Affirmative Action Needs to Go

I want to talk about something that’s heavily prevalent in medical school admissions, college admissions and workplace hiring processes.

Affirmative action. By the definition of Google, affirmative action is “a policy that aims to increase opportunities in the workplace or education to underrepresented parts of society by taking into account an individual’s color, race, sex, religion, or national origin.”

In simple words, they want to limit admitting certain races and set lower academic/merit thresholds for other races so they can get in much easily than the other races to ‘increase diversity’. It just so happens the race they want to limit is Asians (a minority, mind you) and White people, and the races they want to increase are Native American, African-American, Hispanic or really, any race other than Asian/White. This policy was already doomed from the start because it relies on the principle of being racist to try and solve racism.

The thing about affirmative action is it doesn’t just benefit all people of color and is against all white people; it’s literally not all black and white. It disadvantages Asians, uplifts some white people (Spanish people are white, some Latin people are also white). If you’re Asian, you get all the negative implications of being a minority: adversity, racism, hardships, and AA still penalises you. It’s so humiliating and degrading.

I’ve seen Asians get rejected with a 3.8 GPA, 521 MCAT and a perfect essay and profile and African-American applicants get accepted with a 3.1 GPA, a 505 MCAT, and a full-ride scholarship after applying late in the admissions cycle (which is not recommended for others as they’ll probably get rejected). Why is this fair? This means that Asians have to fight harder to get in, maybe take gap years and stay at low paying jobs till they can reapply, and wait longer to pay their debts. Why should Asians have to take gap years? Why should they have to survive on low income? Why should they have to wait longer to pay their debts?

Asian applicants are scrutinised for the tiniest typo, the tiniest typo that can and will cost them their spot, the tiniest typo that wouldn’t matter in a black/Hispanic applicant’s application. They shouldn’t have to be perfect in every aspect of their application just because they’re Asian. They make mistakes like everyone else and it shouldn’t cost them their career; but it does.

Why it Matters to Me

I was absolutely appalled seeing it’s so deep-rooted and widespread and the fact that it is even a thing, disgusts me to no end. You can’t fight racism with more racism damnit.

My frustration with affirmative action stems from growing up in a country where I’ve had to watch certain individuals (scheduled castes) get handouts and walk into top universities with the lowest scores, get to pay less than 10% of the total fees other castes have to pay, and drop out because they can’t handle it; effectively wasting a spot that could’ve gone to someone with higher merit, and watching the smartest people around me getting left with nothing no matter how smart they were, no matter they made straight A’s and scored in the 99th percentile, and someone else waltzing in with a 20th percentile and not even using their degree in the future, all because they’re the ‘wrong caste.’ It was a slap in the face and is still the unfortunate reality for many Indian youth. And that’s the problem with this country. People don’t get what they deserve. The result: unemployment. Surprise surprise!

I don’t support racism. No one deserves to be judged by what they can’t change. I don’t care how many people I upset, I’ll continue to advocate against this classless and discriminatory policy.

Even if I was benefited by AA, I still wouldn’t support it for the sake of solidarity. Everyone deserves to be treated equally. We must strive for equality, not equity. Period.

Popular Reaction

There are often people saying “there are no quotas, it’s all in your head” – which is a slap in the face to Asians and Whites and frankly, a disservice to themselves. Pretending it’s not a thing only harms everyone in the equation. People would often call you racist and think you don’t support diversity because you’re against affirmative action. I have to say to those people; is shooting down select races your only way to bring about diversity? if you think only black/latino people can face racism, you’re out of your mind. If you think racism is okay as long as it’s against Asians and Whites and you claim to be an ally, you’re the only racist here.

I hate how all we ask is to be judged by our character and not by the color of our skin, and somehow that’s asking for too much and “oppressing and attacking underrepresented minorities.”

In fact, the majority of times I’ve been attacked for not wanting to be discriminated against by this disgusting system, has been by the beneficiaries of the system itself. And I get that, if people get advantaged by something even if it means screwing certain other people over, they don’t care. I would though; I’d still be writing this post had I been of any other race; it’s called having empathy for other people.

Also to everyone saying that White people or Asians are actually benefited by AA cause it helps seeing how diverse they are or whatever: that’s all gobblygook because when it comes down to it, quota systems prove ‘overrepresented minorities’ (we have a term for it, sad) have to score 540 points higher than ‘underrepresented minorities’ on the SAT.

According to them, discrimination is okay as long as they’re the beneficiary.

They want you to believe that Asians who came to the country without a penny in their name are the beneficiaries of systematic racism and therefore, need to be discriminated against in favor of some ‘diversity goal’.

Oh and Asians and whites can face racism too. Maybe they didn’t face as much racism historically but is tragedy really a competition? And Asians can get deported too.

“Black and Hispanic People were historically disadvantaged, and predominantly oppressed by White People”- yes, but does that mean their descendants deserve to face your wrath? Is vengeance your justification to look down upon entire races? What have their descendants done to you? They’re your peers. You’re advocating for them to be discrimated against? Even worse, Asians did NOTHING to you, were also historically disadvantaged, and you still want them to be screwed over for ‘diversity’.

Why I put diversity in quotes you ask? Because diversity achieved by spitting in the face of other people isn’t real diversity.

