Amalia Halikias and Lanya Olmstead share something in common.

They are both Ivy League graduates.

They are both half Asian.

And they both opted to identify as the other half of their ethnicity when applying to college — white.

For the past few decades, Asian Americans have developed a conviction that the road to admission at the nation’s top colleges is significantly more challenging if the applicant identifies as Asian. Perhaps this is why so many applicants today are choosing not to disclose their ethnicity when submitting their college application.

While it’s fair to say that part of this belief stems from speculation, the claim that Asians have it harder is not unwarranted. A 2009 study by the National Study of College Experience shows that an Asian applicant must score 140 points higher than White applicants, 320 points higher than Hispanic applicants, and 450 points higher than Black applicants on the SAT to be viewed in an equal light.

Furthermore, statistics show that the number of Asian applicants to Ivy League colleges has tripled since 1993, yet the proportion of Asians in respect to the student body has stagnated around 18–20%. As a result, speculations of an “Asian quota” have surfaced, which have escalated into discrimination lawsuits from several groups including the Asian American Coalition.

Ivy Leagues are adamant that no such quota exists, but many don’t buy it. In fact Ivy Coach, a Manhattan based college admissions consultancy, has capitalized on this trend by offering help applicants “appear less Asian”.

If the claim is substantiated, the obvious consquences include denying a student a pursuit at their goals, but the implications are much more far reaching than one may presume.

Last year, Sureshbhai Patel, a 57 year old grandfather had come from India to visit his family in Alabama. During a routine morning walk, Patel was left partially paralyzed after a policeman slammed him to the ground due to his inability to comply with the officer’s commands. Patel could not speak nor understand English, and the police were initially called on him because he “looked suspicious.” The entire ordeal ended after the officer was acquitted of all charges Patel’s family had pressed, and walked away scot-free.

The final verdict sparked outrage on social media, yet the Asian American political sphere remained passive and impartial. Why? It’s hard for an Asian leader of prominence to step up and push for social change when so few exist.

It should come as no surprise that Ivy League and other top schools are often pipelines to positions of political and economic influence. Limiting the number of Asians at such schools consequently effectively limits the representation of the Asian demographic as a whole in the United States. As of 2015, only 2.4% of the 113th Congress and 2% of state legislators were Asian-Americans.

But this “Bamboo ceiling” exists beyond politics.

Study,

According to a study of Fortune 500 CEOs by Richard Zweigenhaft of Guilford College, in 2000 eight were Asian-American, and in 2014 ten were, whereas the women’s tally in the same period rose from four to 24. Academia, similarly, is stuffed with Asian-American professors, but among America’s 3,000 colleges there are fewer than ten Asian-American presidents.

After study,

Buck Gee, Janet Wong and Denise Peck, Asian-American executives who put together data from Google, Intel, Hewlett Packard, LinkedIn and Yahoo for a report published by Ascend, an Asian-American organisation, found that 27% of professionals, 19% of managers and 14% of executives were Asian-American

Point towards the same trend.

Existing Asian Americans of influence have not translated their positions into economic and political power for the community, and the current state of college admissions only makes it harder for American politics to respect Asian interests.

But political voice is just the tip of the iceberg — limiting educational opportunities to Asians only makes it harder for Asians to gain footing in this country. There’s a glaring disparity given the fact that Asians are the fastest growing racial group, yet have such a disproportional representation in the United States. And that’s the difference between Asians and other minorities. For a social group that is no stranger to discrimination, it seems unjust that this demographic has to work twice as hard to go half as far, and as The Economist puts it, “the Model Minority is growing impatient”.

Why is it that America is so complacent with treating Asians as minorities in every context but academia?