College Clears Up Asian Controversy

Harvard admissions officials this week said they have no plans to deny minority status to Asian-American students, resolving a two-week-old controversy between the College and the Asian-American community.

A Boston Globe article prompted outrage among local Asian-American leaders earlier this month when the newspaper quoted Harvard officials as saying they will begin to recruit "overrepresented" Asian-Americans less aggressively than in years past.

Yet Dean of Admissions and Financial Aids L. Fred Jewett '57 this week dispelled the misconception that his office no longer considers the group a minority.

"There is no question that they have minority status." Jewett said. He added that Asian-American recruiting efforts have changed very little in the past few years.

Asian-Americans, which make up 1.5 percent of the nation population but nearly 11 percent of Harvard's student body, are not on the whole disadvantaged or underrepresented and should not therefore be protected by minority affirmative action programs, former Dean of the Faculty Henry Rosovsky told the Globe.

Rosovsky, who could not be reached for comment yesterday, also told the Globe that he worries that other minority groups, particularly Blacks, will feel that they have been squeezed out of scholarships, status and class rank by Asian-Americans.

Jewett explained that because Harvard has been "successful in attracting Asian candidates in general, there is not as much of an attempt to increase the number of applicants." He added, however, that his office has stepped up efforts over the last two years to attract Asian-American students from "underprivileged or disadvantaged backgrounds."

"It doesn't bother me at all," said one Asian-American sophomore who asked not to be identified. "They should be recruiting students from backgrounds not geared toward college, rather than on the basis of race," she added.

Another sophomore echoed these sentiments. "I advocate their recruiting people from families who wouldn't normally push Harvard," she said, adding "and if you can make generalizations, most Orientals are hyper-aware of Harvard, anyway."

Another Asian-American undergraduate disagreed, saying that if the admissions office begins a policy of stepping down Asian-American recruiting efforts, the practice could be extended to other minorities as well. "It's a dangerous policy you don't know where it's going to end," said Elden T. Chang '87.

Admissions records show that Asian-Americans in general do not fall into an "underrepresented" category While ten years ago they constituted only 2 percent of the Harvard's student body, they now make up nearly 11 percent. With 80 Early Action acceptances this year, the group "certainly had a very good showing." Jewett said.

Experiencing comparable success in attracting Asian-Americans, other schools like MIT, Princeton. Stanford and the University of California. Los Angeles have acknowledged that they no longer consider Asian-Americans overall as a minority.

Officials at Yale, where this year's freshman class has highest number of Asian-Americans ever, say they, like Harvard, will adopt the same policy of less aggressive Oriental recruitment in the future