody can take that away from you."
Then came the wars in Korea and Vietnam. All three Asian wars created a population of war-affected families and communities. It is easy to hate or suspect anybody who looks like the enemy.
We are still looked upon as foreigners by many, and as being homogeneous. The Committee of 100, a Chinese organization, did a survey in 2000 to find out if people could differentiate among the major Asian groups in the United States. They could not. No matter what your country or culture of origin, you are simply an Asian. Now there is much greater diversity within the Asian demographic category, with people from Southeast Asia, the Asian subcontinent, and other areas. Many in the newer groups are still working through first-generation language, cultural, and economic issues. I am pleased with the changes that resulted from the civil-rights struggles of the 1960s, but that work is never finished. ...

In the fall of 2007, 18.3 percent of California State's 358,531 undergraduate students identified themselves as being of Asian/Filipino/Pacific Island ethnicity. Yet none of the system's 23 presidents fell into that category as of August 2008. (There was one such president back in 1999.) There are three African-American and four Hispanic/Latino presidents. Asian groups are likewise underrepresented in the upper academic posts that typically lead to presidencies — there are no academic vice presidents from their ranks, although there are three nonacademic vice presidents. [To read the entire story, go to: http://chronicle.com/weekly/v55/i05/05b06001.htm?utm_source=at&utm_medium=en ]

Asian-Americans: the Unbearable Whiteness of Being?

The Chronicle of Higher Education
From the issue dated September 26, 2008

By MICHAEL OMI
In his memoir, the author Eric Liu reflects on being the bearer of a strange new status — "white, by acclamation." He writes in The Accidental Asian: Notes of a Native Speaker (Random House, 1998), "Some are born white, others achieve whiteness, still others have whiteness thrust upon them."
Asian-Americans, it seems, are experiencing the last fate. Just as previous "outsiders" — such as the Irish and the Jews — have been incorporated into our collective notions of who is white, some scholars and policy makers believe that Asian-Americans are following such a trajectory of inclusion under an expanded definition of "whiteness."
The sociologist George Yancey, in Who Is White? Latinos, Asians, and the New Black/Nonblack Divide (Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2003), argues that Asian-Americans, along with some Latinos, are undergoing significant levels of structural, marital, and identificational assimilation. He draws upon survey data to illustrate that the social attitudes of Asian-Americans on a number of issues are closer to those of whites than blacks. Yancey believes that a black/nonblack divide is emerging in the United States as Asian-Americans and Latinos become "white" and blacks continue to endure a specific form of what he calls racial "alienation."
The question of whether Asian-Americans are becoming white is a complex one. Ostensibly regarded as a "racial minority," Asian-Americans are nonetheless not seen as a "disadvantaged" or "underrepresented" one. The popular belief is that Asian-Americans do not directly experience racial discrimination nor incur social disadvantages by race. Drawing upon select social and economic indicators, it is argued that Asian-Americans have achieved parity with whites with respect to income and levels of education and, correspondingly, have distanced themselves from other groups of color.
Higher education proves an oft-cited example: While Asian-Americans compose less than 5 percent of the U.S. population, a sizable and increasingly visible percentage of students at elite private and public universities throughout the country are Asian-American. In California, such students make up 24 percent of the undergraduate population at Stanford, 39 percent at UCLA, and 42 percent at Berkeley.
While the reported averages for median family income, rates of poverty, and levels of education are relatively high for Asian-Americans compared with other groups, the indicators mask the internal diversity within the socially constructed group. Asian-Americans exhibit a bimodal pattern; some Asian ethnic groups (notably East Asians like Chinese and Japanese) are doing quite well economically, but others (Southeast Asians like the Hmong and Cambodians) are mired in poverty. Such heterogeneity, however, is often glossed over in the literature in favor of deploying a broad, panethnic category.
Of the key social and cultural indicators evoked, the most popularly cited indicator that Asian-Americans are becoming "white" has been the high rates of Asian-American intermarriage with whites. [To read the entire story, go to: http://chronicle.com/weekly/v55/i05/05b05601.htm?utm_source=at&utm_medium=en ]

