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发帖数: 9926 | 1 【 以下文字转载自 SanFrancisco 讨论区 】
发信人: saiholmes (saiholmes), 信区: SanFrancisco
标 题: 好文 SVCA洛杉矶时报投书 Asian Americans would lose out under affirmative action
发信站: BBS 未名空间站 (Thu Oct 2 11:23:33 2014, 美东)
Asian Americans would lose out under affirmative action
Los Angeles Times
By YUNLEI YANG
A Recent Field Poll claimed that most registered voters and Asian Americans
in California support affirmative action. Based on the poll data, Karthick
Ramakrishnan, a professor of public policy and political science at UC
Riverside, indicated that the intense opposition to State Constitutional
Amendment 5 (or SCA-5) earlier this year, an attempt to restore affirmative
action in California's public universities, "was primarily concentrated
among a small group of Asian American activists, with the more numerous
silent majority still supportive of affirmative action."
As an official with the Silicon Valley Chinese Assn., which was a major
force behind SCA-5's defeat, I find the poll question misleading and
Ramakrishnan's reasoning deeply flawed.
The original text of the poll question, written by a group Ramakrishnan
directs, was, "Do you favor or oppose affirmative action programs designed
to help blacks, women, and other minorities get better jobs and education?"
Who would not answer "yes" to such a noble goal? But, as noted in the New
York Times, responses to affirmative action polls differ widely based on
question wording. In a more relevant poll conducted by Gallup, 67% of
respondents rejected the consideration of race in college admissions.
One major flaw of Ramakrishnan's question is that it mixed several topics.
The anti-SCA-5 movement exclusively focused on racial preference and
discrimination in college admissions, which SCA-5 would have reintroduced.
In contrast, the Field Poll included employment, where the situation is
vastly different from college admission and where Asian Americans often face
discrimination and are underrepresented, especially in management and
executive levels. In addition, the poll mentioned gender, which was not an
issue in the anti-SCA-5 movement.
It's highly questionable that affirmative action helps blacks and other
minorities.
Another big question is whether Asian Americans are, for polling purposes,
regarded as "minorities." It is an indisputable fact that Asian Americans
are hurt most by race-based affirmative action in college admissions, and
yet the question implies that Asians are beneficiaries by using the words "
other minorities." This possibly confused poll respondents and affected the
results.
Last, but not least, it's highly questionable that affirmative action helps
blacks and other minorities, which the poll takes as given. There is a
famous book written by UCLA law professor Richard Sander and journalist
Stuart Taylor, and the title says it all: "Mismatch: How Affirmative Action
Hurts Students It's Intended to Help, and Why Universities Won’t Admit It."
Given all this, a more accurate poll question would be: "Do you favor or
oppose race-based affirmative action programs with the intention to help
blacks and some other minorities (excluding Asians) to get better education,
at the expenses of whites and particularly Asians, who have been
historically discriminated against? (Please note that according to some
studies, these affirmative action programs may actually hurt students they
are intended to help.)"
I would be very interested to know the result.
My grass-roots organization gained firsthand knowledge of Asian Americans'
stance on this issue when we united with other organizations to defeat SCA-5
in March. Within a few weeks, our online petition at change.org collected
more than 100,000 signatures, most of which came from Californians of all
ethnicities but particularly from Asian Americans. Thousands of phone calls
and letters flooded state lawmakers' offices. We launched an online donation
call for a then little-known anti-SCA-5 state Senate candidate named Peter
Kuo, and in four days donations from Asian Americans across the country
totaled more than $60,000.
To be clear, my group supports affirmative action in college admission that
benefits socioeconomically disadvantaged students of all races. This
practice has been implemented in California's universities since the passage
of Proposition 209. And it actually works: With Proposition 209 in effect
since 1996, African Americans and Latinos now account for a greater share of
the University of California system's overall admissions than when
affirmative action was being practiced. In fact, Latinos' numbers now exceed
whites' in UC freshman enrollment.
Race-based affirmative action is a complex and emotional issue. It requires
a calm, objective and honest discussion. Biased or misleading polls and
reports only serve to needlessly drive wedges between different racial and
ethnic communities.
Yunlei Yang is a committee member of the Silicon Valley Chinese Assn.
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/opinion-la/la-ol-affirmative-act |
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