Is Affirmative Action Unfair to Asian Americans?

[Music] hi everybody and welcome to another debate from Intelligence Squared I'm John Don van and in this one we're going to be crossing paths with some decision making that's going on right now in the Supreme Court the issue is affirmative action in college admissions now of course affirmative action clashes have been going on for years we have debated it in the past on our stage and the Supreme Court has ruled on it a number of times finally Landing in 2003 on what it intended to be a workable formula at least for a time that universities cannot legally set aside quotas for racial minorities they cannot set numbers but they can take race into account as one of many factors to consider when assessing an individual student for admission but now something else is going on the court is considering a fresh set of legal challenges these involve admissions at the University of North Carolina and at Harvard University and the Harvard case in particular represents a new line of attack from those who are opposed to schools using race as a determining factor for admission and that line of attack says that affirmative action is practiced at Harvard discriminates in particular against Asian Americans the justices are now in the process of their deliberations on that issue but we want to get to it now so here is the question before us what we're going to debate is is affirmative action unfair to Asian Americans we have got two lawyers who are going to be debating this with us and I'd like to welcome them to the program first Lee Chang has been involved in this issue for more than 30 years he is the child of Chinese immigrants who learned English at the age of five and in addition to working for a few different law firms he has held c-suite positions at companies like Newegg and Gibson guitars Lee thanks so much for joining us at Intelligence Squared I'm absolutely thrilled to be here John thank you for having me and John Yang is President and executive director of Asian Americans advancing Justice aajc the title describes his passion he has been fighting for the rights of Asian Americans for a long time has also worked in the world of big law and in government under President Obama he was senior advisor for trade and strategic initiatives at the U.S Department of Commerce John thanks so much also for joining us on Intelligence Squared delighted to be here as well so before we get to our first round I just want to check in to learn which side each of you will be arguing so Lee Chang please go first on the question is affirmative action unfair to Asian Americans do you say yes or no I say absolutely yes but it's nuanced thank you well we like Nuance on Intelligence Squared so I'm glad to hear you say that so uh John yang this is a binary so we know that you're going to be arguing no but to get it on the record I want to have you say it um the question is affirmative action unfair to Asian Americans are you a yes or a no no affirmative action is not unfair to Asian Americans we should be able to talk about our race all right thank you both of you for telling us where you stand on this issue so let's move to our first round which will be opening arguments you each get up to four minutes to present your opening case fair warning I will break in if you hit time Lee Chang you are up first your four minutes start now thank you again John so like I said uh affirmative action uh in my views on it and most people's views on it are far more nuanced and I think a lot of people would like to have us believe I think for the purposes of this debate I'm supposed to say categorically that affirmative action is unfair to Asian Americans but with apologies to your format and to you I'm going to have to probably agree right that the definition of affirmative action that that is Broad in that um you know my esteemed opponent John Yang would probably say is really what affirmative action is is something I agree with helping the disadvantaged achieve their potentials so that they can benefit Society unfortunately what I and the vast majority of people of almost every single ethnic group have consistently agreed with is that affirmative action as implemented has become a deeply corrupted travesty of what it was intended to be it was intended again to help the disadvantaged of all communities reach their potential it is now commonly known to represent programs that determinatively and significantly use race National origin and ethnicity to allocate societal opportunities and benefits the ban against racial preference based and determinative affirmative action is not as John has implied something that would prevent people from talking about race far from right the ban is to prevent determinative use of race in various governmental programs in various governmental actions as someone who has personally experienced discrimination based on this orwellian use of the word affirmative and study the programs for decades I can absolutely and categorically say that race-based and determinative affirmative action is unfair to Asian Americans and any American who is excluded or discriminated against in its name the impact of racial preferences based affirmative action programs on Asian Americans were first seen in the educational Arena and I had a front row seat when I was applying as you mentioned to Lowell High to high school in 1984 I was a relatively recent immigrant and I was told by the them Progressive as now Progressive San Francisco Unified School District but because that because I was specifically Chinese I had to get a higher grade in score than even white kids Korean kids and Japanese kids not to mention black kids and Hispanic kids and this was very blatant very very public and this was purportedly to help enforce racial balancing in public schools in San Francisco I got into Lowell I was very fortunate I saw this once again when I applied to college and I got into Harvard and I saw this once again when I played graduate school and I'd gotten into UC Berkeley law school and the impact of these programs that I I witnessed that really really struck me was that it tended to hurt the poor kids of the non-preferred groups the poor Asian Americans and poor white kids the most and it really didn't tend to help the poor kids of the supposedly preferred groups African-Americans and