Asian-Americans stand to gain as President Trump cancels affirmative action
Return to race-neutral college admissions ends Obama's diversity drive
ARIANA KING | July 10, 2018
Graduating students pose for a group selfie before commencement at Harvard University
NEW YORK -- The administration of U.S. President Donald Trump has rescinded diversity-promoting guidelines for American college admissions and will opt instead for race-blind admissions. The move will likely favor Asian-Americans amid charges that such policies have held down their enrollment in elite institutions.
A joint letter issued by the Justice and Education departments on July 3 repeals seven documents offering legal guidance for achieving racial diversity, adopted under then-President Barack Obama.
The old guidelines, dating from 2011 to 2016, advocated positions that went beyond the Constitution's requirements on civil rights, the letter argues.
Policies like affirmative action in college admissions have long stirred controversy. And in recent years, some of the harshest criticism has come from a seemingly unlikely source.
Asians, the fastest-growing immigrant group in the country, have sped ahead with high grades and strong test scores but are not seeing admissions rates at elite universities reflecting that growth. Some now say they are victims of the same diversity policies intended to help minority groups like themselves.
"This is a triumphant moment for Asian American communities," the Asian American Coalition for Education, a nonprofit organization dedicated to ensuring equal education rights for Asian-Americans, said in a news release following the announcement. The group praised the Trump administration's move as "a culmination of much-needed government actions to revamp misguided policies that facilitated widespread abuses of race-based affirmative action in higher education" and noted that the Obama-era "racial balancing" policies disproportionately hurt Asian-Americans.
https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/Asians-stand-to-gain-as-Trump-cancels-affirmative-action