Harvard Senior Who Testified at Admissions Trial Says Many Asian-American Students Support Affirmative Action

Pat Greenhouse, The Boston Globe via Getty Images

Eight Harvard students and alumni testified on Monday in support of affirmative action in the trial challenging their college’s race-conscious admissions policy. These are the only students the judge will hear from; the anti-affirmative-action group that sued Harvard College as discriminating against Asian-American applicants will not call any of its members to the stand.

One of the students, a senior named Thang Q. Diep, has already been mentioned several times in the trial. Diep immigrated from Vietnam to the San Fernando Valley, in California, when he was 8. He didn’t earn a perfect score on the SAT, but he graduated from Cleveland High School at the top of his class and wrote movingly about his determination to learn English, though he was mocked for his accent as a kid.

Diep believes he has something to offer in the conversation about race in admissions at Harvard. The college has been accused by Students for Fair Admissions of penalizing Asian-American applicants on a numerical personality rating that admissions officials give all applicants, something those officials deny.

Diep believes that he was accepted by Harvard in part because of his personality and the way he described his background. He told The Harvard Crimson, the student newspaper, that he thinks his acceptance was “most likely based on my personal statement, which reflected the diversity that I brought to campus.”

He spoke to The Chronicle last week ahead of his testimony on Monday. The following interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Q. How did you decide to testify in the trial and let your application become public?

A. I was already involved in the case through Asian Americans Advancing Justice [a civil-rights organization]. I sent my biography to the lawyers. They asked if it was OK to make it public. I didn’t think it was too much of an invasion of privacy for me.

Q. What was your involvement like before the trial started?

A. I got connected to Nicole K. Ochi [a lawyer for Asian Americans Advancing Justice], and at that time I think they were trying to get student opinions about affirmative action. Through that I ended up submitting a declaration for the case.

Q. What has it been like on Harvard’s campus during the trial?

A. Before the week of trial we had a week of action. It was organized by me and a few other students and alumni to increase our media presence. We wanted to show that there are Asian-Americans who support affirmative action.

A lot of data and graphs that Students for Fair Admissions have been using have been published. I’ve been getting a lot of questions like: What do you think about this? What do you think about all this data? That’s generated a lot of conversation.

I think some Asian-American students are qualifying their view on affirmative action. A lot of students are hesitant about supporting the case because that might mean not acknowledging that Harvard might be discriminating against Asian-Americans.

My involvement in this case is not necessarily to defend Harvard. It’s more about testifying about the importance of race-conscious admissions. If there is discrimination against Asian-American students, then we should talk about it.

The narrative that Students for Fair Admissions has put out there is saying that they are for Asian-Americans. There is definitely an ulterior motive.

SFFA is conflating two arguments: Harvard is discriminating against Asian-Americans and being against affirmative action. That’s confusing a lot of students.

Q. What do you say to the students who ask you what you think of the data that’s coming out of the trial?

A. We should be critical about who’s presenting the data.

They ask: Do you support Harvard? I don’t think that’s my place. At the end of the day it’s about supporting and defending affirmative action.

Q. How did you get interested in affirmative action?

A. In high school was when I was first exposed to discussions about affirmative action. I came to the conclusion that Southeast Asians and Pacific Islanders are not often heard. Asian-Americans are described as a monolith. That model-minority stereotype has ended up erasing a lot of experiences of many Asian-Americans. Many of these people have very different immigration experiences.

Harvard on Trial

Detailed background on the lawsuit over the university’s race-conscious admissions policy, the case’s implications for selective colleges, and coverage of the trial as it unfolded, in a federal court in Boston.

• Harvard Doesn’t Discriminate Against Asian American Applicants, U.S. Appeals Court Rules
• 3 Takeaways From the Appeal of the Harvard Admissions Lawsuit
• A Judge Advised Harvard to Give Its Admissions Officers Training to Stop Bias. Will That Help?

There is solidarity between Asian communities and other communities of color. It’s very easy to portray Asian-Americans as a wedge. I think it’s important to show that there are Asian-Americans who stand in solidarity with these groups.

Q. What’s it been like to be a part of a trial that has attracted so much attention?

A. It’s hard to feel immersed in the case because I’m also a student and this is midterm season. There’s a lot of things I need to focus on. I think, looking back, it will be a memorable experience. One thing I am grateful for is, on the day of the rally, it was really inspiring to see people of different backgrounds, different generations coming together. It wasn’t just Asian-Americans; it was their parents, and it was other black and brown students.

People stood up to defend something that matters to them. I think that’s something that I will look back on.

Nell Gluckman writes about faculty issues and other topics in higher education. You can follow her on Twitter @nellgluckman, or email her at nell.gluckman@chronicle.com.