Hispanics so um you know what we have seen in the present are expansions of these programs into jobs into other government programs like private programs where the government has coercive significant coercive power like loans and licenses and contracts it is over and over again um you know a message that clearly says that some people are going to be excluded uh in in you know including Asian Americans many Asian Americans uh simply because other Asian Americans have done well in society and in life and over and over again we are also hearing people say often people who are self proclaimed um proclaimed Progressive people say that over Asian Americans are not diverse or are overrepresented in various Arenas so uh I would actually say that absolutely affirmative action programs as implemented are harmful and discriminatory against Asian Americans okay thank you very much now we want to turn it over to John Yang you are arguing no to the answer of whether affirmative action is unfair to Asian Americans in other words you are saying it is fair to Asian Americans great thank you very much John and thanks Lee I look forward to this debate I we should talk about how affirmative action is as implemented because I think Lee is exactly right is we don't want to just talk in theory but talk in fact so if we want to talk about the Harvard case in particular there was an over 100 page decision by the Harvard District Court that found that there was no evidence of discrimination against Asian Americans likewise the first circuit the Appellate Court in Boston in a hundred page opinion likewise can included that there were no findings that would suggest discrimination against our community the Asian American community and let me be clear if we did find there was evidence of Asian Americans groups such as mine would sue on behalf of our community I think it's important to note that in this case no Asian American student or frankly no student for that matter testified that they were denied a spot on Harvard or that they are somehow discriminated against because of their policies on the other hand we had a number of students testify including Asian American students testified about the benefits of affirmative action the benefits of diversity on campus at Harvard I think it's also important to recognize the statistics 28 of the incoming class of Harvard this year is Asian American whereas Asian Americans only represent seven percent of the American population overall if you look at the steady increase of Asian Americans on Harvard's campuses you know it was only three percent in 1980 shortly after the bakkie decision and now it's 28 which is an exponential growth that exceeds our growth in the American population and one final statistic would be the fact that the class of 2021 last year's incoming class at Harvard was had about 21.8 percent applicants who were Asian American whereas the admites from the Harvard class was 22.2 percent so again that suggests statistically that we were not discriminated against look we all know that Harvard and similarly types of similar types of colleges have very exceedingly high standards they get 60 000 applications a year and they only make 2 000 offers a year if they want to fill their class with all valedictorians they could easily do that several times over you know they they reject approximately 50 percent of the applicants get get perfect SAT scores so the question is Sir how do they create a group that promotes their educational equity and to promote a group that has all of these complexities within sort of a student body so if we're looking at just grades and GPA alone then that would not be the full measure of what Harvard is trying to accomplish I I it's also important to recognize that Asian Americans by and large support affirmative action can polls that we have done consistently show approximately 70 percent of Asian Americans support affirmative action recognize the value that it gives to our community as a whole and we don't want to be in a position that we play the so-called model minority the last thing I would want to say is that when we talk about affirmative action ultimately it's about being able to tell our stories and our college applications if we're focusing on colleges and universities being to recognize that race does still matter in this community that we are not in a race-blind society and to be able to tell our stories that includes race and ethnicity I agree that's not about quotas it's not about caps but that's not what these systems are about these systems are about valuing the whole person the whole story and that whole story includes the the use of race in a beneficial way all right let's continue round one now with some discussion of the points that have been made in your opening statements I want to take a question to you John from something that Lee told a personal story about getting the message when he was a high school student and then getting the message again when he was applying to college that as an Asian American when it comes to the scores and I understand you say scores aren't part of the whole pick aren't the entire picture but that when it comes to scores he and other Asian Americans have to have higher numbers than blacks and Latinos and and whites as well I believe and that that on its face is just not fair so if I was to answer that I mean firstly certainly to the extent someone told that to your face I do think that that's inappropriate uh and that goes to something around counselors and how they're approaching issues but if we're to take a step back in terms of understanding sort of the whole admissions process you know the admissions process includes more than just gpas more than just test scores so in that context if if all we're focusing on is those two things even at Harvard or Yale or any of these Ivy League schools you have to make a distinction then how do you make that distinction among those people and I it's too simplistic to say well all right you know someone that gets an 800 sat is better than someone with a 790 sat because at a certain point right we all recognize that they are qualified more from intelligent squared us when we return welcome back I'm John donvan and this is Intelligence Squared us let's jump right back into our discussion and that's the other important thing I think to recognize about