By ELISA TURNER
WiscAMP is a fund for minority students of color in STEM. According to the WiscAMP application, “WiscAMP works to increase the success and degrees of historically underrepresented and underserved students in STEM.”
When I was made aware of WiscAMP, I attended a meeting that night intended to explain the program and spread awareness about it. When I received a link to the online application, however, I was confused.
The eligibility requirements read as follows: “WiscAMP can support students who identify as African-American, Hispanic, Pacific Islander, Native American, or Alaskan Native who plan to major/minor in STEM fields.”
I read it over a couple of times, but it was still the same text. I, a Filipino second-generation immigrant with a STEM major, was not eligible for a fund dedicated to people of color.
WiscAMP’s omission of Asian students from the demographic of students of color is another falling piece in this anti-Asian domino effect that’s taken U.S. academia by storm.
Many institutions raise the argument of equity when told that discrimination against Asians is still discrimination. Some are of the paradigm that scholarships and colleges have, in the past, let in so many Asian students simply because they would generally fall on the upper end of the bell curve, and in order to let in more Black, Hispanic/Latino, and Indigenous students, fewer Asian students have to be admitted— and, in this case, this is equity.
But why is this what equity has to look like? Why does equity mean actively harming well-deserving Asian students? Not only does this harm Asian students, but it inadvertently poses the assumption that other students of color would not be able to get in on their own merits. Why is this the first execution of equity? Why not open more spots for scholarships or colleges? Or advocate for more public education funding, to put students on a more level playing field?
In this case, however, it is not about the proportion of Asian students to other applicants. In this case, Asian students have been completely excluded from a fund dedicated to students of color.
Are Asian students not people of enough color?
WiscAMP is a fund for “underrepresented students” in STEM. Omitting Asian students from eligibility suggests that WisCAMP believes Asian students are represented enough in STEM. Call me a cynic, but this really feels like a rehash of the “all Asians are smart” stereotype.
Excluding Asian students from funding for people of color reads as “Asians don’t need any help with academia or academic funding,” which is completely untrue, and overlooks the struggles of many Asian-American immigrant students. The majority of Asian countries are still classified as developing or third-world countries, and students who have come from those countries are disqualified from a scholarship solely because they checked the box “Asian” on their application.
In the eyes of the people who set the eligibility criteria for funds and scholarships such as these, there seems to be this stereotype of Asian students, a prevailing idea that they come from generational wealth of some kind. This stereotype is racist, and because this stereotype exists, Asian students are worse off.
If you really wanted to create a scholarship for every demographic made up of people of color except Asian students, it would be significantly less problematic to create several scholarships for African-American, Hispanic, Pacific Islander, Native American, and Alaskan Native STEM students all separately, then allocate funds proportionally to the number of applicants— because such scholarships already exist and are pretty easy to find. And several smaller scholarships would be harder for pissed-off, broke students like me to link together and call out. Instead, however, WiscAMP has elected to omit Asian students from a larger scholarship that includes every other person of color demographic— so, really, they’ve just invited criticism at this point.
Some may believe that it’s simply not that deep. That this is one scholarship out of thousands, in one state among 50. This doesn’t mean it sets any less of a precedent. Sure, today this means one Asian student will sigh and have to search for another scholarship. But this furthers the stereotypes that Asians are smart, and that Asians are wealthy.
What happens when other scholarships start to follow in WiscAMP’s footsteps? At some point, we have to draw the line—when fewer and fewer resources become available to Asian students because of stereotypes that nobody takes seriously on the basis that they’re “positive” stereotypes.
If we do not draw the line here, we set a precedent for more grants, scholarships, and academic institutions to discriminate against Asian students; we are inadvertently furthering a stereotype in the name of undoing it.
Featured Image: University of Wisconsin-Madison
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