[crossposted from my blog: http://toshiclark.xanga.com/726696886/affirmative-action-and-asians/ ]
Two recent items brought the topic of affirmative action and test score differences between Asians, Blacks, and Whites to mind. The first is the Lawrence Summers'-type tarring-and-feathering of the Harvard Law 3L who had the temerity to suggest the below:
The second news item that caught my eye was this NY Times article, The Post-Hispanic Hispanic Politician, on San Antonio's mayor, Julián Castro, who is being prepped as a potential presidential candidate in the next decade or two. He makes the following statement:
More generally, why did the combination of these two recent articles rankle me? They don't mention Asians at all, that's why, and Asians are often on the losing end of affirmative action.
Let me explain: It is well established in the sociology literature that black children in aggregate score lower than white children on standardized tests. It is also well established that Asian children do better* (better in math, marginally worse in verbal typically). It is the party line that socioeconomic factors and poor school quality are to blame for the apparent underperformance of the black children, such as in this article by Fryer et al.:
I then looked briefly to see whether the sociology literature directly addresses the Asian-White "reverse achievement gap," and how this difference is explained away. Two presumably Asian authors, Goyette and Xie, examined this issue in an article published in Sociology of Education. They don't look at achievement directly but instead try to explain away differences in expectations of educational achievement. They state:
This seems like doublespeak through and through, and this brings me back to my original point: I think that the current system of affirmative action is terrible, and I feel the political climate that leads any questioning of the underlying premises of affirmative action to immediately be characterized as racist is toxic.
Either affirmative action is outright racist and assumes that a higher prevalence of underrepresented minorities (Latinos, e.g. Julián Castro, and Blacks in particular) with respect to overrepresented minorities (Asians, e.g. me, or at least half of me) is a worthwhile goal in and of itself, or it falsely assumes race is a good proxy for other factors that inhibit the idealized normalized Bell curve of achievement. The truth is that race is not a good proxy for socioeconomic status or school conditions, and that these factors furthermore are not a good proxy for underperformance as seen by the examples of Chinese and Southeast Asians.
We keep on pushing for policy solutions that try to normalize outcomes (college, law school, med school admissions) without looking further at the factors that underlie the non-normal distribution, in particular without examining seriously why Asians do better than would be expected. If it's not because of the typically assumed background factors then why is it right that Asians are effectively discriminated against by affirmative action policies? What wrong is being righted?
Two recent items brought the topic of affirmative action and test score differences between Asians, Blacks, and Whites to mind. The first is the Lawrence Summers'-type tarring-and-feathering of the Harvard Law 3L who had the temerity to suggest the below:
This email was forwarded by a classmate with a bone to pick to sundry Black Law Student Associations, and then it went viral: witness this hyperbolic blog post that states that the "Racist Email Goes National". Her point is that it's ridiculous that it's considered racist to even be open to the concept that intelligence has a genetic component, and that, clearly, genetics dictates many other factors. (I agree with her. More on this below.)I absolutely do not rule out the possibility that African Americans are, on average, genetically predisposed to be less intelligent. I could also obviously be convinced that by controlling for the right variables, we would see that they are, in fact, as intelligent as white people under the same circumstances. The fact is, some things are genetic. African Americans tend to have darker skin. Irish people are more likely to have red hair. (Now on to the more controversial: ) Women tend to perform less well in math due at least in part to prenatal levels of testosterone, which also account for variations in mathematics performance within genders. This suggests to me that some part of intelligence is genetic, just like identical twins raised apart tend to have very similar IQs and just like I think my babies will be geniuses and beautiful individuals whether I raise them or give them to an orphanage in Nigeria. I dont think it is that controversial of an opinion to say I think it is at least possible that African Americans are less intelligent on a genetic level, and I didnt mean to shy away from that opinion at dinner.
The second news item that caught my eye was this NY Times article, The Post-Hispanic Hispanic Politician, on San Antonio's mayor, Julián Castro, who is being prepped as a potential presidential candidate in the next decade or two. He makes the following statement:
Presumably he also benefited from affirmative action in gaining entry to Harvard Law School. This brings up several questions in my mind: How much of his political career can be attributed to the connections he made thanks to affirmative action? Why was the affirmative action needed in the first place, given that he came from a politically well-connected family and was a standout student in high school in his own right for non-SAT reasons? Which otherwise-qualified candidate didn't get in to Stanford or HLS because of the affirmative action?Joaquín and I got into Stanford because of affirmative action, Julián says. I scored 1,210 on my SATs, which was lower than the median matriculating student. But I did fine in college and in law school. So did Joaquín. Im a strong supporter of affirmative action because Ive seen it work in my own life.
More generally, why did the combination of these two recent articles rankle me? They don't mention Asians at all, that's why, and Asians are often on the losing end of affirmative action.
