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Research concerned with race in higher education often utilizes terms like Asian American, AAPI, API, APA, and APIDA interchangeably, with a limited grounding in theories of racial formation and panethnicity. Without adequate conceptual grounding, haphazard uses of such terms can lead to imprecise scholarship; and worse, perpetuate a form of racial and ethnic erasure and violence. To advance and expand theories of race in higher education research, we offer a framework of panethnic formations by reviewing theories of panethnicity, racial formation and critical race theory, demonstrating that panethnic formations and race are always in flux. We encourage theoretical intentionality and specificity in the use of racial terminology, directly grounded in relevant scholarship on panethnicity and race. This article expands theoretical considerations in research related to race, ethnicity, and panethnicity in higher education.

This commentary is an edited transcription of a historic and dynamic discussion on "Reckoning with Anti-Asian Violence" among a distinguished panel of elected legislators, community leaders, and academic researchers. This discussion took place virtually as a presidential session during the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association on April 11, 2021, in response to the increasing attention as well as escalating fear due to anti-Asian racism and violence in the United States and globally, including the mass shooting in Atlanta on March 16, 2021. Over 100 attendees across the United States and internationally bore witness to this important yet rare convening of high-profile Asian American female politicians, organizers, and scholars. Many recognized the historic significance of this topic and gathering and asked for its documentation. As session organizers and panelists, we offer this commentary for our communities as part of a national and global archive of the current state of affairs.

Utilizing a critical raceclass theory of education, OiYan A. Poon and colleagues analyze interviews with Asian Americans who have publicly advocated for or against affirmative action and acknowledged how their understandings of racial capitalism informed their perspectives and actions. Limited research has considered Asian American subjectivity in examining what shapes their diverse perspectives on affirmative action. This study adds to research on the racial politics of the debate, which has increasingly centered Asian Americans and their interests, and introduces a multidimensional model of raceclass frames representing different political perspectives and choices around affirmative action: abstract liberalism, ethnocentric nationalism, conscious compromise, and systemic transformation. The model offers insights on Asian American frames and ideologies of racism, capitalism, and education to account for their divergent political perspectives and choices in the affirmative action debate.

Business success is a dominant theme in the Asian American narrative. However, Asian American entrepreneurship is more complex and multilayered than commonly believed and requires careful scrutiny. This brief examines the state of Asian American business ownership between 2005 and 2007. Findings suggest that although Asian Americans form businesses at higher rates than other racial/ethnic minorities, Asian American business ownership and outcomes continue to trail those of non-Hispanic whites. Potential factors contributing to racial/ethnic gaps and policy recommendations are discussed.

This policy brief examines and identifies education disparities within the context of a much-touted New Orleans “charter school miracle.” After describing the Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) method employed at a local Vietnamese American youth organization in New Orleans, we summarize findings on inequalities in academic rigor and access to quality teaching, which suggest that charter school reforms are not bringing about an education “miracle” in post-Katrina New Orleans and that students of color, in particular, are inadequately served. The brief also discusses the potential implications of YPAR methods for asserting Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) perspectives and voices in ongoing education reform debates.

Through the presentation of a case study, this resource article argues for the establishment of a national, comprehensive Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) education organization to facilitate communication among educators, students, and community and institutional leaders in order to develop an education policy agenda based on community interests and research. It presents an analysis of the debate over a new University of California (UC) admissions eligibility policy. After discussing how Asian Americans are framed within admissions debates, the article summarizes the new UC policy and presents an analysis of the policy change, addressing concerns raised by two community leaders. This case study demonstrates the need to connect the diverse intergenerational, ethnic, and gendered voices among AAPIs in education.

Conceptual models for understanding the ways in which Asian American students engage in leadership and activism are interrogated. The chapter provides a discussion of implications for student affairs professionals working with Asian American student leaders and activists.

