Wait, wait. Why are we waiting?
Can you just prep me a little bit?
I just want to get this over with, okay?
Prommise I'm not being dramatic. Like, you don't
realize how actually terrifying this is until you
have to click the button.
Each spring, hundreds of thousands of students
eagerly open their admissions decisions to the
Ivy Leagues on what's known as Ivy Day.
I'm not going to get in and I'm okay with that.
No, don't say that. *Gasps*. Waitlisted.
Waitlisted for Columbia. Waitlisted for Columbia.
That's pretty good. For some students, it's the best
day of their life.
But for many, it's a day of overwhelming disappointment.
Rejected from Harvard.
Ivy Day for me was definitely very stressful
and disappointing. One of my classmates got Harvard
and another got Princeton.
I got rejections from all of them.
So I was like, Where is mine?
Where is my acceptances?
My name is Michael Wang.
I personally filed a complaint against three of
the top universities in the US about affirmative action.
The fear of not going to an Ivy League at that point is
I was wondering who would know my school if I don't
attend an Ivy League when I'm going to an employer
into an interview and they're asking me, what
school did you go to? And they don't recognize the
school. There was a fear in my head that, you know, I'd
had to explain myself more, that I'd have to prove
myself more. And I think me being an Asian American
already, I already have so much I need to prove.
I don't want to have more to prove that I'm capable at
that point.
Ivy Leagues are notorious for their hyper selectivity
and low acceptance rates of just 4 to 10% annually.
Since the 1970s, students and education reform
activists have alleged that universities use unfair
admissions practices, particularly around how they
consider race.
Affirmative action or race conscious admissions
policies was put in place after the 1964 Civil Rights
Act in an effort to integrate populations that
had been historically excluded.
Affirmative action with the power of the federal
government behind it, was able to encourage
institutions to begin to show from year to year that
they are enrolling African American students, in
particular.
This created unprecedented education and employment
opportunities for marginalized ethnic
communities, and studies published in the early 1990s
also indicated white women were benefiting from
affirmative action the most.
Race conscious admissions made a huge difference,
especially for the most selective institutions.
Affirmative action has been a battleground topic since
the 1970s and underwent reform due to several
landmark federal court cases.
The first case was filed against University of
Washington Law School by a white student who was
rejected and claimed the university prioritized less
qualified students of color.
Similar lawsuits filed by white students followed in
1978, 2003 and 2016, resulting in the Supreme
Court ruling which upholds that race can be kept as one
of many factors but not used as a quota system.
When all things being considered are equal,
affirmative action is used as a tiebreaker.
But some Asian American students don't see it that
way.
Even the fact that when an Asian-American student is
applying to these universities and there's a
slight doubt in their head that maybe my race might be
used against me, maybe I didn't work hard enough.
Just even that thought being there is dangerous.
Michael was rejected from his top choice universities,
but he was accepted to two Ivy League schools.
However, he chose to attend Williams College for
undergrad instead.
And that's me and my parents.
Michael believed his race may have been used against
his application and wrote to three universities asking
how race was used in admissions.
He ultimately filed a formal complaint to the
Department of Education when he didn't receive an
answer addressing his question.
You know, I found here that most of what they stated
here was that they don't disadvantage Asian American
students in their compliance, but they didn't
really answer my question here.
In a statement to CNBC, Yale says its admissions
practices adhere to Supreme Court precedent, and Yale
College will continue to consider race and ethnicity
as one part of its careful whole person review of
applications. Yale will never waiver in its
commitment to assembling a diverse student body.
In my complaint, I brought up that one of my main
concerns was that, is the fact that I am
Asian-American something that actually benefits me or
something that actually disadvantages me?
My dad ended up joining this fight as well, so my
dad and a bunch of other leaders in the
Asian-American community formed the Asian American
Coalition of Education.
With that coalition together, they together
filed a joint complaint against Harvard University.
Since 2014, we have a lot of progress and I always ask my
son, and well, contribute to community, service for
the community. I encourage Michael to speak out.
That's not just for me and for us.
It's a for the community, for fairness for everyone.
Michael and his dad are not alone in the fight against
affirmative action.
In October 2022, the Supreme Court will review
two lawsuits against Harvard and UNC that could
end race based admissions practices altogether.
And what makes these cases different from the
affirmative action cases in the past, the plaintiffs are
overwhelmingly Asian American.
It is our hope that the justices will end the use of
race and ethnicity, not only at Harvard and UNC, but
at every college and university in the United
States.
Representing a group of anonymous students in these
cases is the nonprofit Students for Fair
Admissions, which has grown to over 20,000 members.
In their case against Harvard, they claim
affirmative action illegally uses race against
them in admissions.
Even if you don't think your kid will be affected because
he's not applying to Harvard, he is.
You know, this is your fight. So sign up to be m
embers of SFFA.
Asian-Americans have the highest grades, SATs and the
most fulsome extracurricular activities,
but they are downgraded.
They're given demerits on their personality by
Harvard's admissions officers. They are deemed
less likable, less courageous, less honest,
have fewer leadership capabilities.
Harvard denies discrimination in its
admissions process.
In a court filing, Harvard defended its use of
personality ratings as a methodically sound and race
neutral approach to evaluating a candidate,
indicating there is no evidence, statistical or
otherwise, that the personal rating is
discriminatory. And Asian American applicants were not
held to a higher standard.
Harvard did not respond to interview requests for this
story. As the future of affirmative action hangs in
the balance this fall, some proponents of the practice
believe there may be more at stake for Asian Americans
if it's deemed unconstitutional.
There's an irony here when it comes to Asian American
students, and the elimination of race
conscious admissions isn't going to necessarily
increase the chances of Asian-American applicants in
gaining admissions.
Mitchell Chang, who testified for UNC in the
case heading to the Supreme Court, says getting rid of
race-based affirmative action could ultimately hurt
Asian Americans in college admissions.
He says more universities could eliminate standardized
testing to help level the playing field for Black and
Latinx students, whom studies have shown are at a
disadvantage. However, Asian-Americans are known to
score the highest on standardized tests, which
the Ivies made optional at the start of the pandemic.
In the long run, when you eliminate race conscious
admissions, we may also be eliminating strongest
aspects of an application from an Asian American
applicant, especially from an immigrant population.
So what should colleges and universities use to level
the playing field for all students of color.
Socioeconomic status, or SES, but when we only
consider it without considering race, what we
see is a drop in the enrollment of
underrepresented student populations, especially
African American students.
As expert witnesses and activists prepare their
arguments for the Supreme Court, it's young students
who are left in the throes, whose futures could be
determined by these rulings.
In theory, I support affirmative action because I
think it's necessary to take intentional action to
rectify historical discrimination.
Race, first of all, is not the only diversification
factor that we should consider. We should also
consider a socioeconomic background.
If colleges didn't look at race, we probably have
student bodies full of white people.
I feel without something to intentionally counteract
that that discrimination and those inequalities are
going to continue to exist.
Brown and Black students wouldn't have the same
opportunities as white students.
The process is not right.
It's not individualized.
It doesn't consider me as an individual.
It considers me part of this larger group that I may
or may not share the same characteristics with.
And for Michael, he's studying to become a lawyer
to help the next generation of students in the fight for
equity.
I certainly hope that with my pursuit into the legal
field that I can help out other students in the future
if they suffer from the same situation I did by
feeling discriminated against.