Prof Redefines Asian Status

Asian-Americans should not be classed with other minority groups in affirmative action programs because of the relatively high degree of success they have already achieved in the professional world, a Harvard professor told an audience of about 200 people in Emerson Hall yesterday.

Speaking at a forum entitled "Are We Minorities?", sponsored by the Harvard/Radcliffe Asian-American Association (AAA), Professor of Education and Social Structure Nathan Glazer said that programs set up in the 1960s as an aid to Blacks should not apply to other minority groups.

Saying he thought it a mistake to list minority groups qualifying for affirmative action at all, Glazer added, "It was certainly a mistake to extend these programs beyond Blacks."

Glazer, author of the 1975 work Affirmative Discrimination: Ethnic Inequality and Public Policy, said that because Asian-Americans have already gained significant representation in many prestigious professions, it is unnecessary to include them in programs designed to target minorities. In support of his position, Glazer said that while Blacks constitute about 12 percent of the U.S. population, they make up only 1.8 percent of American medical school faculties; Asian-Americans, at about 2 percent the population, make up 7.5 percent.

But Professor Peter N. Kiang '80 of the University of Massachusetts at Boston, who also spoke at the forum, said that many of the criteria used to evaluate the success of Asian-Americans are misleading. Supposedly objective measures of success, such as median family income, scores on the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) and grades can give a mistaken impression of the true position of Asians, he said.

Such broad categorization ignores a "bipolar" distribution of income and status among nationalities and language groups classified as "Asian-Americans," as well as between those of different education levels, Kiang said. Generalizations about Asian-American professional success can also obscure political or social barriers, he said.

Based on full consideration, Kiang said, "You would have to conclude that Asian-Americans do not have full equality in American society."

He said that he considered it a "major mistake" that organizations like the Mellon Foundation did not class Asian-Americans as a minority group.

Many Asian-Americans are channeled early on into a narrow range of academic study, Kiang said. He said that 18 percent of the Ph.D.'s earned by Asian-Americans are in the field of engineering, 20 percent are in the physical sciences and 25 percent are in the life sciences.

But Glazer, dismissed the low representation of Asian-Americans in the humanities.

"So there won't be as many Asians teaching French literature," said Glazer. "The world won't go down. Everybody can't be everywhere."

While saying that Harvard admissions policies have amounted to discrimination against Asian-Americans, Glazer also said the pursuit of "balanced" admissions was a worthy pursuit. Harvard gives preference to athletes and children of alumni in its admissions, factors which it concedes lowered Asian-American admission rates to 80 percent that of white applicants during the 1980s.

The forum was the third event of Asian-American Cultural Week. Organizer Wesley Paul '91 said the topic was one designed to appeal to a broad range of people.

"We've noticed only Asians come to our functions," Paul said. "We'd like to encourage everyone to attend."