This study focuses on how admissions at selective colleges and universities represent key racialized organizations. We analyzed data from 50 individual interviews of admissions professionals, through a theory of racialized organizations to recognize admissions as practices that consistently reproduces systemic inequities. We reveal how organizational structures centering an array of institutional priorities can maintain the systemic reproduction of intersectional racial inequalities, by privileging priorities like budgetary constraints, geographic diversity, and other interests, minimizing racial diversity as a priority. Our study bears key implications for future research and practice, by demonstrating that much like a Möbius strip, admissions organizations are difficult to fundamentally change for diversity and equity goals. Even with seemingly dramatic alterations to practices (e.g. test-optional policies) in isolation, Möbius strips generally maintain their structure. Institutional priorities, especially fiscal priorities, maintain the durability in racially unequal admissions outcomes through logics of racial capitalism. Unless institutional priorities fundamentally change, admissions processes will likely continue to reproduce inequalities. Research and systemic change efforts in college admissions should go beyond focusing on isolated elements (e.g. test requirements) and approaches to admissions (e.g. percent plans) to confront admissions and enrollment management systems, by interrogating underlying institutional logics and routines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a critical review of 112 works of research on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPIs) in higher education. It focuses on ways previous scholarship framed AAPIs in higher education, and specifically on how those works engaged in a sustained project of countering the model minority myth (MMM). Many publications on AAPIs in higher education mentioned the MMM and neglected to account for the original purpose of the MMM--to maintain anti-Black racism and White supremacy. We identified four key and interconnected limitations implicit in the counter-MMM framework that result from a lack of a critical recognition of the model minority as an instrument to maintain White dominance. Our analysis suggests that the well-established counter-MMM scholarly project is fundamentally flawed in its ability to humanistically reframe and advance research on AAPIs. Therefore, we call for a reframing of research on AAPIs in higher education.

Following the U.S. Supreme Court's 2023 decision in SFFA v. Harvard to upend nearly fifty years of legal precedent for race-conscious admissions, this article summarizes arguments grounded in decades of social science research that sought to dispel the erroneous claims put forth by the plaintiffs. In critiquing the inaccuracies and contradictions embedded within the Court's opinion, we argue that SFFA and the Court relied on inaccurate logics regarding race that were devoid of empirical research on the heterogeneity amongst Asian Americans as a racial category. We put forth evidence that contextualizes the racialized experiences of Asian Americans--influenced by historical immigration patterns of exclusion and hyperselectivity--and how they facilitate harmful stereotypes such as the model minority myth. Thus, it is incumbent upon social scientists to actively counteract misinformation and misrepresentation through the continued production and dissemination of empirical research. While race-conscious admissions may no longer be permissible, we contend that universities and colleges are uniquely positioned to reimagine new avenues for enhancing educational access that is rooted in racial equity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the impact of the Supreme Court's ruling on affirmative action in college admissions and its specific effects on Asian Americans. It addresses the use of the Model Minority Myth by opponents of affirmative action to argue that Asian Americans are being discriminated against. The article challenges this myth and critiques the use of standardized testing as a measure of merit. It also delves into the division within the Asian American community regarding affirmative action and its implications for racial justice. The recent Supreme Court ruling against race-conscious admissions practices has hindered efforts for institutional change and resulted in the reduction of diversity programs and scholarships. The article emphasizes the importance of collecting and utilizing racial data to address inequities and the need to support Minority-Serving Institutions (MSIs) to promote racial justice in higher education. [Extracted from the article]

In the 1980s, the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and the University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley), were found to be discriminating against Asian Americans in their admissions process. [...]

In June 2019, when the Wall Street Journal reported that the College Board was about to introduce an 'Adversity Index' or score that would sum up the socio-economic backgrounds of [...]

In the ongoing case of Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, Edward Blum is attempting once again to use Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA), his anti-affirmative action organization, to further limit the use of race as one factor in holistic admissions processes. But this time, Blum purports to be acting on behalf of a group of anonymous Asian Americans. This strategy, designed to dismantle all affirmative action policies in selective college admissions, is an attempt to drive divisions between Asian Americans and other people of color to increase white access and entitlement to highly selective universities. SFFA falsely claims that Asian Americans are discriminated against in Harvard's admissions process, basing its claims on misleading information and launching a deceptive media campaign against affirmative action. In the summer of 2018, 531 social scientists with expertise on Asian Americans, race and equity, or college admissions, filed an amicus curiae brief with the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts in support of Harvard University's holistic admissions process. The brief details the myriad ways in which the plaintiff's claims are false and misleading and provides evidence that Asian Americans in fact benefit from holistic review. In this article, the authors of the brief provide background information on the case itself, the legal and social context of the case, as well as the importance of social scientists' participation in producing research relevant to the topic at hand. Following the preface, the brief is printed in full as originally filed, and edited only to comport with the format of this journal. Trial proceedings in the case concluded in early 2019. As of the publishing date of this article, the case remains pending before the district court. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the impacts of the tiger mom anxiety phenomenon on the gender, ethnic and generational differences of Asian American students on college access and choices. It mentions that the tiger mom phenomenon has two types of anxiety both related to selective college admissions in the U.S. It also notes on the use for the college choice model as an useful conceptual lens to understand how individuals experience in college.

An essay is provided which discusses perceptions of Asian Americans in higher education in the U.S., examining the reception of the memoir "Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother," by Amy Chua, and looking at Asian American educational attainment. The author examines ways in which Chua reinforces stereotypes about Chinese culture, U.S. anxiety about the growth of China as a superpower, and an online video by student Alexandra Wallace in which she complains about Asian college students.