Affirmative action has been used to pit Asian Americans against other communities of color, experts said.
"By grouping together all Asian students, for instance, respondents are apparently uninterested in whether South Asian or East Asian students are adequately represented, so long as there is enough of one to compensate for a lack of the other," Roberts wrote.
"Affirmative action provides a second chance for students of color," Stewart Kwoh, co-executive director of the Asian American Education Project, told Insider.
In the face of the destabilizing effects of rolling back affirmative action, students of color are shoring up to ensure diversity at their schools.
Ron DeSantis signed a bill mandating Asian American and Pacific Islander studies in schools, a move that critics condemned as using Asian American communities as a "wedge" against other communities of color.
Persons:
—, John Roberts, Roberts, Sonia Sotomayor, Sotomayor, Stewart Kwoh, Sarah Zhang, we're, Zhang, Muskaan Arshad, Arshad, Chip Somodevilla, Ron DeSantis, Gregg Orton, There's, Reyna Patel, Hill, I've, Shruthi Kumar, Scott Applewhite, They're, Agustin Leon, Saenz
Organizations:
Service, Harvard, University of North, Asian American Education, Affirmative, Coalition, UNC, Fair, US, Florida Department of Education, AP, American, Florida Gov, Pacific, National Council of Asian Pacific, NBC, Studies, Asian
Locations:
University of North Carolina, America, Mexican, Harvard, Washington ,, Florida