Affirmative Action: Pros Outweigh Cons
Immediately after I heard about the Harvard University admissions case, I was angry. Especially when I read on BBC that “[a]n Asian American applicant with 25 percent chance of admissions, for example, would have a 35 percent chance if he were white, 85 percent if he were Hispanic, and 95 percent chance if he were African American.” Since when has the college admissions process become a probability game, in which some numbers are determined even before you are born? This couldn’t be more unfair. But, after my immediate reaction, my thoughts towards the case changed when I reflected on my own experience with affirmative action.
I have always supported affirmative action. Having attended schools in both diverse and homogenous settings, I know how diversity, or a lack thereof, influences education. In the years that I went to school in northern New Jersey, where the majority—and I mean probably close to a 100 percent—of students were White or Asian, no one told me how to approach conversations about sensitivity to diversity. Even in the very few instances in which race was mentioned, everything was binary. One group was pure evil, while the other was the innocent victim. But in the year I attended school in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, there were in-depth discussions of race that allowed us students to better understand one another. Those discussions were truly memorable. Even beyond the timeline of my conversations about race, there is a stronger reason as to why I support affirmative action.
Currently, I am the only girl in the top eight-person team in the math club at PEA. This is not surprising to me, but I still have trouble getting used to it. Students in the U.S. are ranked in competitive mathematics by how they perform in the American Math Competition series, known to many as the AMCs. There are three stages to this competition: first, a 75 minute, 25 question multiple choice test, then a three hour, 15 question short answer exam and finally a nine hour, six question proof-based Olympiad. At the end of the third round, 50 students are invited to a training camp for a month.
This is when the affirmative action for girls steps in. In addition to the top-scoring students, girls that don’t necessarily meet the invitation criteria are invited to the camp. I would not have made the camp my eighth grade year without such affirmative action. Although my score met the qualification for ninth and tenth graders, the bar for being invited to the camp as a middle school student is always higher than that of a high school student.
A lot of people did not like that I qualified for the camp. I still remember walking into Math Club prep fall, and an upper boy came up to me and said, “How were you at the camp? I saw you today, and you were so bad.” He later told me that I was only at the camp because the committee “loves” girls, and employed profanity in his delivery. I also remember last spring, when an upperclassman boy made sarcastic remarks while preparing for the third round of the competition. He said, “Why are you even studying here with us? You can’t make the camp at this stage given how they basically take all girls.”
Just last week, I was in a classroom with all boys and a male instructor in Math Club. As one of the students walked in, wearing a hat, the instructor commented, “You are a guy, there is no need to wear a hat to make your hair look nice. That’s something only girls do.” I looked around the classroom, and everyone else seemed to accept the comment. I tapped the table and called the instructor out. “No gender stereotypes here,” I said. But he reiterated his original stance, and I saw some people around the room quietly laughing at me.
I still feel as if I can never assimilate to the math community. But what helped me was the community that I gained from the training camp. Despite the backlash I received for being invited to the camp, the camp helped me realize that others are in the same boat I am. Without them, I can’t imagine pursuing my passion for math as freely as I do now.
As an Asian American whose “chill” parents would never mention grades, classes or extracurriculars unless I approach them first with such matters, it would be hard for me to speak for a lot of other Asian American students. It’s also impossible for me to speak for what Hispanic or African American students go through during their 12 years of education. But, regardless of one’s identity, it is important to let everyone know that they are not alone, and that they don’t have to fight against uninformed stereotypes alone.
According to Adam Harris, a staff writer on The Atlantic who was interviewed on CNN about the Harvard admission case, if the “Students for Fair Admissions” win the case, it is projected that only about three to five percent percent more Asians will be present on the Harvard campus. The number of African American and Hispanic students, however, will decrease by 50 percent. And so I ask the “Students for Fair Admissions”: is this what you really want?