Harvard's Alleged Anti-Asian Discrimination

I was watching that documentary on one of my flights recently about the Chinese Exclusion Act. I've seen that documentary. What's that? There was this whole act in the... They were showing about the first Chinese guy that came to America, and I think it was in the 1700s he came over. And then he proved to be a good worker. Eventually by the 1800s there was like 60,000 Chinese people, and then for some reason America had a problem with them, and they had this Exclusion Act too. They had even allowed black people to be free and black people to vote, but the Chinese were considered less than human. What year is it? This is the 1800s. So this one... 1882, yeah. This is when they were working on the railroads a lot? Then they let them come in and work on the railroad, but they wouldn't allow them to become citizens. Bro, you ever see photos of Chinese people working on the railroads? They're some of the bleakest photos. And they all had their hair back. Their foreheads were huge for some reason, the way they would pull their hair back. They probably didn't want their hair to get stuck on the fucking track. That sounds about right. Imagine, train comes by and catches you by the hair. Oh yeah. They used them pretty badly. It's a horrific story, but the photos. I was watching that Hulu docuseries Sasquatch, and it was talking a lot about the people that they used to make the railroads and to mine and the people that used to chop, to cut down the trees up in the Pacific Northwest and up in Northern California. Yeah, it was the end. There's these photos that they showed of these Chinese folks that were working on those railroads, and it's so depressing, man. Yeah, they were treated like shit. And there's just no hope. You're not getting out of that. There's no upward mobility. There's no future. Yeah, there's a- No promise. Yeah. And then they weren't allowing them to become US citizens, even if they were born here. You know what's crazy? Even today, in Harvard, it's more difficult for Asian people to get in than anybody else. Really? Yeah, there's a lawsuit about it right now. Yeah. Apparently, they have so many Asian folks that were getting into Harvard that they decided to specifically tailor their tests to make it more difficult, or their requirements, or what they- I don't want to fuck this up, because Andrew Yang's people were the ones who were talking to me about it, one of the guys who came last time when Andrew Yang was here. Nice guy, that Andrew Yang. He's a great guy. Yeah. He's a great guy. I hope he runs again. Well, he's going to run for mayor of New York City. He's running right now. And him and this other gentleman who was ... I forget what he did, but this other guy carries a fucking gun, and he's talking about ramping up police presence, and he's a black guy, and a lot of people are behind him, and they think, this is what we need to turn the city around. They need to respect law and order, and they need to do something about the fucking crime. There's a shooting spree in Times Square, they were a four-year-old guy shot. Yeah, they had a woman and her daughter. It's crazy, man. So here it is. Yeah, America's out. The appeals court rules Harvard doesn't discriminate against Asian-American applicants. Oh, okay. So this is a federal appeals court in Boston has ruled Harvard doesn't intentionally discriminate against Asian-American applicants. What was the argument? Because there was a lot of Asian people that were insisting that that was the case. It said, the statistical evidence did not show that Harvard intentionally discriminated against Asian Americans. For Fair Admissions, an advocacy group first filed its lawsuit in 2014 saying it's Harvard, that Harvard's race-based considerations for applicants discriminated against Asian-American students in process. Today's decision, once again, finds that Harvard's admission policies were consistent with Supreme Court precedent, and lawfully and appropriately pursue Harvard's efforts to create a diverse campus that promotes learning and encourages mutual respect and understanding in our community. What is the argument, though? Opponents for ending race-based considerations at US universities were unfazed by Thursday's decision to plan to bring the case to the Supreme Court. So what does it say? What is the question? Okay, the question of how much race should be a factor in college applications is a hotly contested one. President Trump's administration has challenged college on using race in admission policies, claiming such practices violate federal law. Last month, the Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against Yale University, saying its policies violate the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Yale has said the lawsuit is baseless. What is school's admissions rules, though? That's what I'm confused with. Well, so does that mean external Chinese people or Chinese Americans? I just think it's just Asian, period. Well then when they do race, they don't say, because they only want African Americans. I mean, I'm Asian. Right. So, I mean, it's vague. Right. But, I mean, I can understand- You're a candidate. You're Canadian. It cancels everything out. It's true. It's true. What is the race-based admission policy, though, that makes them say that they discriminated? Does it say? See if you can find ... Oh, look, they've tried to pop up at you, motherfuckers. See if you can find what the argument is that Harvard does discriminate against Asians. But these guys that were with Andrew Yang, they believed pretty strongly that that's what Harvard was doing. I mean, there's a lot of those admissions tests that are racially biased according to how you grew up and what you know. So I think what they tried to do is make it ... The person who wrote the test or whatever wrote it from their perspective. We need to fix society so that you never have to think about that shit at all. Oh, here it goes. In the lawsuit, plaintiffs claim that Harvard imposes a soft racial quota, which keeps the number of Asian Americans artificially low. The low percentage of Asians admitted to Harvard, plaintiffs maintain a suspiciously similar year after year despite dramatic increases in the number of Asian American applicants and the size of the Asian American population. During the lawsuit, the plaintiffs gained access to Harvard's individualized admission files from 2014 to 2019 and aggregate data from 2000 to 2019. The plaintiffs also interviewed and deposed numerous Harvard officials from those sources. The plaintiffs revealed that Harvard admissions officers consistently rated Asian American applicants as a group lower than others on traits like positive personality, likability, courage, kindness, and being widely respected. What the fuck? Just think about what that says. They rate you on positive personality, likability, courage, kindness, and being widely respected. Those are so vague. Well, I mean, different nationalities have different personalities. Different races have different ways of dealing with things. What may be considered offensive to one is not to the other. Or likable to me is not likable to you. For sure. But look at what it says here. Asian Americans scored higher than applicants of any other racial or ethnic group on other admissions measures like test scores, grades, and extracurricular activities. But the student's personal rating significantly dragged down their admissions chances. Wow, that's weird, man. I mean, I guess you'd have to talk to someone from Harvard and get them drunk and say, what's really going on? Why do you have this likability, courage, kindness, and being wildly respected? What is a positive personality? You have to be positive. What if you're like, God damn it, I suck, but you work really hard? That's a negative personality. But maybe you have a negative opinion of yourself, but you work really hard. Maybe that's why you work hard, because you don't think of yourself very... It's weird, man. Harvard's admissions staff testified they did not believe that different racial groups have better personal qualities than others. But nevertheless, Asian applicants as a racial group received consistently weaker personal scores over the period surveyed in Harvard admissions officers rated Asian Americans with the worst personal qualities of any racial group. Wow. African Americans, on the other hand, consistently scored the lowest on academic rating, but the highest on the personal rating. You know what? Personal rating that makes me think about that whole... the Chinese social score system. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I don't like that. I don't like that. That's a very weird thing. 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