希望能帮助提高亚裔高校录取率的“法律之友”文书已经正式递交最高法院了。文书的具体内容请见： http://www.80-20educationalfoundation.org/pdf/amicus-brief.pdf
主要发起组织80-20亚裔教育基金会向大家介绍了这篇文书的起草和递交的一些具体情况：
“二月时，美国最高法院同意受理Fisher vs. University of Texas (德州大学) 关于高校录取学生时把“族裔”作为考量之一这种做法是否违宪。事实上，因为亚裔家庭一般很重视孩子的教育，所以亚裔孩子普遍比较优秀。于是许多名校一看考生是亚裔就人为地增高了录取门槛。例如要入同一所名校，亚裔录取生的SAT要比西裔和非裔高三，四百分。
“80-20基金会今年三月时组织了一个美籍亚裔的民调来考量亚裔是否支持法院来取消这对亚裔实则有反向歧视的‘族裔优先’的高校录取政策。在一个月左右的时间，我们争取到了五万签名。其中四万七千有效的美籍亚裔签名里，支持和反对高校取消“族裔考量”录取政策的比例高达52.4比1。这个数据清清楚楚地表达了亚裔的民意。
“在美国，很多组织都会通过递交‘法律之友’的文件来影响法院在案件上的裁决。在民调结果的基础上，我们雇了一位和最高法院有过多次成功办案经验的宪法专家犹太律师来帮我们起草和递交了这份‘法律之友’的文书， 并与Fisher 的律师团合作将亚裔学生的处境做为推翻2003 Grutter 案例的主要证据之一。这篇‘法律之友’用数据说明了亚裔学生进入名校的高门槛，也类比了百年前藤校对犹太学生的录取限制和今天名校对亚裔的限制实际上是如出一辙。我们也找到了三个全美最大的美籍印度裔组织和一个知名的犹太人权组织来和我们联合递交这份文书。（我们希望这个类比能帮助最高法院九名大法官中的两位犹太法官更好地理解到我们亚裔考生现在的处境。）
“通过这个案子，我们有可能性限制或推翻高校录取的种族考量政策，不过要取得胜利是很困难的：德州大学已经花了近百万元聘请了一个很大的 （2000人）律师事务所来代表他们。他们一定也会号召协调许多组织来发代表学校利益的‘法律之友’。目前已有五个亚裔组织公开表示他们会递交‘法律之友’坚决支持学校来维持这个实际上对亚裔录取不利的现状， 更有许多其他亚裔组织在观望。很多亚裔组织因为自己资金来源等复杂原因而不愿意代表真正的民意来维护我们孩子上理想大学的合理权益表示遗憾。”
亲爱的朋友，周末的时候，我去参加了儿子的钢琴汇报演出。他们那场的21个学生几乎都是亚裔小朋友，颁奖的时候孩子们几乎也都考上了级。虎妈和财爸们，请问送娃学钢琴的Return on Investment是多少呢？我先生帮哈佛做录取面试时，发现70%的小中娃都是钢琴十级，所以大家辛苦供孩子学钢琴的ROI从爬藤的意义来讲其实是小的可怜的。然而在这个案子上，你的投入应当是有回报的。哈佛大学年初时被教育部调查是否在录取上对亚裔有歧视之嫌，今年亚裔的录取率就是近年来最高的，比往年增加了15%。
请问当你的孩子或孩子的孩子以后在上大学时，你是否可以自豪地告诉他说, ‘我在帮你入理想的学校时尽了我的力量呢？”除了80-20，还有哪个组织愿意挑头为大家做这件事儿呢。如果大家都不吭气，那些支持学校的亚裔组织就已经理直气壮地代表了我们。如果您愿意支持80-20在这次的努力，请考虑和我一样，花一堂钢琴课的钱支持80-20促进会（http://www.80-20initiative.net/）
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80-20 Educational Foundation* filed Supreme Court Brief TODAY (the plaintiff-side deadline) advocating race-neutral merit-based college admissions on behalf of Asian Americans and all people.
http://www.80-20educationalfoundation.org/pdf/amicus-brief.pdf
Background:
Under the current race-conscious college admission policy, Asian American (AsAm) students are severely discriminated against. Princeton sociologist Thomas Espenshade reported in his 2009 book: “To receive equal consideration by elite colleges, Asian Americans must outperform Whites by 140 points, Hispanics by 280 points, Blacks by 450 points in SAT (Total 1600).”
AsAms are not just good test takers. For example, in 2006, they were 27% of Presidential Scholars, who are chosen based on scholarship, service, leadership, and creativity.
80-20 sponsored a neutral and open survey of Asian Ams on its website a month ago. 47,000 Asian Americans (AsAms) took the survey. When offered a choice of "Against" or "For" a race-neutral college admission policy, they chose a race-neutral policy by a 52 to 1 ratio. For details visit http://www.80-20educationalfoundation.org/projects/colleges.asp
S. B. Woo, former Lt. Governor of Delaware (1985-89) and President of 80-20 said, "Given this mandate, we filed an amicus brief advocating a race-neutral college admission policy. Our brief gives a superb account of why the discrimination against AsAms, caused by a race-conscious admission policy is wrong. It also calls the Court's attention to SIMILAR discrimination against Jewish American students in the past."