My ideal system? It’s simple: work hard like everybody else, get in on your own merit and not your skin color, and if you can’t, then maybe you don’t deserve to go.

If we can get in despite having the odds stacked against us, they can too. They aren’t even discriminated against in admissions, we are. If other races don’t get in, why is it always the fault of Asians?

They should not be punished for being high achieving and wanting to go into academia, science or medicine. They’re also more likely to be immigrants, of weaker socio-economic statuses, come from public schools, face familial pressure to be high achieving and now they have to deal with admissions committees being against them too. How is that fair?

Students are often advised to hide their ‘Asian-ness’ in their applications but that comes with its own disadvantages. If you try to hide your race, you’re looked down upon by admissions committees for trying to ‘game the system’ (which wouldn’t be a problem if there wasn’t a system to game), if you reveal it, you make their job easier and are still penalised; you can’t win with these people.

Anti-Asian hate crimes are rising in the country but of course they don’t care about that because only black people can face racism, right?

If you support affirmative action, all I ask is for you to put yourselves in my shoes for once. Imagine you worked hard your whole life to get into your dream school only to get rejected and see someone else walk in with much lower scores than you just because they were the ‘right color’.

Global Perspective

As I mentioned, India has a similar system in place where no matter how hard you work, if you’re the wrong caste, you can always be left with nothing. Even if the ‘historically disadvantaged’ castes have had the same or more opportunities than you, even if you scored 80 points higher than them, they’ll be taken, and not you.

In Italy, there’s a code system in place where admission officers just know by a code number instead of a race, and your profile and merit (the things that really matter). I think that’s the direction we should be heading and the fact that it isn’t, scares me.

Asians have to work thrice as hard just to get their foot in the door. It hurts when you do everything right but get rejected cause they have too many Asians. Not only does AA insinuate that black/Latin, etc. people need lowered standards to be able to get in, but it also makes Asians feel like they’ll never be good enough and believe me, they get enough of that from society.

According to a recent study, with the same scores, Asian applicants had a 21% chance of getting into a school, White applicants had a 29% chance, Hispanic applicants had a 60% chance, and African-American applicants had an 81% chance of getting in. This is systematic racism. Why are we discriminating against applicants solely based on their skin color in 2021? It’s horrifying.

Companies who proudly declare they are an affirmative action employer and in the next line proceed to claim they hire without heed to race, sex, age etc., people trying to persuade you to change your stance on affirmative action, and colleges openly following affirmative action need to open their eyes. They’re actively supporting racism against white and Asian people just in favor of some diversity goal. As an Asian, it’s frustrating to see so many people in favor of this distasteful policy. And it’s also one of the weakest arguments I’ve ever heard; “I need to pull down certain people to push up others.”

Other applicants, even Asians, will often agree with the institutions to appease them. The institutions think they’re being good people doing this. Some even get additional funding if they take in token minorities. Makes me wonder whether they really even support it or are just doing it to get some money in their pockets.

Martin Luther King Jr. once said he wanted his children to be judged by their character and not by the color of their skin. It’s funny how they ended up doing the exact opposite, just with another race. Here’s some food for thought: if you need a policy that tries to increase people of some races by decreasing others, maybe it just wasn’t a good policy, right?

I know what you might be thinking and I’m not oblivious to the fact that African-American/Hispanic patients’ needs are overlooked and can often be only understood by African-American/Hispanic doctors. However, there are ways other than affirmative action to get more underrepresented groups in medicine such as community outreach programs and targeted scholarships.

It’s not even that certain races are given handouts, but that they’re given handouts at the cost of Asians and whites. In this society, being the right color is what matters, not your skills or your hardwork, oh no.

The system they’re cultivating only ends one way: if you keep taking applicants with low scores, they won’t be able to handle medical school if they can’t handle college, effectively wasting a spot that could’ve gone to someone with merit who might be the ‘wrong color’. It inevitably benefits no one and you’re not doing anyone any favors by taking people with lower scores just because they’re the right color, it’s not fair to Asians, it’s not fair to Whites, and it’s not fair to society.

I’ve said it once, and I’ll say it again: if you want diversity, there are countless other ways to get more black/Hispanic etc. people into medicine without screwing over Asians and Whites, for being Asians and Whites.

We want to live in a society where we judge someone based on merit. Merit shouldn’t be taken for granted especially in a field where you cut people open for a living. I guess the question you should be asking yourself is: do you want your doctor to have the skills necessary to do the job, or be a certain color?

Socio-economic Issue

Affirmative action ignores the fact that poor Asians and Whites exist and rich black and Hispanic people exist too. If you just assume all black or Hispanic people are poor and give them a leg up, while still pulling down poor Asians and Whites, you’re holding back millions of people by generalising because even if that one poor white/Asian kid is being discriminated against by the system, the system has simply failed. And that’s not equality. I’d be willing to agree with a policy that ONLY takes into account an applicant’s socio-economic status along with their profile but the fact that AA doesn’t and simply disadvantages Asians and Whites even if the black/latin applicants might have had more opportunities than the Asians or Whites, is why I despise it.

And that concludes my views on why Affirmative Action is legalised racism and needs to end for good, because how are we supposed to come together if we pull down certain groups of people just to uplift the other?