Illume Directors on Affirmative Action

Without affirmative action, how can we ensure that the liminal spaces we exist and operate in won’t become permanent?

by Sharon Chen, Founder & Creative Director and Jesica Bak, Editor-in-Chief

This statement was first published on August 29, 2023.

Photo courtesy of The New York Times Archives.

The Supreme Court’s ruling on June 29th in Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College, in favor of Students for Fair Admissions, effectively overruling affirmative action and its decades of a greater collective effort at restorative justice in the face of systemic racism, has largely been framed and discussed as “a win for Asian students.”¹ The emergence of this dominant narrative is not surprising given that Edward Blum and SFFA has, and continues to, purport to challenge nationwide race-conscious admission policies under the guise of Asian American interests and concerns. Many affirmative action advocates, activists, and scholars have already voiced their opposing thoughts on this narrative, and have made claims on how opponents of affirmative action as well as conservative pundits and scholars are using Asian Americans for their own agenda of dismantling the policy. However, we, at Illume Magazine, feel a need to rearticulate such arguments and reiterate for our fellow Asian American students and community, at Northeastern and beyond, that the idea of Asian Americans being injured by affirmative action at the alleged “benefit” of Black and Latinx students, needs to be reevaluated as a fallacy and more importantly, as a strategic attempt by the white hegemon to preserve whiteness at institutions that can otherwise provide powerful elevating opportunities for people of color.

In 1993, Cheryl Harris wrote on three Supreme Court cases surrounding affirmative action as relevant to the time—Regents of University of California v. Bakke; City of Richmond v. J.A. Croson Co.; Wygant v. Jackson Board of Education—contending:

[T]he Supreme Court’s rejection of affirmative action programs on the grounds that race-conscious remedial measures are unconstitutional under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment—the very constitutional measure designed to guarantee equality for Blacks—is based on the Court’s chronic refusal to dismantle the institutional protection of benefits for whites that have been based on white supremacy and maintained at the expense of Blacks (Harris 1993, 1767).²

Thirty years later, Harris’s writings and theoretical framework feel more salient than ever in understanding how the economic, political, and social advantages afforded to whites in the US were not merely reinforced through systemic patterns of oppression against Black and Native Americans, but were privileges institutionalized and eventually, embedded as an inherent expectation of the white individual. 

As Harris traces the material history of the US law and legal system—from Jim Crow, continuing through Brown II and the cases following the Civil Rights Act of 1964—she exposes how it is the mere possession of whiteness in and of itself that offers emotional, cultural, and financial stakes in the continuation of Black segregation, discrimination, and oppression, resulting in what Harris calls the “settled expectation.” But the property interest in whiteness remains to this day; it has only merely taken a new shape. Continuing to distort the outcomes of who wins and who doesn’t by protecting the settled expectations of white privilege, the Court and those advocating against affirmative action, attempt to uphold existing structures of inequality by arguing that such is simply the natural result of merit. Threatened that affirmative action could actually disrupt the settled expectations of the whites, June 29th’s ruling has made this all too clear.

Let us first stop pretending that the system of higher education and access to socioeconomic opportunities in this nation is one of a meritocracy. Only then may we begin to recognize that the myth-making language of meritocracy is inextricably woven into the strategic formula of affirmative action espoused within the official and unofficial narratives surrounding June 29th’s ruling, which has in the process repurposed and manipulated the original calculation of Black and Latinx students as beneficiaries harming whites into one in which Black and Latinx students are “beneficiaries” while Asian Americans are the “victims.” Referred to by a burgeoning group as “affirmative action 2.0,” the term sounds almost revisionist, as if intended to improve the original framework into a model more effective like an Apple upgrade; as if the upgrade itself is from repositioning whites out of the equation.

And if Asian Americans are the victims, we’d like to ask who we believe is perpetuating the harm. For legal scholar and author of Racial Capitalism, Nancy Leong, the coincidence in timing and agenda for opponents of affirmative action to take a vested interest in Asian and Asian American issues is not a coincidence at all.³ Rather, it seems apparent that the opponents of affirmative action—who have historically never taken a genuine interest in other issues affecting Asian Americans, including voting redistricting, racial profiling, employment equality, fair housing, poverty, and mental health services—are exploiting the opportunity they finally have to frame their argument against affirmative action as an interest of the Asian American cause and in the name of the Asian American community to defend themselves against overt accusations of white supremacy. Because they cannot be transparent about their real motive to preserve the existing hierarchy that, to this day, maintains a disproportionate share of social resources and opportunities for whites, they turn to other narrative strategies to make their case. 