these policies that are in place we're not talking about anyone that is not qualified to go to these schools we're talking about sort of within that huge population of qualified students how do they make decisions and certainly for me and if you look at the at the evidence there's no suggestion that Asian Americans are being categorically shut out of the process because of their race but but but but the well I'll at least step in rather you know John so first of all just to clarify for you right the program that I'm describing was one that was mandated by the city of San Francisco for racial mixing purposes it was a criteria that existed for 20 years where if you were specifically Chinese you had to get a higher score on the admissions Index right holistic admissions program merely masked that discrimination better and I think you're sticking your head into sand when you deny when you deny AI the evidence before everyone's eyes that Harvard created and used the personality criteria to discriminate against Asian Americans Asian Americans I'm shocked that you wouldn't find appalling right a program where Asian Americans receive lower personality scores by people who have never met them in Harvard admissions office I'm just shocked that that you would you would agree that Asian Americans cannot are categorically viewed as an undesirable having no effervescence personality confidence before you respond I'm going to jump in I'm going to jump in John and Lee because I think a lot of our listeners may not know about this personal score so at Harvard and I assume that because Harvard is so influential the model has been used in other places applicants are given scores on a range of domains of talents or skills they include academic they include athletic um they include extracurriculars but another one of them is now called the personal score and the the individual is judged on I have a list from this comes from the uh from the uh discovery of the Harvard case uh here's a list of the sort of things that people are scored on for the personal score courage in the face of seemingly insurmountable obstacles leadership maturity genuineness selflessness humility resiliency judgment citizenship spirit and camaraderie with peers and what Lee is talking about is the fact that Asian Americans as a group score significantly lower than other groups in this personal score and I think Lee you're saying that that's actually deliberate that that or that's that that's actually a mechanism of exclusion so I'm just giving that background to let John it is you know so I I let me just provide some more background because I've been interviewing for Harvard College admissions now for 28 years right it's there are three main criteria there's personality academics and extracurriculars and and and Harvard doesn't actually interview most of the most of the applicants alumni interviewers do and alumni interviewers do not score Asian Americans any lower on personality but Harvard categorically does by orders of magnitude okay so if I could respond first it is a personal rating not a personality rating and I think the word choice is important here because by saying that it's a personality score is suggesting that Harvard is somehow grading down on the personalities of Asian Americans and John you do have it right that the factors that go into the personal ratings are as you listed number two is if you look at the actual District Court opinion it did not say that it what there's a significant difference between the scores of Asian Americans and other camps now it is correct to say that the district court noted a statistical difference between the the two categories between Asian Americans and others but then it also went on to find that that evidence was not compelling because there were a number of other factors that could explain that that were not related to race and not relate to ethnicity if we were to go down that route their Asha was a statistical what I would call anomaly also with the Asian Americans academic creating whereby Asian Americans were scored higher for no apparent statistical reason so that or no apparent causation reason so then are we suggesting that Asian Americans were discriminated in favor of with respect to academic rating so there's a lot to unpack there at the end of the day I think we should defer to The District Court's opinion where it thoroughly addressed all of these issues as well as the expert opinions and came to this conclusion I I appreciate Khan that you are talking about we shouldn't just focus on Harvard I think this does go to something that's important to me though is that we need to examine the evidence because there are definitely anecdotes out there about what people believe is happening but when we look at the evidence we look at the statistics it does not suggest this type of quota this type of cap that is happening the evidence absolutely suggests that cap and quota and I'll I'll accept the fact that the district court in the court of appeals ruled the way that they do and I would observe that your Reliance on their findings is about to very likely be overturned by the U.S Supreme Court even that court itself has never been free from error right after all we have very very Infamous precedence like Dred Scott and Plessy V Ferguson and koromatsu to look back upon and I think an over-reliance on the findings of Courts on uh the opinions of generals I think is has proven throughout history but to be very very harmful to individual rights and civil rights especially of non-whites and including age Americans but on the personality score side again I have been involved in Harvard College admissions now for 28 years and I've been looking at those criteria and I've been applying those criteria and submitting write-up reports to Harvard and I can tell you categorically there the the the the each of the three main criteria academics extracurriculars and personal ratings are graded from one to five and defined in a very very granular way okay they they don't mess around they're trying to get to an objective sort of determination of how to make up a class when so many qualified people are applying and so there's no question historically statistically that Asian Americans and it's shocking to me again that you bring up the fact and we suggest that Asian Americans are getting a benefit on