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15 B. C. Third World L. J. 225 (1995)
Neither Black Nor White: Asian Americans and Affirmative Action

handle is hein.journals/bctw15 and id is 231 raw text is: NEITHER BLACK NOR WHITE: ASIAN AMERICANS AND AFFIRMATIVE ACTION FRANK H. Wu* I. INTRODUCTION The time has come to consider groups that are neither black nor white in the jurisprudence on race. There are many fallacies in the affirmative action debate. One of them, increasingly prominent, is that Asian Americans somehow are the example that defeats affirmative action. To the contrary, the Asian-American experience should dem- onstrate the continuing importance of race and the necessity of reme- dial programs based on race. Most recently, for example, House Speaker Newt Gingrich has carefully included Asian Americans in his attack against affirmative action. Gingrich has asserted that Asian Americans are facing a very real danger of being discriminated against' because they are becom- ing too numerous at prestigious universities which have affirmative action. Similarly, the sponsors of the anti-affirmative action ballot pro- posal in California refer to Asian Americans as a cultural group that has become overrepresented in the University of California system, in contrast to other groups.2 Again and again, claims are made that Asian Americans, like whites, suffer because of affirmative action for African Americans. By the rhetoric, it would almost seem as if Asian Americans, more than * Teaching Fellow, Stanford University Law School. J.D., University of Michigan; BA, Johns Hopkins University. This Article was made possible with the support, financial as well as intellectual, offered by a teaching fellowship at Stanford. I would like to thank Paul Brest and Bill Ong Hing for their encouragement and constructive criticism. I would like to thank Andy Eisenberg for assistance in obtaining research materials. An earlier version of this Article was prepared for a seminar on Pluralism at the University of Michigan Law School in 1990. I would like to thank Terrance Sandalow for his helpful advice on that draft. I also received help from Selena Dong, Mark Johnston, Pedro Malavet, and Miranda Oshige. Versions of this paper were presented to the law faculties at DePaul, McGeorge, Whittier, and Howard Universities. Finally, I would like to thank my editor, Reggie Oh, for his patience and cooperation. Without his prompting and perseverance, I would not have finished this work. I Congressional Press Conference (CNN television broadcast, Feb. 22, 1995) (transcript at 873-13, on file with author). 2 Living By the Numbers; Has the Time Come To Abolish Affirmative Action?, S.F. CHRON., Feb. 12, 1995, at Zi (interview with organizers of the California Civil Rights Initiative).

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