Situated in this context in which the Court is actively taking away a decades-long protection for those whose access to the entire enterprise of rights, power, and equality has been and continues to be limited by their oppression, we at Illume do not believe we can even begin to discuss what it means to be Asian and Asian American today without thinking critically about the ways in which the white hegemon repeatedly tries to make Asian Americans the racial middle in order to reinforce white supremacy. For this we thank Mari Matsuda who has spoken and written about Asian Americans as the racial bourgeoisie, pointing to the creation of the model minority myth as a crucial example in which Asian Americans have occupied an in-between position in American race relations by facing discrimination and exclusion while also becoming equal to, and even surpassing, other racial groups across certain metrics of success.⁴ 

Let us understand that the model minority myth evolved in the mid 1960s in response to the ongoing civil rights movement. With the passage of the Civil Rights Act (1964) outlawing segregation and the Voting Rights Act (1965) prohibiting voting discrimination, white Americans quickly tried to instate that racism was a thing of the past; surely, if discrimination is “banned” then racism ceases to exist. Of course, this proposition was and still is undeniably false. Civil rights leaders of the time protested in the streets for systemic change and government programs, fighting for lasting equality in the face of historic and perpetual discrimination. The model minority myth emerged to delegitimize these efforts; Asians were celebrated as a racial group “superior” to Black Americans, moving ahead in American society with their own law-abiding efforts and hard work. In other words, the white hegemon applauded Asians for conforming to segregation (inflicted by the whites themselves) rather than fighting it. The myth blatantly ignores the marginalization of both Black and Asian communities by the whites to uphold white supremacy. The model minority myth also reduces the heterogeneity of Asian identity into one homogenous category, thus ignoring that many Asian subgroups were excluded from the supposed high metrics of Asian success. While being pit against other minority groups, the model minority myth falsely perpetuates that Asian Americans are not victims of American racism in a reality where Asian Americans have always been exploited and oppressed by the racist white majority. We also thank the Asian American community past, present, and future — those who are currently and already fighting against the ruling and challenging the narrative. Only one example of current efforts is the #iamnotyourwedge hashtag spreading online, used by Asian American supporters of affirmative action to resist opponents’ efforts to use Asian Americans to divide people of color on the issue of affirmative action.⁵

We at Illume also believe that such discourse ignores the important and powerful historical context in which the Asian American movement was born of solidarity with Black Americans fighting and resisting in the civil rights movement and the Black Power movement. Some of the first sites for racial activism in America occurred on college campuses such as that of San Francisco State University in 1968, where the Asian American Political Alliance (AAPA) joined with Chicano, Native American, and African American students in the Third World Liberation Front (TWLF), collectively identifying white supremacy and racism as means of oppression for people of color in the United States.⁶ With ideologies inspired by the Young Lords Party and the Black Panthers, the I Wor Kuen served as the largest revolutionary Asian American organization aligned with the Black Power Movement. To argue affirmative action injures Asian Americans at the “benefit” of Black and Latinx students further ignores the historical reality that affirmative action programs were critical in making public higher education available to Asian Americans in the 1960s and 1970s.

Asian Americans are now in danger of being manipulated to oppose affirmative action for our community interest but was it ever in mind? We must not forget the historical reality in which a national fear that the “too successful” Asian Americans threatened the opportunities of “deserving” white Americans, leading to centuries of discrimination, scapegoating, violence, and death inflicted on the Asian community. Asian Americans have been historically deemed “outsiders” by white Americans, seen as peril and economic competitors who divert from U.S. cultural norms, thereby undermining the white nation.⁷ The Anti-Coolie Act of 1862 and the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 are just some examples of government policies implemented as a result. Today, university administrators including those at Harvard continue to uphold hidden quotas to keep down Asian admissions due to a similar threat against the institutions’ predominantly white character.

The Supreme Court case in October 2019 revealed that Harvard held Asian applicants to a higher SAT cutoff score than their white peers. The court further concluded—and contradictorily—that while recommendation letters are significantly and positively correlated with likelihood of admission, the same letters were suddenly claimed to not affect individual admission decisions when it was argued that Asian applicants received “weaker” recommendation letters compared to their white counterparts.⁸ Paradoxically using the very strategy meant to assist them, affirmative action 2.0, Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA) themselves expose in their argument that with Harvard’s admission process that assigns scores to applicants, Asian applicants score lower on personal rating than any other group, lower than white applicants on every decile, and are less likely to be admitted than white applicants when having the same overall score; white applicants receive an unearned racial bonus in their admissions while Asian applicants suffer a racial penalty.⁹

Although these anti-Asian quotas are separate from affirmative action, there is a false conflation that affirmative action is to blame for Harvard’s discrimination against Asian applicants. To choose between defending affirmative action and holding Harvard accountable for its alleged anti-Asian bias is merely an illusion, yet our community is being compelled to feel that these are opposing sides that they must exclusively support.

