An Asian quota is a type of racial quota limiting the number of people of Asian descent in an establishment, a special case of numerus clausus. It usually refers to alleged educational quotas in US higher educationadmissions, specifically by Ivy League universities against Asian Americans, especially persons of East Asian and South Asian descent starting in the late 1980s. These allegations of discrimination have been denied by US universities. Asian quotas have been compared to the earlier Jewish quotas, which limited admissions of a model minority from the 1910s to the 1950s, which were also denied at the time, but whose existence is now not disputed. Some have thus called Asian-Americans "The New Jews" of university admissions. More generally, by various measures admissions have a bias against Asian applicants, though not necessarily a strict quota: for example, successful Asian applicants have on average higher test scores than the overall average. The perceived bias against applicants of Asian descent has been termed a "bamboo ceiling" or "Asian penalty". Alleged Asian quotas have been the subject of government investigations and lawsuits, with some minor conclusions of their existence, though no major judgements, as of 2017.
Evidence
The primary evidence in favor of the existence of an Asian quota in United States universities admissions is statistical: over the 1990s and 2000s, when the college-age population of Asian-American roughly doubled, the percentage of admitted Asian-Americans at Ivy League schools not only declined, but converged to a narrow range across different schools, and has stayed relatively constant from year to year. By comparison, at schools that had race-blind policies, such as in the University of California system and the California Institute of Technology, Asian-American admissions increased in line with population, and at academic contests, such as International Science Olympiads, Asian representation increased substantially over this period. Regarding Harvard admissions, Ron Unz writes: While California is more Asian than other regions of the United States, it admits students nationally and internationally, and thus the above numbers are not solely reflective of regional demographics. By contrast, in New York City, which has the country's largest urban Asian population, the prestigious specialized high schools of Stuyvesant High School and Bronx Science have majority Asian student bodies, which increased over the 1990s and 2000s, but at Columbia University, which is in the Ivy League, the Asian undergraduate population fell from 22.7% in 1993 to 15.6% in 2011.
Denial
Ivy League universities deny that there is an Asian quota. Due to the sensitivity of college admissions and racial preferences generally, and legal concerns, official statements are largely blanket denials, and a defense of holistic admission, rather than specific answers to charges. Some historians and former admissions officers likewise deny that there is an Asian quota or a bias against Asian applicants, or conclude as much. More generally, the bias in test scores is ascribed to applicants being judged on more than test scores. Stated formally, rather than higher test scores among successful Asian applicants meaning that an individual Asian applicant must meet a higher bar than an otherwise identical non-Asian applicant, it may simply be a reflection that Asians have relatively higher test scores: compared to the overall applicant pool, Asians have higher test scores, and a borderline Asian applicant will have higher test scores, but be lower on all other non-academic measures, than the average borderline applicant.
History
Lawsuits
Racial quotas are illegal in United States college admissions, but race can be used as a factor in admissions decisions, as decided in Regents of the Univ. of Cal. v. Bakke and re-affirmed in Fisher v. University of Texas. Lawsuits have been filed on this basis, including:
Harvard University was sued in 2018 for allegedly downgrading Asian Americans application scores to reduce amount of admission. The United States Justice Department later stated that Harvard did not demonstrate that they did not discriminate during admissions based on race.