the academics Asian Americans on grades and test scores have led the way for decades in the 90s when you and I applied to college John Asian Americans were said to be boring gray grubbers and I think it's unfair for you to suggest that Asian American seconds are in any way boring great rubbers anymore your kids my kids everybody now knows extracurriculars I I don't think I mean just In fairness and in terms of the tone business thing I don't think I heard John suggest anything like that Lee well so In fairness John didn't say that but what John said was that you know Harvard is shouldn't be just be using grades anymore right he missed the whole extracurricular criteria I listened to that very carefully he missed a whole extracurricular criteria where Asian Americans are now also excelling at the highest possible level I listened to exactly what he said you're right I agree with him okay let's let John jump in right I mean look and again what I am suggesting is that we have to look at all of this as a holistic review and you're absolutely right we should be considering extracurriculars we should be considering the the academic rating we should be concerning the personal rating and I think Harvard also has an athletic rating as well as a couple of other ratings that that factor into all of this but again statistically and I'm interested in what evidence that you're looking at so artistically and based on the evidence and I agree with you certainly the district court court of appeals could be overruled but the evidence submitted to date in the Harvard case the evidence that I know of with respect to the various affirmative action programs do does not suggest systemic discrimination against Asian Americans now again I think we do have a point of agreement here that are there certain admissions counselors or others that have engaged in the stereotyping that's probably true but the question here is is that systemic is that a policy of all of these affirmative action programs and there there's no evidence to suggest that it is and to say that we we know that it's happening and it's happening of snow smoking mirrors and it's just a substitute for quotas that that are prohibited I just don't see the evidence again when I look at the numbers there's a direct correlation but the number of people that apply the number of people that are admitted unless we're suggesting somehow out that Asian Americans are super so much more qualified that we should be getting even a higher percentage I just don't quite buy the argument without more statistics the statistics are actually right there I mean the plaintiff's council plaintiff's experts introduce a mountain of Statistics the control test for admissions historically and in schools like the control school has always been Caltech Caltech also does not just consider grades and test scores right but Caltech also doesn't really use race and in schools like Caltech at schools like UC Berkeley immediately post 209 the percentage of Asian Americans went opt to admit it went up to about 45 40 to 45 percent so to your point earlier point though John that you raised early you know that you made earlier about Asian Americans constituting 28 of the Harvard student body that increase has literally been the result of this lawsuit for about 20 years and believe me I've been tracking this carefully every year since I've graduated for about 20 years the percentage of Asian Americans admitted to Harvard every year hovered between 19 and 22. and then the lawsuit occurred in every single year uh Harvard increased the percentage of Asian Americans admitted until it's reached 28 right so I don't think that that was by accident I think squeaky Wheels in this Society get grease okay all right so lately I want to come in with this question then you know Harvard and since we keep talking about Harvard Harvard has a bad track record going back 100 years when it comes to discrimination against Jews the the university very almost very openly made it clear that they wanted to reduce the number of Jews who were at that time doing well on the entrance exam which was the main Criterion for getting into the school and their numbers were going up and as an institution Harvard didn't like that and they instituted a holistic approach which began to bring in other qualities and that holistic approach began to count against Jews there were assessments of their character for example that were not as positive as the non-jews who were applying to the school at the time what was clear there was a racial animus they didn't like Jews I'm wondering are you making the argument that Harvard and other universities are putting the thumb on the scale against Jews deliberately out of racial animus towards Asian Americans well against Asian yeah the the the racial animus is not as apparent but there is absolutely racial animus I see racial animus whenever someone suggests that a school that is plurality Asian American or has significant numbers of Asian Americans is not sufficiently diverse especially when diversity has been suggested as a you know in such an extraordinary invaluable uh ideal for a society to achieve I see it when people say that Asian Americans are overrepresented I see it when I hear in a response to these fights against racial preferences that Asians have it all and we just want to we want we want it all we want too much you know if you I view what Harvard is doing as very much something that incites hatred and dislike and disrespect against and even violence against Asian Americans every bit as much as calling kovid a China flu and I do see an undercurrent of anti-ation um okay so so that that's a yes you feel that that uh these institutions that are uh practicing this approach have something against Asians or at least something against too many Asians in the same way that Harvard had that feeling about Jews I just wanted to see if you felt that that there was it wasn't an accidental byproduct it was part of the program was to keep down the number of Asians for some reason so John I want to you heard what Lee had to say I'd just like to get your response to that yeah and I'll admit I must disagree with that that assessment that there is some type of racial animus I there the Evan again the evidence that I see does not exist again you can always cherry pick a couple of comments here and