Report Criticized for Racial Groupings

A week after the release of a report on the achievement of certain ethnic groups in higher education, some are criticizing the study's separation of Asian Americans from other "minority" groups.

The report, titled "Reaching the Top," was authored by the 31-member National Task Force on Minority High Achievement. The group was established in January 1997 by the College Board to address "the chronically limited presence of African-Americans, Latinos, and Native Americans among high achieving students at all levels of the educational system."

Since the report's Oct. 17 release, some have focused their complaints not on what the report did say, but on what it did not.

In particular, critics have pointed to the report's focus on the underachievement of African-Americans, Latinos and Native Americans, but not Asian-Americans. In the report the achievement of the three minority groups is contrasted against the performance of both whites and Asian Americans.

Many in the Asian-American community, including local groups like the Cambodian American League of Lowell, have expressed concern that Asian Americans are no longer considered a disadvantaged minority.

Emily Y. Yang '01, co-president of the Harvard Asian American Association, noted that the group was created in the 1970s when Harvard did not allow two Asian students to participate in a panel on minority issues.

"I think it is very important to recognize the fact that Asian-Americans tend to be forgotten," Yang said.

Many Asian-Americans feel they are the victims of the stereotype that they all have high academic achievement and are well educated, according to Yang.

"It's a stereotype we want to break," Yang said. "The majority of Asian-Americans don't have opportunities. If you go into Asiatown or Chinatown you definitely see Asians discriminated against."

Census figures back up this view of many Asian-Americans who are still socio-economically disadvantaged. In 1990, Asian Americans in Boston had a per-capita income half that of whites and over $1,000 below blacks.

A significant portion of Boston's Asian Americans, 38 percent, also had less than a 12th-grade education, double the percentage of whites and five percent more than the percentage of blacks with similar levels of education.

The director of the task force, whose members include DuBois Professor of the Humanities Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Boston Public School Superintendent Thomas W. Payzant, said the report was not meant to suggest that Asian-Americans are not a minority group.

L. Scott Miller, director of the National Task Force on Minority High Achievement, said the task force was charged specifically with studying African Americans, Latinos, and Native Americans, not all minorities or under-performing students.

"The [task force] was not convened to work on how to improve all students who under-perform," Miller said. "Nowhere will you find in the report a finding that we should do less for any disadvantaged kids."

Miller justifies the exclusion of Asian Americans by pointing to the specific nature of the under-achievement that the committee was investigating.

He said the committee focused on the fact that African-Americans, Latinos and Native Americans tend to under-perform white students, even when differences of parental education or socio-economic status are taken into effect. They also do not do as well academically in college as their high school grades or SAT scores would suggest.

This is not the case for Asian-Americans, according to Miller. Children of well-educated Asian-American parents do equally well as white children of well-educated parents, he said.

"We focused on a certain set of issues and not others," Miller said.

The report's call for more attention on certain groups of minorities does not mean the report wants less for other minorities or disadvantaged groups, according to Miller.

"If I improve issue A, does it have to mean that I decrease issue B?" Miller asked. "The report contains conceptual tools to benefit all disadvantaged groups."

Reports issued recently by the group, such as the report on the average SAT scores of the high school senior class of 1999, include Asian Americans in statistics on minorities.