When Will America Stop Discriminating Against Our Brightest Asian Students?

With the national spotlight aimed at preventing violence and discrimination against Asian-Americans, it’s worth asking why the Biden administration last month dropped a lawsuit brought by the Trump administration that accused Yale in October of discriminating against Asian students applying to the elite university. 

But it’s not just Yale. Reports of anti-Asian bias in education span America’s coasts, from the most competitive New York public high schools to the California public university system. Now’s the time to stop this race-based bias that denies Asian students a chance to flourish and achieve based on their skills, not be held back by their skin color. 

In the name of affirmative action—to give quotas for other races—these schools are rejecting Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s noble call that all children should “not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.” “Soft” bigotry in support of affirmative action for other races is no excuse in the fight to #StopAsianHate.

The Trump Department of Justice stated in August that Yale violated civil rights laws: “discriminates based on race and national origin in its undergraduate admissions process, and that race is the determinative factor in hundreds of admissions decisions each year.” 

The Trump DOJ’s actions reportedly came as a result of a 2016 complaint by the New Jersey-based Asian American Coalition for Education coalition against Yale, Brown, and Dartmouth (AACE). 

The AACE rejected Biden’s move, saying in a statement last month: “The Biden Administration’s baseless dismissal of the lawsuit showcases its unwillingness to protect Asian-American children against blatant and widespread discrimination. This astonishing regression also exposes the Biden Administration’s hypocrisy in issuing the window-dressing memorandum to combat anti-Asian racism pertaining to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Administration’s refusal to defend equality and merit in college admissions will unequivocally harm Asian-American students.”

The American Enterprise Institute’s Carpe Diem blog release a venn diagram calling out the hypocrisy rejecting a fair playing field for Asian-Americans in education:

The Wall Street Journal editorial board noted that Democratic Rep. Ted Lieu of California at a hearing Thursday wasn’t interested in tackling this systemic anti-Asian bias in universities: “Amid all the concerns about rising anti-Asian bias, Mr. Lieu and progressives are desperate to squelch any debate about discrimination against well-qualified Asian-Americans by leading universities. They don’t want Americans to know that the left favors discrimination by race when it suits their political purposes.”

The Left has made the word “equity” its new buzzphrase, claiming that some discrimination is acceptable to right historical wrongs. But whether it’s the Biden administration, Lieu or New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, these and other Democrats are explicitly harming Asian students. The time to stop is now.