Kerby Anderson

Michael Wang should have been able to get into the college of his choice. He had a perfect score on the ACT and was second in his high school class. He was accomplished musically and even was selected to sing at the inauguration of Barack Obama. Like I said, he should have been able to get into any college. Instead, six out of seven Ivy League schools rejected him. Michael Wang got suspicious when he noticed that other classmates and acquaintances that had less impressive credentials and experiences were admitted. Edward Blum (Project on Fair Representation) looked into Michael Wang’s situation and was able to identify another dozen Asian-American students with similar experiences. That’s when he decided to file a lawsuit against Harvard University alleging racial discrimination. Any type of affirmative action plan is going to be by definition discriminating against one person in order to advance another person. Many of these college admission’s policies as well as governmental affirmative action guidelines advance a minority from one race over a minority from another race that has also faced discrimination. Asian-American students would have a greater chance of being admitted to competitive colleges if they were African-American or Hispanic. The latest word is that the US Justice Department will join the case. The filing argues that Harvard University has a vague admission’s policy that results in “unlawful racial discrimination on Asian-Americans.” It is possible that this case might begin to unravel the many affirmative action policies in universities and in state and local governments. By attempting to advance one racial minority, colleges and governments are discriminating against another racial minority. We might be seeing the beginning of the end of affirmative action.