there to suggest that someone is stereotyping Asian Americans just as you could cherry pick here in their comments about any racial or ethnic group frankly I think the other conversation we should have about affirmative action is who is this designed to help what are we trying to achieve what we're trying to achieve is to make sure that we have educational Equity that we are ensuring that underrepresented groups do have the opportunity and here when I say underrepresented groups uh obviously we are talking about African-Americans and Latino Americans and Native Americans but also we are talking about Asian Americans that tradition not that have not had a shot and that's also what affirmative action is designed to do again is this notion of recognizing that race matters that you can use what's called a tip we will we will a tip is this notion that you can use race as a favorable factor when you are assessing a person tips the balance in favor of the person tips a balance in favor of a person that's exactly right that's exactly thank you for that yes uh and the the recognition that certain groups have had challenges now again some a lot of this comes out in personal essays a lot of this comes out in in all sorts of different facets so it's not as if there is some magic number that is being put on like a plus 10 factor for any particular grade uh race or ethnicity that has been prohibited by the Supreme Court so we want to be very very careful about the Nuance to which these universities are trying to operate I appreciate what Leah is saying but I I think that there is a much greater nuance and there's not this type of racial animus and again when I say I think that I don't see the evidence for that I really don't see the evidence for that lady occur to respond because I I can move on I have I have I have seen the evidence for that I've seen it in programs that say that if you're specifically Chinese you have to score higher I've seen it in not random comments but comments by institutional leaders that Asians are over represented I've seen it in comments by Bill Clinton in 1992 that without racial preferences the UC system would be all Asian right you know and and that that was by the president of the United States at the time so you know when you look at the evidence presented in this court that the Supreme Court will will shortly overrule I believe the district court and the court of appeals on I'll bet you I'll bet you at dinner John that they will okay because it's overwhelming that race is absolutely used in a determinative way I even support and I would agree with you that Race Matters I totally agree with you I I have been on the receiving end of racial discrimination including violence in my life and I see it it happens I also agree that race could be used as a tip I'm actually support standard however race has been used determinatively at Harvard can you can you tell people what the Baki standard is please the Baki standard is that race should matter and it can be used as one of many equal factors it can be used as the tip that John is talking about and a tip is all it should be used for however when you look at how it's been applied at Harvard what the evidence shows is that Asian Americans in the top quintile of academics and extracurriculars which is really the only quintile where Harvard admits students anybody not in the top quintile of academics and extracurriculars will not be able to keep up with the Harvard course load okay so they have a uh their their chances of getting the top personal score uh is something like half of the chance of a white student seven times less than that of a Hispanic student eight times less than a black student so again unless someone is is asking is basically saying that Asian Americans are just categorically right uh less personable than and as kids of any other ethnic group that's the Smoking Gun right there along with many others alright I want to step back for a moment let's wrap up this first round here and just take a very brief moment outside of the arguments to just get a steeper sense of what inspires each of you to take the side in the argument that you do just let me be a brief moment of autobiography and I'm going to come to you first John Yang because um you know among your many other undertakings you're a defender of and you're an advocate for the rights of Asian Americans in many venues like employment and voting you're also a champion of immigration rights and you have said that when you heard Donald Trump refer the idea refer to immigrants as being a group that included rapists Etc you took it very personally so why was that so personal to you and how does that reaction fit into the side of the argument that you're taking in this debate thank you for that John so I am what some would call an illegal alien I was at one point in in my life an undocumented immigrant I was from the time I was 9 into the time I was graduating from high school and so when I heard someone and it could be anyone it doesn't have to be political say that illegal aliens are drained on society they are in many ways it is personal to me because they in some ways are referring to me so it is important to stand up for me for the rights of people that don't have privileges that I have I have had the fortune of sharing and to fight for their rights I'm John Don band this is Intelligence Squared us we'll hear more from our Debaters right after this [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] let's get back to our debate Lee I want to take the same question to you about something from your from your life you recently published a letter uh on Twitter that you wrote to the president of Harvard and you were talking about your son who's now at the point of applying to college and you said he's applying to 30 schools because as an Asian-American male he I'm quoting you now he doesn't have any reason to believe that his hard work and talent gives him more than a de minimis chance to gain admission to um into almost any selective admission College he said he's under tremendous stress you said that this pains you it outrages you and you said I will never be able to forgive this act of evil committed against my child no matter what your intention and Harvard's I just want you to take a moment to talk about you know this passion that you feel you were wronged