‘The Myth of the Model Minority’

Inside Higher Ed
July 18, 2008

A new book — The Myth of the Model Minority: Asian Americans Facing Racism (Paradigm Publishers) — challenges the idea that most Asian Americans are relatively untouched by racism or focused on issues related to equity. Based on field interviews nationwide, the book describes the Asian American experience in schools, colleges, the workplace and public discourse. In the section on college, examples include students who have been the victim of ethnic profiling (as Muslims) and the barrage of allegedly harmless jokes (such as UCLA as the acronym for “University of Caucasians Lost among Asians") that students experience. The authors of the book are Rosalind S. Chou, a doctoral student in sociology at Texas A&M University, and Joe R. Feagin, a professor of sociology at Texas A&M. Chou recently responded to e-mail questions about the book’s findings about college students.
Q: Why do you think some college students, many of them self-professed liberals who might not tolerate racist jokes about some groups, not only tolerate but engage in jokes about Asian Americans?
A: There are a number of reasons for this. Firstly, as we note in the book, there is a pervasive stereotype that Asian Americans are docile. The history of Asian American resistance to racism is largely left out of the history books and the news media. There is activism, especially concentrated on the West Coast and Northeast, but it’s forgotten or ignored. Secondly, many of our respondents talked how they received either explicit or implicit messages to “let things go” or to “not rock the boat,” further reinforcing that Asian Americans will tolerate racist teasing, whereas other minority groups have been unfairly stereotyped as violent or dangerous. The more visible activism of these other racial minority groups may deter a person from poking fun so publicly. Thirdly, Asian Americans appear to have “made it.” This illusion of being “model minorities” can make it seem “less offensive” to poke fun at a group that is seemingly free of racial oppression.
Q: The book’s section on college opens with examples related to California universities with large Asian populations. Does the treatment of Asian students differ significantly at institutions where they make up smaller shares of the student body?
A: Our respondents shared that they faced racial discrimination regardless of their geographic location. However, those students who attended schools with large Asian/ Asian American populations found that they had access to support. The Asian American students groups were very active on campus, this did not save them from mistreatment but they had a community to surround them The students attending schools with a smaller population of Asian American students did not have those resources so readily available. They still dealt with “model minority” stereotyping and, at times, very violent hate crimes, but the experiences were very similar. [To view the entire article, go to: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2008/07/18/asian ]