Let me explain: It is well established in the sociology literature that black children in aggregate score lower than white children on standardized tests. It is also well established that Asian children do better* (better in math, marginally worse in verbal typically). It is the party line that socioeconomic factors and poor school quality are to blame for the apparent underperformance of the black children, such as in this article by Fryer et al.:
Looking more closely into their claim shows that it is, frankly, bull****. From page 458:AbstractIn previous research, a substantial gap in test scores between white and black students persists, even after controlling for a wide range of observable characteristics. Over the first two years of school, however, blacks lose substantial ground relative to other races. There is suggestive evidence that differences in school quality may be an important part of the explanation. None of the other hypotheses we test to explain why blacks are losing ground receive any empirical backing.
Summary thus far: there is a very weak correlation between school quality and the Black-White achievement gap, the Asian-White reverse achievement gap exists despite Asians also experiencing "worse" schools by this study's measure, yet somehow the overall conclusion is that the schools must account for the Black-White difference. Astounding.There are important weaknesses in the argument that differential school quality explains the divergent trajectories of whites and blacks. First, the observable measures of school inputs included in table 7 explain only a small fraction of the variation in student outcomes. For instance, adding the school input measures to our basic student-level test score regressions only increases the R2 of the regression by 0.05. Second, even after the school input measures are added to the test score regressions, the gap between blacks and whites continues to widen. Third, both Hispanics and Asians also experience worse schools than whites, but neither of those groups is losing ground.
I then looked briefly to see whether the sociology literature directly addresses the Asian-White "reverse achievement gap," and how this difference is explained away. Two presumably Asian authors, Goyette and Xie, examined this issue in an article published in Sociology of Education. They don't look at achievement directly but instead try to explain away differences in expectations of educational achievement. They state:
Ok, fair enough: expectations about how far one will progress in school are likely to be influenced by these things. (Their discussion of the other factors is interesting, too, in that they break down "Asians" into the many different ethniticies under that term, e.g. Southeast Asians and Chinese who face unfavorable socioeconomic conditions and unfavorable school conditions, again running counter to the argument that Black-White achievement can be explained away on those factors alone.) For the purposes of this discussion let's look closer at their explanation of point 2, tested academic ability:In our study, we explored three factors that may explain Asian Americans' higher educational expectations: (1) socioeconomic and other background characteristics, (2) tested academic ability, and (3) parents' educational expectations for children
Wait a second, let me get it straight: Asians do better than Whites on tests because of the same socioeconomic factors that are used to explain away discrepant, lower scores for Blacks, despite the large subgroups of Asians (Chinese, SE Asians) who have lower socioeconomic status? Furthermore, the mere EXPECTATION that one will do well on a test or the necessity to do well on a test in order to obtain a scholarship will magically lead to better test scores? (What mechanism do they propose for this besides handwaving?!)On the basis of a comprehensive review, Hsia (1988) reported that as a whole, Asian Americans appear to exhibit greater aptitude for mathematics and only slightly lower verbal aptitude than whites.
Popular attention to the observed differences in test scores between Asian Americans and whites has led to much speculation and debate about their sources. Although a few observers have contended that the differences are innate [references omitted, see link to the article if you want to read them], most researchers have attributed the discrepancies in measured ability to variations in parents' socioeconomic status, children's access to educational resources at home and in schools and communities, and culture. It is plausible that the high educational expectations of Asian Americans positively affect their test scores.
For children who live in poverty, tested ability may be one of the few avenues to higher education. Children who cannot afford tuition may rely on scholarships for higher education, which are often tied to high scores on such standardized tests as the SAT.
This seems like doublespeak through and through, and this brings me back to my original point: I think that the current system of affirmative action is terrible, and I feel the political climate that leads any questioning of the underlying premises of affirmative action to immediately be characterized as racist is toxic.
Either affirmative action is outright racist and assumes that a higher prevalence of underrepresented minorities (Latinos, e.g. Julián Castro, and Blacks in particular) with respect to overrepresented minorities (Asians, e.g. me, or at least half of me) is a worthwhile goal in and of itself, or it falsely assumes race is a good proxy for other factors that inhibit the idealized normalized Bell curve of achievement. The truth is that race is not a good proxy for socioeconomic status or school conditions, and that these factors furthermore are not a good proxy for underperformance as seen by the examples of Chinese and Southeast Asians.
We keep on pushing for policy solutions that try to normalize outcomes (college, law school, med school admissions) without looking further at the factors that underlie the non-normal distribution, in particular without examining seriously why Asians do better than would be expected. If it's not because of the typically assumed background factors then why is it right that Asians are effectively discriminated against by affirmative action policies? What wrong is being righted?