Quoting SFFA’s own expert, Harvard’s “preferences for African-American and Hispanic applicants could not explain the disproportionately negative effect Harvard’s admission system has on Asian Americans.” The SFFA has even admitted that Harvard’s affirmative action policy (which benefits Black and Latinx students) is not the source of negative treatment towards Asian Americans but misguidedly asks the court to eliminate it anyway.¹⁰

Considering that affirmative action emerged as policy to contest the history of racial exclusion and underrepresentation of minority groups, it is no surprise that the legacy population of American higher education is predominantly white. In 2019, approximately 70% of Harvard’s legacy students were white. Elite legacy applicants also have a 45% better chance of admission than non-legacy students. A study by the National Bureau of Economic research found in 2019 that 75% of Harvard’s white legacy, athlete, and donor admissions would have been rejected otherwise.¹¹ With such increased chances of admissions, white students have significantly higher prospects of passing down and accruing legacy status, thus further upholding this enduring history. As such, we are confounded at the discourse arguing that anti-affirmative action does not believe legacy admissions to be “race conscious”; rather, we believe that legacy admissions widen race and class privileges by disproportionately benefiting white applicants.

Above all, we view the June 29th ruling and much of its surrounding discourse by those opposed to affirmative action as another form of protecting existing structures of whiteness and in the process harming those who are not afforded the property right of whiteness; another way of pretending this nation is anything but. Feingold says that in a case that painfully attempts to narrate the identity-contingent hurdles that Asian Americans face because of their race, the decision has ironically, almost comically, resulted in one that demands Asian Americans and other students of color tell a comprehensive and fully-textured self-narrative without invoking race.¹² In the footnotes of Harris’ Whiteness as Property, affirmative action is articulated and theorized as more than a policy of restorative justice; it is an affirmation of the Black individual stretching beyond all spaces, a democratic method of representing the underrepresented in institutions that claim power over our lives. Without affirmative action, how can we ensure that the liminal spaces we exist and operate in won’t become permanent? 

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1. Affirmative Action Ruling ‘a Win for Students,’ Asian-American Student Says, 2023,

; See “In his opinion, Chief Justice Roberts said giving Black and Latino applicants an edge over white and Asian applicants in the name of diversity violated the equal protection clause of the Constitution’s 14th Amendment,” Charlie Savage, “Highlights of the Affirmative Action Opinions and Dissents,” The New York Times, June 29, 2023, sec. U.S., https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/29/us/politics/affirmative-action-ruling-highlights.html.

2. Harris, Cheryl I. “Whiteness as Property.” Harvard Law Review 106, no. 8 (1993): 1707–91. https://doi.org/10.2307/1341787.

3. Leong, Nancy. “The Misuse of Asian Americans in the Affirmative Action Debate.” 64 UCLA LAW REVIEW DISCOURSE 90 (2016)

4. Matsuda, Mari. "28. WE WILL NOT BE USED: ARE ASIAN AMERICANS THE RACIAL BOURGEOISIE?" In Asian American Studies Now: A Critical Reader edited by Jean Yu-Wen Shen Wu, Thomas Chen and Jean Yu-Wen Shen Wu, 558-564. Ithaca, NY: Rutgers University Press, 2010. https://doi.org/10.36019/9780813549330-031

5. See: https://twitter.com/hashtag/iamnotyourwedge

6. Lee, Erika. “Making A New Asian America Through Immigration and Activism.” Essay. In The Making of Asian America: A History, 305, 2015.

7.  Yuko Kawai, “Stereotyping Asian Americans: The Dialectic of the Model Minority and the Yellow Peril,” Howard Journal of Communications, 2005, 109–30, https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1080/10646170590948974.

8. Gersen, Jeannie Suk. “The Secret Joke at the Heart of the Harvard Affirmative-Action Case.” The New Yorker, March 23, 2023. https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/the-secret-joke-at-the-heart-of-the-harvard-affirmative-action-case#:~:text=On%20the%20whole%2C%20Harvard%20gave,and%20effect%20an%20unspoken%20quota.

9. Feingold, Jonathan. “SFFA v. Harvard: How Affirmative Action Myths Mask White Bonus.” 107 California Law Review 707 (2019). Available at: https://scholarship.law.bu.edu/faculty_scholarship/828

10. Feingold, Jonathan. “SFFA v. Harvard: How Affirmative Action Myths Mask White Bonus.” 107 California Law Review 707 (2019). Available at: https://scholarship.law.bu.edu/faculty_scholarship/828

11. Arcidiacono, Peter, Josh Kinsler, and Tyler Ransom. “LEGACY AND ATHLETE PREFERENCES AT HARVARD.” National Bureau of Economic Research, 2019. Available at: https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w26316/w26316.pdf

12.  Feingold, Jonathan. “SFFA v. Harvard: How Affirmative Action Myths Mask White Bonus.” 107 California Law Review 707 (2019). Available at: https://scholarship.law.bu.edu/faculty_scholarship/828