Friday, July 13, 2012

Who is Perpetuating Racial Discrimination Against AsAm Students?


Dear Fellow Asian Americans and Friends,

The schools are smart, they know the best defense for race conscious policies is to portray all minorities love it.  Vocal AsAm allies create just that impression. 

Watch this AsAm legal counsel for Univ. of Texas (UT) publicly proclaiming “Fisher v. UT Austin” to be without any merit during the critical period the Supreme Court was evaluating whether to take up Fisher’s petition. Fortunately the Supreme Court did NOT listen to him.

With “Fisher” moving forward, many AsAm orgs rushed to the schools’ rescues ONCE AGAIN!

They DID it in the past

APALC and its affiliates filed an amicus brief in support of Univ. of Michigan’s race-conscious admissions program in the 2003 Supreme Court case, “Grutter v. Bollinger”, insisting AsAms are “not harmed by” but rather “benefited from” such practice.  Thanks to APALC, the “Grutter” decision opened the flood gate to enhanced race-conscious policies many schools practiced over the last 9 years that your children and grand-children currently enjoy:  UT Austin announced on the VERY SAME DAY of the “Grutter” decision that it would RE-INTRODUCE race/ethnicity into college admission, which led to the current “Fisher v. UT Austin” case.  When the “Fisher” case was at the US Fifth Circuit court in 2010, APALC and its affiliates promptly filed an amicus brief again, ensuring the upholding of “race conscious” policy which has now reached the Supreme Court.

Emboldened by “Grutter”, AALDEF and its affiliates filed an amicus brief to extend race-conscious admissions policy into K-12 education.  In the 2007 Supreme Court cases “Parents v. Seattle School District” and “Meredith v. Jefferson”, they argued for the school districts’ racial balancing plan.  Under such a policy, a student could be bused to other school districts if the school across the street reached the predetermined racial quota.  Imagine the agony of AsAm parents who literally sacrificed everything to move into a good school district only to find that their children really need to “benefit from” forced racial integration into a bad school district.

Now they are doing it AGAIN

APALC and AALDEF have publicly announced they will file an amicus brief YET AGAIN at the Supreme Court (August 13th deadline).  If they are as successful as they have been in the past, you can be rest assured that your children and grand-children will “benefit from” the race conscious college admissions policy for the next quarter century.

In preparation, AALDEF issued a press release on June 25 titled “The Majority of AsAms Support Race-Conscious Admissions Policies”, aimed specifically to discredit 80-20EF’s historic open & neutral survey of 50,000 people showing overwhelming AsAm support for race-neutral, merit-based college admissions.

Our response is simple: Why don’t we work together to conduct a large-scale AsAms survey specifically on college admissions, designed by professionals, monitored by neutral third parties, and open to all AsAms, to find out who is lying?

If you disagree with the APALC and AALDEF stance, please let them know their upcoming amicus brief will do immeasurable harm to AsAm interests, especially if it creates the impression “The Majority of AsAms Support Race-Conscious Admissions Policies”, as AALDEF publicly proclaimed.

Stewart Kwoh (skwoh@apalc.org), Asian Pacific American Legal Center
Margaret Fung (info@aaldef.org), Asian American Legal Defense & Education Fund

It takes courage to challenge the status quo and defend our core interest.  Your silence has been interpreted by APALC and AALDEF, and maybe by the Supreme Court, as “the silent majority” supporting the current policy, a perfect recipe to ensure your children and grandchildren would continue to “benefit from” the race-conscious policy for the next quarter century.

Will you do your part to support 80-20 in this ferocious battle for equality?  The future of your children is in your hands.

Or send your check to: 80-20 PAC, 13337 South St. #189,  Cerritos,  CA 90703.
Family membership is $50 (two), individual $35, student $15.

Please see us on Facebook at: www.facebook.com/8020PAC 

Respectfully,

80-20Collective Leadership