An Asian quota is a racial quota limiting the number of people of Asian descent in an establishment, a special case of numerus clausus. It usually refers to alleged educational quotas in United States higher educationadmissions, specifically by Ivy League universities against Asian Americans, especially persons of East Asian and South Asian descent starting in the late 1980s. These allegations of discrimination have been denied by U.S. universities. Asian quotas have been compared to earlier claims of Jewish quotas, which are believed to have limited the admissions of a model minority from the 1910s to the 1950s. Jewish quotas were denied at the time, but their existence is rarely disputed now.[1][2] Some have thus called Asian-Americans "The New Jews" of university admissions.[3]
Proponents of Asian quotas' existence believe that by various measures admissions have a bias against Asian applicants, though not necessarily a strict quota: for example, successful Asian applicants have on average higher test scores than the overall average.[4] The bias against applicants of Asian descent has been termed a "bamboo ceiling" or "Asian penalty".[2] Alleged Asian quotas have been the subject of government investigations and lawsuits, with some minor conclusions of their existence, though no major judgements, as of 2017[update].[5]
Debate
Ivy League universities deny that there is an Asian quota.[6] Due to the sensitivity of college admissions and racial preferences generally, and legal concerns (government investigations, court decisions, and ongoing[7] or future litigation),[8] official statements are largely blanket denials, and a defense of holistic admission, rather than specific answers to charges. Some historians[9] and former admissions officers[10] likewise deny that there is an Asian quota or a bias against Asian applicants, or conclude as much.
More generally, the bias in test scores (the fact that successful Asian applicants have higher test scores than successful applicants overall) is ascribed to applicants being judged on more than test scores.[11] Stated formally, rather than higher test scores among successful Asian applicants meaning that an individual Asian applicant must meet a higher bar than an otherwise identical non-Asian applicant, it may simply be a reflection that Asians have relatively higher test scores: compared to the overall applicant pool, Asians have higher test scores, and a borderline Asian applicant will have higher test scores, but be lower on all other non-academic measures, than the average borderline applicant.
Specifically, Harvard University was sued in 2018 for allegedly downgrading Asian-Americans' application scores in order to reduce amount of admission.[12] The United States Justice Department later stated that Harvard did not demonstrate that they did not discriminate during admissions based on race.[13]
^Lemann, Nicholas (June 25, 1996). "Jews in Second Place". Slate. Retrieved 2017-08-03. Just at the moment when Harvard, Yale, and Princeton have presidents named Rudenstine, Levin, and Shapiro, those institutions are widely suspected of having informal ceilings on Asian admissions, of the kind that were imposed on Jews two generations ago.
^Chapman, Steve (May 23, 2015). "Harvard's odd quota on Asian-Americans". Chicago Tribune. When Harvard President Drew Gilpin Faust met with the Tribune Editorial Board this month, she refused to discuss the topic, on the ground that the university is being sued.
^Fernandes, Deirdre (August 3, 2017). "The majority of Harvard's incoming class is nonwhite". The Boston Globe. Vinay Harpalani, a law professor at Savannah Law School, who specializes in affirmative action[:] "Universities typically don't like to make details on their race-conscious policies public, because the line between legal and illegal policies is not fully clear...and because there are always potential lawsuits out there, and also because this is such a politically charged issue."
Hong, Jane H. Opening the Gates to Asia: A Transpacific History of How America Repealed Asian Exclusion (University of North Carolina Press, 2019) online review
