Opinion Diversity on campus: Why Ed Blum is wrong

Diversity in higher education is under attack, and it’s not based on some morally righteous cause for racial justice as Ed Blum, a leader of an anti-affirmative action group, Students for Fair Admissions, would want people to think.

Race is a determinant of our lived experiences. We cannot have a truly meritocratic society if the opportunity for higher education isn’t an equitable process that works to redress past and present inequalities. (Illustration: CR Sasikumar)

December 25, 2022 11:35 AM IST First published on: Dec 25, 2022 at 07:56 AM IST

I was racialized at 5. I distinctly remember not being touched by a fellow student — being perceived as dirty and unclean because of my brown skin. I was often called slurs and attacked for merely existing. In a very homogeneously White, small town in Arkansas, it felt like diversity was inherently unpleasant. I quite literally attempted to whitewash myself, using lightening creams and pale foundation shades. Internalized racism defined my experiences with my identity throughout my childhood. It even went so far that I refused to be friends with other South Asian people so as not to be a part of “those people”, my people.

That changed when I came to Harvard. Coming to a place that valued diversity in the student body made me feel accepted in a way I had never experienced. The new friends I had made wanted to learn about my culture — the music, and festivals.

It was this sort of radical acceptance that an embrace of diversity brought about. I also had the opportunity to interact with people who came from very different backgrounds from mine and celebrated and learned with them. I went from feeling the need to assimilate and feeling shame in my brownness and Asian American identity to being accepted and loved for who I was. It’s absolutely frightening that this sort of experience may not remain the same.

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Diversity in higher education is under attack, and it’s not based on some morally righteous cause for racial justice as Ed Blum, a leader of an anti-affirmative action group, Students for Fair Admissions, would want people to think. I am one of the student leads and founders of the affirmative action coalition, a group of student organizations at Harvard advocating for the continued existence of affirmative action policy at our University and around the nation. Through our work — organizing events throughout the country and holding a large rally in Washington D.C. — we were able to spread a clear and direct message that we students, representing various diverse racial and ethnic communities, won’t be driven apart.

I am fighting for this issue because I believe that SFFA is basing this case on a completely false narrative, weaponizing Asian American identity and I, a South Asian woman, refused to be used as a pawn in this case for Ed Blum’s white supremacist agenda.

He is trying to divide Asian Americans from other Black and Brown communities in America by perpetuating complete falsehoods about affirmative action. There is absolutely no evidence that Harvard discriminates against Asian Americans in the admissions process — proven multiple times in the lower courts through extensive data collection and analysis of countless admissions files. The class of 2026 at Harvard is 27.6 per cent Asian American, while Asians only make up 6.2% of the United States population as a whole. The truth is that Asian Americans, if anything, benefit from affirmative action, as I believe I did. I got in because of affirmative action because my race is essential to my identity, and my story cannot be told without it.

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The United States has a storied history with race. Although we are 200+ years past the times when slavery of African American people was legal, that horrific system has simply been reformulated into equally problematic institutions. Near Harvard itself, the average life expectancy for some Black-majority areas of Boston is decades less than that of White-majority areas, and it’s because of the continuous nature of segregation and inequities in access to health care in the region. The same forces of White supremacy that hold Black people from social mobility are the same factors that make casual racism and discrimination against South Asian people familiar.

SFFA also utilizes the “model minority myth”, stereotyping all Asian Americans as homogeneously successful and wealthy — that we are inherently more deserving than any other ethnic group to get into colleges like Harvard. Their use of this misconception also homogenizes Indian Americans. It’s not a leap to assume the same will occur with lowered-caste Indians in the admissions process as they as well don’t fall into this homogenous and one-note stereotype.

Race is a determinant of our lived experiences. We cannot have a truly meritocratic society if the opportunity for higher education isn’t an equitable process that works to redress past and present inequalities. As NAACP Legal Defence Fund said in the amicus brief that represents the Harvard student organizations, no racial groups hold a monopoly on talent or intelligence, but certain students hold a monopoly on an opportunity.

The writer is a sophomore at Harvard University majoring in History. Suraj Yengde, author of Caste Matters, curates Dalitality.