Turning Up the Heat on Affirmative Action Policies
Asian American student claims his race kept him out of Princeton.
By Peter Galuszka
Conservatives were already basking in the affirmative action ban approved by Michigan voters last month when they scored another national publicity coup in their campaign against racial preferences: A Chinese-American student says he was rejected by Princeton University because he is Asian.
Alleged discrimination against Jian Li, now a freshman at Yale University, has sparked a probe by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights. Princeton is accused of rejecting Li because its admissions policies favor Blacks, Hispanics, athletes and the children of alumni.
“Princeton does not discriminate against Asian Americans,” says Cass Cliatt, manager for public relations at the university.
She says admissions officers look for a variety of attributes that can change from year to year. “We do not believe the case has merit,” she adds.
The Michigan vote makes the state the fourth to ban affirmative action policies, following California, Texas and Washington. That victory and the Li case have empowered anti-affirmative action activists, who have now set their sites on other states. Efforts to eradicate affirmative action in Arizona, Colorado, Missouri, Nebraska, Oregon, South Dakota and Utah could begin as early as 2008, says Diane Schachterle, director of public relations for the American Civil Rights Institute, the Sacramento, Calif.-based group that tracks and supports efforts to outlaw affirmative action nationally.
“Michigan gives us political impetus and it confirms that the people understand what ‘fair’ means and they don’t want the government to distribute quotas,” she says.