and now you feel it's happening to another generation let me correct something I don't feel that I was wronged in the sense that uh I I didn't get into a school I actually got into Lowell I got into Harvard and I got into Berkeley I don't care about getting any kids into any school I care about how my children are viewed I cared about how Asian Americans are viewed and treated under the law right and what I object to is the fact that Asians are viewed as undesirable as less valuable because we're considered less diverse because we're considered less additive to this this false god of racial diversity and ethnic diversity so it's become very personal now where it used to be just something that was a matter of principle so I used to get beat up because I was Asian American I didn't speak English I ate you know funny food and I wore funny looking clothing and I had a haircut that was literally shaped like a bowl okay like many Asian Americans and so I always had in my heart a uh you know I think a desire to stand up and fight for the underdog and so when nobody stood up for the rights of Chinese American kids in San Francisco a group of friends and I did we did that that's what motivated us but now it's very personal I have three kids I have one apply to college right now and he is going through that experience right now you know he's being told that basically he's not additive that's the message that's being sent he's not attitude as or as additive to diversity so that's what motivates me even more now to keep pushing and keep fighting and I've been fighting for 30 years we my a group I found it launched the very first lawsuit that featured Asian American plaintiffs challenging a program that was based upon racial mixing all right so thank you thank you to both of you because we know that you care deeply about this but having insight as to why you care so deeply about it is really really useful uh to to us understanding where you're coming from all right let's move on to our second round and we'd like to start out the second round this way I want to give each of you a chance to put a real question to the other and I want to be clear I don't want to hear you return to your talking point I would really like you to ask a question that challenges your opponent's argument likely a weakness in their argument uh you know the question that you feel the other person really needs to answer so John Yang I'll have you go first why what question do you want to put to Lee Chang actually and I want to put one to see if we can find a point of agreement because I heard him say that he does agree that a Tipping Point might be appropriate at some level but he disagrees with affirmative action or at least certainly the Harvard standard so my question would be help me design a system that recognizes race recognizes that grades and test scores are not to be on at all but yet doesn't fall afoul of what you are talking about in terms of somehow capping Asian Americans or capping any particular group what does that look like to you I think a system can be easily designed you just have to have a lot of transparency so you basically just list out all of these criteria like Harvard has with extracurriculars academics and personality right so criteria like Athletics actually falls under extracurriculars just to let you know I mean I've seen that and sometimes Athletics can become a tipping it can become a super super point but race can certainly be factored in somewhere and people just I I think have to understand if it's just one of many criteria that's all it counts for you just you numericize everything which is exactly what Harvard does Harvard even numericizes personal scores it's one through five and they very very clearly Define it they could actually recognize all of the different factors of intersectionality right so it's not just race you were you had made a point earlier John about you know the deed to have representation right it is well known that the benefits of racial preference do not go to poor black Americans a plurality if not majority of racial of race-based slots actually go to African immigrants in West Indies immigrants from the West Indies something like 40 percent at least okay and 70 to 70 plus percent of all of the race reserve seats at Harvard of every single ethnic group ends up with rich people with Rich Kids so what Harvard's doing is really aggregating rich people so I I you could design the program you if you and I sat down I can design that program for you I can guarantee you Harvard would not accept it because it's not going to result in the racial balancing that's illegal that Harvard wants hey guess what I haven't heard if you don't mind is what you've described seems to be what Harvard is trying to design but it sounds like just you feel like they aren't given sufficient guidance or that there is some sort of racial animus that needs to be taken out of them in assigning these ratings and assigning some of these scores that we're talking about and because what and yeah so let me leave it there to see if I'm misunderstanding that because I didn't hear something different than what Harvard is already doing because they they are pretty transparent about all of these different factors I mean maybe you're objecting to how they come up with a number it's the weight that they give to race as demonstrated by statistics that you refuse to acknowledge and disagree about yeah well now that's unfair to say that I refuse to acknowledge statistics there is a battle of the X at a minimum there's a battle that the experts if we're talking about the Harvard case and in that battle at least at the district court level The District Court resolved it in favor of heart that's fair so that's that's okay that's right I think it's unfair to say that you refused technology you refuse to acknowledge these statistics that show that Asian Americans are getting categorically massively lower personal scores by fact by by several orders of magnitude all right I'm going to declare an impasse on that one but Lee I'd like to know what your question is to John what do you think he needs to have answered here so back in 1993-94 when friends a couple of friends and I helped organize the whole versus San Francisco Unified School District right we found out that for 20 odd years Chinese American parents and kids poor