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This week on CounterSpin: Corporate media have never been the right place to look for thoughtful, inclusive consideration of affirmative action. For them it’s an “issue,” a political football, rather than a long effort to address the real historical and ongoing discrimination against non-white, non-male people in multiple aspects of US life.
But when it comes to the role that anti-discrimination, pro-equity efforts have had on Asian-American communities, there are particular layers of mis- and disinformation that benefit from exploring. Listeners will know that Asian-American students are being used as the face of attempts to eliminate affirmative action or race-consciousness in college admissions. It looks like the Supreme Court will rule on a watershed case this month. We talk about it with writer and cultural critic Jeff Chang, author of We Gon’ Be Alright: Notes on Race and Resegregation, among other titles.
Transcript: ‘The History of Affirmative Action Has Asian-American Influence All Over It’
We also hear some of an earlier discussion of the case Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. vs. Harvard that CounterSpin had with Jeannie Park, founding president of the Asian American Journalists Association in New York, and co-founder of the Coalition for a Diverse Harvard.
Transcript: ‘This Case Was Never About Defending Asian Americans’
Transcript: “This Case Was Never About Defending Asian Americans”
https://diversity.berkeley.edu/aapisc
Please go to the website link provided and click on the “Spring 2023 Presentation to Chancellor Carol Christ” link on the right side of the page. This will take you to a PDF document with a PowerPoint presentation. The presentation shows evidence that UC Berkeley treats its Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) staff and faculty unfairly. The data used in the presentation comes from UC Berkeley itself.
Based on the patterns we can see in the data and the fact that this issue doesn’t seem to be getting enough attention, I believe there is a systematic practice of discrimination against AAPI staff and faculty at UC Berkeley.
This discrimination is cleverly hidden by the stereotype that AAPI individuals are not observant enough to notice such treatment, and even if they do notice it, cultural norms discourage them from speaking up about it.
I haven’t seen any progress or received any updates on the actions being taken. I reached out to Eugene Whitlock, who holds the position of Chief People & Culture Officer/Associate Vice Chancellor-Human Resources at Cal. He mentioned that he plans to discuss the matter with the AAPISC (Asian American and Pacific Islander Standing Committee). However, it’s important to understand that the AAPISC does not possess the authority to directly address this issue. They can only gather information, make suggestions, and report their findings, but they lack the power to implement significant systemic changes.
It appears that the Berkeley executive administration is evading responsibility by passing it on to a committee that is unable to make substantial systemic improvements. Essentially, they are expecting the committee to fix the problem, even though it exceeds their capabilities.
It is disheartening to witness the campus prioritizing equity for Latinos and African-Americans at the expense of Asian American staff and faculty.
The Supreme Court didn’t allow racial maximums for blacks in the past, and I don’t think it will allow racial maximums for Asian-Americans or whites today. The justices have already said the Equal Protection Clause protects all races equally, and that the nation should strive to be colorblind, not color-conscious. In other words, we should be willing to accept institutions made up of our best and brightest, no matter the racial compositions.
I think we can all agree “the best” and “the brightest” are vague and arbitrary. In addition, possibly a population of the “best” and “brightest” is not best to further a institution’s mission. Using Stanford as an example, in its founding documents it states its purpose is “to promote the public welfare by exercising an influence in behalf of humanity and civilization.” If Stanford thinks the best way to meet this purpose is a racial diverse student population that is Stanford’s right to do so.
As the excellent work of Adolph Reed Jr. and others has noted, fifty years of affirmative action in the USA, Europe and elsewhere has resulted in a non-white elite enjoying its fruits, while the working class of all ‘races’ is still stuck at the starting line. Merely shifting the colours of the people at the top in education, sport, politics, business and everything else is to accept the inevitability of capitalist power structures. There’s only one solution but the ever-so-liberal FAIR doesn’t like to talk about that.
Maybe you’d like to explain how Affirmative Action became a “Black” thing when it was design for women, Blacks, Native Indigenous Americans, Vietnam Veterans, and the disabled, while its largest demographic beneficiary has been women?