The rightward drift of Asian Americans

As a segment of voters, Asian Americans typically have tilted Democratic. But lately, a curious thing is unfolding: Their votes have been drifting rightward.

On a couple of issues that are important to Asian Americans, the Democratic Party has given reasons aplenty for disaffection. On public safety, for example, the shrill call of liberals to defund the police while crime is on the uptick has been frustrating. Or consider education. Asian Americans put a huge premium on schooling. Parents teach their children to work hard and hold high expectations of them. Many of these children do indeed excel.

A large percentage of these young achievers are children of immigrants. They believe in the American dream of hard work and see excellence as being the ticket for upward mobility. But, with the hard-left turn of the Democratic Party and the progressives’ dismantling of merit-based opportunities and rewards, Asian Americans see their children’s future unjustly foreclosed.

The recent move to eliminate standardized tests to gain admission to magnet schools across the country means that high-achieving kids, many of whom are Asian Americans, have a harder time getting into these schools. These same schools have in turn served as a gateway to elite colleges and universities. These institutes of higher education are, no surprise, big players in the same game. In fact, it’s a trickle-down scheme: Colleges and universities have been very good for years in implementing race-based admissions criteria without ever calling it that.

Take Harvard University. It is alleged in a lawsuit that Harvard discriminates against Asian American applicants by introducing subjective criteria for admissions, including “likeability,” “positive personality,” “helpfulness,” “courage,” and “kindness.” Asian American applicants are allegedly docked for these qualities, costing many of them admission.

But why? Why let in these subjective traits and not consider only objective criteria, like test scores and GPA? Because, otherwise, there would be too many Asian Americans walking around campus, that’s why. We can’t have that!

It’s like the Ivy League’s old Jewish quota, except now for Asians. But it’s also as if our nation has gone through the looking glass. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke of his dream that his “four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” His speech resonated with the country because it struck a chord: It is wrong to judge people by the color of their skin, and it is right to do so by the content of their character. But now it is touted that the way forward is precisely to judge people by the color of their skin.

The U.S. Supreme Court recently agreed to hear the case against Harvard. Meanwhile, the University of California will not take into account applicants’ SAT and ACT scores for admission decisions. If Harvard at least keeps the objective test scores, while trying to keep the Asian American admission numbers artificially lower by thumbing down on the scale with squishy qualities like “likeability”—well, UC is jettisoning test scores altogether. So UC seems to be saying, Forget all these appearances: We’re just going to go for it! Fewer Asians! Your move, other elite colleges.

It’s surely news like this that helped lead to the defeat of California’s Proposition 16 in the 2020 election. It would have amended the California Constitution, and the state would then have reinstated race as a criterion in affirmative action plans for government and public institutions, like colleges and universities. California, a deep-blue state with a sizable portion of Asian American voters, responded with a decisive no on Prop 16, 57 percent to 43 percent. And fueled by Chinese American citizens, voters in very deep-blue San Francisco recalled three members of its school board last week. One of the rallying issues was, no surprise, the board’s decision to change the admission policy to the district’s most prestigious high school, formerly by test scores and grades, to a lottery system.

Asian Americans are the fastest-growing racial or ethnic group in the United States. So, here’s an idea. If Asian Americans are increasingly disenchanted with the progressive direction of the Democratic Party, conservatives should cheerfully invite them to come on over to the other side. Moreover, Asian Americans as a group are generally family-oriented, and many are religious. Of particular interest: Asian American evangelicals are found to be among the most religious believers in the country. Conservatism would make for a compatible fit, something that thus far many Asian Americans may not have noticed.

Conservatives should tell Asian Americans: Come one, come all. Let hard work and merit continue to be honored in America’s future. Let’s put out the welcome mat.