Dr. Janelle Wong Publishes in the Chronicle of Higher Education on Race-Conscious Admissions

An excerpt from Dr Janelle Wong's Commentary in The Chronicle of Higher Education:"Last week the Department of Justice, joined by the Department of Education, opened a new front in the fight over affirmative action, announcing an investigation into whether Yale discriminates illegally against Asian-American applicants. The move represents the latest attempt by the Trump administration to take aim at the longstanding practice of allowing race to be used as one of many factors, and never the primary or sole factor, in admissions at highly selective colleges and universities. I am Asian-American, received two degrees from Yale, and I have conducted research on Asian-Americans for more than 20 years as a professor of Asian-American studies. I am also the parent of an Asian-American high-school-aged son who will soon be applying to college. It is for these very reasons that I oppose the investigation and support the current policy of race-conscious admissions.For the past two decades, I have devoted much of my professional life to teaching students about the long history of racial discrimination faced by Asian-Americans in the United States. Most students have some knowledge of the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act and the World War II internment of Japanese-Americans, but fewer are familiar with the ways in which anti-Asian hostility led to lynching and mob violence against Asian-Americans in the mid-1800s.I teach thousands of students this history. I also emphasize how recycled stereotypes of Asian-Americans as "forever foreigners" have led to false charges of spying directed at Chinese-American scientists in recent times. Spending my adult life conducting research on and teaching these topics has made me keenly aware of how race has shaped the experiences of Asian-Americans.At the same time, my experience as a scholar and teacher has helped me to be more aware of how Asian-Americans fit into America’s larger racial landscape. I have followed closely the Department of Justice’s investigations of anti-Asian discrimination at Harvard and now Yale, and I don’t buy the charges.First, Asian-Americans, many of whom are Chinese-American, like me, are enrolled at Yale at a rate three times greater than their numbers in the population. This, on its face, seems to distinguish the case at Yale and Harvard from other, more traditional civil-rights investigations. It is much more typical to demonstrate discrimination though lack of inclusion."Click here for full article.