Inquiry Into Alleged Anti-Asian Bias Expands

Inside Higher Education
June 11
Inquiry Into Alleged Anti-Asian Bias Expands

A complaint by an Asian American student that racial bias blocked his admission to Princeton University has been expanded by the U.S. Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights into a broader “compliance review” of the issues involved beyond his case.
The complaint, filed in 2006, has been viewed as significant by critics of affirmative action who argue — as does the rejected applicant — that highly competitive colleges’ commitment to diversity results in differential standards for members of different groups, with Asian American applicants held to tougher standards. Many college officials — most of whom strongly support affirmative action — have dismissed the applicant’s complaint as sour grapes, noting that Princeton each year rejects thousands of well qualified applicants of every racial and ethnic group.
The Education Department, responding to an inquiry, acknowledged the shift of the investigation from focusing on one complaint to Princeton’s entire admissions system and its treatment of Asian-American applicants. A department spokesman stressed that converting the investigation did not mean that officials had come to any conclusions about the original complaint. But at the very least, the shift suggests that the government does not view the complaint as frivolous. OCR regularly shuts down complaint investigations, concluding that no violation of the law took place, and the agency has limited resources for compliance reviews. Compliance reviews cover much more ground than any single complaint, tend to take place on issues that the department believes are important, and are sometimes used to nudge other colleges to change policies when they see how one college fared in a review.
Official OCR guidelines give three reasons for converting a single complaint into a compliance review: “(a) the complaint, because of its scope, involves systemic issues; (b) a compliance review would be the most effective means of addressing multiple individual complaints against the same recipient; or © the complainant decides to withdraw a complaint that includes class allegations.”
Cass Cliatt, a spokeswoman for Princeton, said that the university was pleased by the broadening of the investigation.
“We actually welcome the opportunity to talk about this,” Cliatt said. “There are a lot of misconceptions about how colleges and universities use the process. We’re happy to explain to OCR how we do this.” She stressed that the university in no way discriminates against any applicant on the basis of race or ethnicity.
Princeton received a then-record 17,564 applications to Princeton’s class of 2010, the class to which the student who filed the complaint wanted to be admitted. The eventual class that enrolled had only 1,231 students, of whom 37 percent were American ethnic minorities and 14 percent were Asian Americans. Cliatt declined to release information on the SAT averages or grades of applicants of different racial or ethnic groups, saying that Princeton doesn’t analyze data in this way and that to do so would be confusing since Princeton does not evaluate individual applicants based on race or ethnicity. “We don’t want to have the mistaken belief that we are making categories when we are not,” she said.
The student who filed the original complaint against Princeton, Jian Li, arguably landed well after his rejection: He enrolled at Yale University. Li’s complaint stated that he received 800s on the mathematics, critical reading and writing parts of the SAT, that he graduated in the top 1 percent of his high school class, that he completed nine Advanced Placement classes by the time he finished high school, and that he had been active in extracurricular activities as well — serving as a delegate at Boys State, working in Costa Rica, etc. While Li left the ethnicity question blank on his application (as Princeton allows), he said that other questions that he was required to answer — his name, his mother’s and father’s names, his first language (Chinese), and the language spoken in his home (Chinese) — all made his ethnicity clear.
In letters sent by OCR to members of New Jersey’s Congressional delegation, the investigation of Princeton is described as focusing on the allegation that the university discriminates against Asian American applicants. But Li’s complaint and the analysis behind it attempt to shift the debate more broadly to one about affirmative action.
Li is pointing to research by two Princeton scholars, published in Social Science Quarterly, that looked at admissions decisions at elite colleges. The scholars found that without affirmative action, the acceptance rate for African American candidates would be likely to fall by nearly two-thirds, from 33.7 percent to 12.2 percent, while the acceptance rate for Hispanic applicants probably would be cut in half, from 26.8 percent to 12.9 percent. While white admit rates would stay steady, Asian students would be big winners under such a system. Their admission rate in a race-neutral system would go to 23.4 percent, from 17.6 percent. And their share of a class of admitted students would rise to 31.5 percent, from 23.7 percent.
The complaint and the allegations of anti-Asian bias have been sensitive at Princeton and elsewhere. Princeton, like other elite colleges, changed admissions policies in the 1920s as the number of Jewish applicants appeared poised to rise, and adopted an emphasis on “character” that scholars say was used to minimize non-Protestant enrollments. [To read the entire article, go to: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2008/06/11/asians ]

Report: Ethnic Pride Has Mixed Impact on Asian Americans’ Ability To Deal With Discrimination

Diverse Issues in Higher Education
by Michelle J. Nealy
May 19, 2008, 22:37

Strong ties to their ethnicity can reduce the negative effects of racism for some Asian Americans and intensify the negative effects of racism for others, according to a new report published by the American Psychological Association.

Using the first nationally representative sample of Asian adults in the Unites States, three researchers examined the impact of ethnic identity and mental health among various Asian American populations in an effort to find out whether strong racial ties protected them against the negative psychological effects of discrimination.

Asian American adults, ages 18-75 years old, were questioned about any negative feelings they may have had in the previous 30 days. Participants were also asked about their perceptions of racial and ethnic discrimination, how often they felt discriminated against because of their ethnicity and how close they felt their feelings were to others in the same ethnic group.

For participants born outside the United States, embracing their ethnic identity did not guard against the ill effects of discrimination on psychological wellness. However, for Asians born in the United States, ethnic attachment did affect whether discrimination made people feel more distressed.

“Among adults in their 40s, feeling strongly about their own background can counteract the negative effects of discrimination,” says Dr. Tiffany Yip, the report’s lead author and an assistant professor at Fordham University. [To see the entire article, go to: http://diverseeducation.com/artman/publish/article_11170.shtml ]