ones were approaching Asian American civil rights groups and telling them um hey you know we're being forced to score higher than because of any other ethnic group and they approached Henry Durr of Chinese for affirmative action and other civil rights groups and they were told hey nothing to see here this is for a good cause okay it's the it's the supported the help where black gets you know nothing to see we we we think you should go away and shouldn't you should go apply to other high schools what do you what would you say to an Asian American parent or child if there was a program that required them to score and you can prove it statistically and score higher or achieve more to get to the same result well the question for me is what does it mean to score a higher right if the only determinant for admission mission was these objective so-called objective marks about grade point average and test scores then I would challenge what the system is right because if if you're saying that art they have to score higher but the part of the system is trying to design to create you know a a community that is diverse then I think we we need to push back against this notion that those test scores the scoring higher is all that matters because if we look at even any University I mean again the Harvard statistics are the one that I know the most you know 30 of that Community the Harvard admittees are alumni legacies Dean's List which means the dean designates special interest people you know not to name name but like the Jody Foster Jared kushner's you know Chelsea Clinton's of the world right uh and faculty uh uh you know relatives of Faculty members thirty percent of the admissions are those categories whereas they only represent five percent of the people that are applying so if we're trying to design a system along the lines that you're talking about let's be again more open to recognize that it's not just on sort of test scores that we should be looking we need to be looking at how we create an equivalent system overall now to your specific point if someone is saying no you have to score higher than all of these These are the objective members we don't value Asian Americans as much you know I can't speak for what happened in the past but I will say that that our our organization has spoken up when we have seen that happen so I can't speak to the past but at least for the present when we see discrimination we will try to address it but we don't see that overall with the affirmative action policies that we see in place all right I want to ask a question as we have talked um about some of the cases that have come up in the past the Baki case from the late 1970s and then the grudder case in 2003 these were cases that set up the presidents that are now being challenged in the Supreme Court and one of the important points there was the the Court's opinion back then that using race as one of several factors was a kind of discrimination that was permitted under strict scrutiny because there was a compelling government interest in achieving diversity as an educational ideal and benefit in the University system to all students not not the argument was no longer being made just to students who had been marginalized or were underprivileged but to all students and in the arguments that were that took place in the cases that were brought up now in the uh particularly in the in the case the UNC case the University of North Carolina Justice Thomas asked a question he said I've heard the word diversity quite a few times and I don't have a clue what it means it seems to mean everything for everyone so what do you make of that line of questioning and how do you think diversity is best achieved in school admissions is it a value to aim for Lee I believe I heard you say in your opening that you believe it is but I'd like you to take on Justice Thomas's position on this right so diversity has come to mean I think you know that it has become a proxy for race and for gender and so even even the definitions that we're using right now the way that we're describing people right you know John indicated that 28 of of Harvard student body is Asian American what does that even mean right how can we you know how can we possibly believe that people who come from a continent of dozens of countries and thou speaking thousands of languages right are are somehow the same or very very substantially similar similarly with black what does that mean there's a vast gap between African immigrants and African-Americans in the gaps between you know people who happen to be black whatever that means again you know are huge as between rich people black people and poor black people so I support diversity based upon you know uh some sort of holistic assessment but where race is used as a proxy and overweighted that's what I and most Americans are vehemently against because that is racist all right so John what I think I hear lee saying is that the concept of diversity is sort of in the abstract makes sense but that in reality it's been corrupted and I would like you to take that on well I guess I would look at it and say in reality it has not been corrupted and in fact we need to do more because if you look at the statistics related to people of color are in c-suites or females and c-suites you look at the statistics and Lead obviously knows this well with respect to General counsels or Equity partners and law firms communities of color are still lagging and so we need to do more to make sure that those communities are being lifted up so in that sense I I think the diversity is more than an abstract concept is one that we need to strive for and we need to create policies to help get to a more Equitable result I do appreciate what Lee is saying about that 28 number that I use uh but I think what I I use that more to set out what the Prima foshee cases so to speak if people are saying that Harvard is discriminating they have to show that there is a disproportional impact a negative impact being faced by Asian Americans and you look at that 28 number where only seven percent of the population at least it might cause someone to question it's like hmm that doesn't sound like discrimination to me but I agree with Lee with this is where we need to dig a little bit deeper is understand those statistics because the reality is that there are communities