Don’t use Asian Americans to justify anti-affirmative action politics

Moreover, affirmative action programs benefit Asian American students in specific and concrete ways. Historically, such programs were critical in making public higher education available to Asian Americans in the 1960s and 1970s, before which Asian Americans had suffered exclusion and de jure segregation in public education like other people of color. So Asian Americans are already the beneficiaries of affirmative action in education, both firsthand and as the children of people who benefited firsthand and who consequently had improved professional opportunities and greater economic security.

Affirmative policies continue to benefit Asian American students and communities today. While not every Asian American subgroup remains underrepresented, many are for at least some schools, including Vietnamese, Thai, Lao, Burmese, Filipino, Hmong, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander students. Race-conscious admissions policies give school officials the latitude to take into account the unique experiences of these individuals.