Kenneth Marcus, President of The Brandeis Center and a former staff director of the federal Civil Rights Commission stated, "It wasn't right for the elite colleges to limit Jewish students then, it's still not right to limit Asian Ams students now."
Alan Gura, attorney for the joint filing said, "Every facet of the discrimination that Asian Americans face today in college admissions has been reflected in the Jewish experience. Read my brief."
An electronic copy of the brief and/or a list of name/city/state of the 47,000+ AsAm survey takers will be made available.
http://www.80-20educationalfoundation.org/pdf/amicus-brief.pdf
The survey clearly revealed an overwhelming AsAm consensus for a race-neutral college admission policy. Any AsAm organization taking a different stand is only speaking for themselves, not the community. 80-20 challenges them to do a similar survey to prove 80-20 wrong.
The battle is NOT won. We are facing formidable opponents with unlimited resources. UT Austin has already paid $977,000 to retain Latham & Watkins LLP, a 2,000-lawyer firm with 31 offices who successfully defended the 2003 Grutter case. In Grutter, the Supreme Court sanctioned limited use of race in college admissions, the abuse of which gave rise to the current case: Fisher vs. UT Austin. There is no doubt L&W will coordinate dozens of Amicus briefs vigorously defending the current race-conscious admission policies, and the briefs will include some AsAm organizations who are determined to ensure you and I would enjoy the current policy for another 20 years.
To increase our odd in this David vs. Goliath struggle, we have deployed the following strategies:
· Partnering with a Brandeis Center for Human Rights, a well-known Jewish org whose president is the Staff Director of The Federal Civil Rights Commission.
· Hired a Jewish lawyer who is a constitutional law specialist, had won a recent Supreme Court case, and is in the inner circle of the Fisher lawyers.
· Quantitatively documented the much high barrier AsAms must overcome to gain college admissions. Coordinated with Fisher lawyers such that the AsAm experience is now a core argument against racial preferences in the main Fisher brief.
· Systematically documented how the current college admission practices evolved from the conscious effort to limit Jewish enrollment a century ago. Make it plainly clear “Asian Americans are the new Jews”. The Supreme Court Justices may not be familiar with the AsAm experience, but are intimately familiar with the Jewish experience. This might dampen the enthusiasm of two liberal Justices (Ginsberg and Breyer, both Jewish) in their defense of racial preferences.
· Conducted a historically unprecedented 50,000 person (of which 47,000 are AsAms) opinion survey which demonstrated that our community favors race-neutral merit-based college admission by a ratio of 52:1. This open and neutral survey is done to neutralize those AsAm orgs who claims they represent us and we all love racial preferences.
· Enlisted the support of three largest national umbrella Indian American organizations as Amici in this brief. Yes, our Indian American friends have the gut to fight this battle. This turned out to be the most difficult task: Most national AsAm orgs refused to step forward for fear of offending outside interests, including their funding sources.
· Publicize our effort to deter more AsAm orgs (who have not yet came forward) from joining UT Austin. Many would otherwise be tempted to do so for a variety of organizational gains.
We MAY fail, not the least of which is due to some other AsAm orgs who insist that they represent you. They will have until the end of August (the defendant-side deadline) to study our brief to death and kill it with their briefs. Six such AsAm orgs have already publicly announced they will file Amicus briefs on behalf of UT Austin. They said you are the 15 million silent majorities who are secretly longing for more race-conscious treatment. Your silence is the proof.
Failure is not the dichotomy of success. Failure is keep doing the same thing (which in this case is DOING NOTHING) over and over again and hope the outcome would be different this time. Failure is to accept defeat before the battle even starts (How many said the voice of AsAms is too feeble to be heard? How many said there is no precedent of AsAms winning any Supreme Court cases? The Supreme Court is there for the expressed purpose of setting precedents for the lower courts!)
To our dear friends, your support has been critical in carrying us this far. Instead of “I wish I could have, should have done something” when your children hit the college barrier, you can proudly say “I did not accept such a barrier, I smashed it”. To others, please take a moment to reflect and to consider join the effort NOW (at the website below). Your silence is the very reason why some many AsAm orgs are so audaciously sticking to the current college admissions policy. http://www.80-20initiative.net/membership/join.asp
*80-20 Educational Foundation is a 501(C)(3) tax-exempt organization. It is devoted to furthering equal opportunity in the workplace and equal justice for Asian Americans. It has the same goals as 80-20 Initiative, Inc. with an overlapping Board. However, these organizations use different approaches. 80-20 Educational Foundation focuses on political education, it does not take political action such as endorsement of political candidates. The two organizations, while sharing the same goal, are operated independently. All donations to this Foundation are tax deductible.