that are underrepresented oftentimes they are poor I would agree with you as well there but this is why why we need to consider race where and create create these policies where that it can have a beneficial effect again I think where we're stuck is sort of how we consider it in a way that doesn't lead to some of the the results that Lee is projecting but I I haven't heard yet something that is better that actually makes sense all right well let's move into our closing round now and in this round you just get to take one more crack at the at the issue after you've heard everything uh each of you has had to say um so Lee I'm going to give you 90 seconds to make your closing statement again the question is is affirmative action unfair to Asian Americans you are saying yes it is 90 seconds now so as you mentioned earlier John race-based affirmative action as it was permitted by the Supreme Court in 1974 and then in 2003 was never really supposed to be permanent it was always intended to be temporary in the Supreme Court Justices who wrote the controlling decisions indicated that it wasn't that used the determinative use of race was a necessary evil in 1974 it was Justice Powell who said 40 years let's give it a shot 40 years you know Justice O'Connor in 20063 said 25 years so we've been experimenting now with supposedly benign racism for almost 50 years and real people have been hurt I I brought to you the concrete example of chinese-american kids who were kept out of of a public high school because of their ethnic origin because people wanted to uh achieve racial mixing there I brought to you you know concrete examples of you know uh in evidence-backed examples of Harvard College basically toggling down the personality scores of Asian Americans to levels that were are unimaginably low you know and so very very few people have benefited right if people want to put in a program where there's such a high cost at least somebody should benefit so 50 years after these race-based programs have been put into place poor black people are still poor poor black people are still not achieving academically the way that everyone would like to see every Community achieve right so it's time I think for everybody take a step back and try to think about better ways right to achieve equality and equity and you know the benefits of our society for everybody in a way that moves us forward on issues of race while allowing us to talk about race while allowing us to acknowledge race to not make race so Central to our lives okay thank you very much and John Yang your turn to make your closing statement you're saying it is not true that affirmative action is unfair to Asian Americans your closing statement please sure uh first just to correct the record as aware I did not say that affirmative action should be time limited I do think that race does continue to matter you know it would be a nice ideal to have but we are not there yet I think there are a couple of things number one is I think we all agree that race does matter it should play a role the question is how much and Lee suggested that affirmative action has not done any good now I I would venture to say based on the studies that we've talked about that without affirmative action Asian Americans would not benefit any from it but the one thing we did not talk about is without affirmative action this is the case that in California that the enrollment of Hispanic Americans African-Americans plummeted significantly and so to suggest that affirmative action hasn't done anybody any good is statistically inaccurate the last thing I would say is I agree that we need to look at the statistics and the evidence and I very much worry when we say that that personal scores were toggled significantly that's not what the district court said and we could debate about what the district coordinate experts have said about the impact but certainly at the end of the day the statistics that we have show that affirmative action has not affected Asian Americans if we want to talk about equity for Asian Americans we should be talking about a whole wide range of different issues but not focus on this one narrow issue thank you John Yang and I want to say to both of you John Yang and Lee Cheng thank you so much for joining us for this conversation and debate on Intelligence Squared um I so appreciated how you you you conducted this sharp disagreement with Civility and mutual respect and also as you promised in the beginning the some Nuance that you both brought to the conversation it's really what we aim for and I want to thank you both for joining me on Intelligence Squared thank you John and John thank you Leah John and the conversation you just heard perfectly captures why we do this you know that the way discourse happens these days is pretty broken and it's why it is so refreshing but also unusual to hear two people who disagree actually be able to converse rationally and civilly and shed light not just to blow smoke and we know from so many of you that's exactly why you listen to what we're doing and why I'd like to remind you that as you turn to us for that we turn to you for support we're a non-profit and its contributions from listeners like you that keep us going so please consider sending us a buck or two or 10 or 50 whatever works for you it will give you a stake in what we're doing here each week and it will mean that we are here this week next week and beyond for now I'm John donvan and we'll see you next time thank you for tuning in to this episode of Intelligence Squared made possible by a generous Grant from the Laura and Gary Lauder Venture philanthropy fund as a non-profit our work to combat extreme polarization through civil and respectful debate is generously funded by listeners like you the rosencrans foundation and Friends of Intelligence Squared Robert Rosencrantz is our chairman Claire Connor is CEO David ariosto is head of editorial Julia melfi shayomara and Marlette Sandoval are our producers Damon Whittemore is our radio producer and I'm your host John donvan we'll see you next time

Channel: Open to Debate

Views: 7,561

Keywords: Intelligence Squared, IQ2, IQ2US, Intelligence Squared U.S., debate, live debate, I2, nyc, politics, conservative, liberal

Id: jHfI-x6w8vo

Length: 51min 20sec (3080 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 02 2022