If you’re at one of the many Fourth of July celebrations across New Hampshire this week and happen to spot Congresswoman Annie Kuster in the crowd, please loan her your copy of the Declaration of Independence. In particular, this part:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
Kuster does not concur.
Instead, Kuster declared on the eve of Independence Day weekend that she believes some people are more equal than others.
Kuster made the statement in response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s 6-3 ruling that racial preferences violate the “all men are created equal” principles of the Constitution. Rather than celebrate equal treatment, Kuster attacked the Court and defended the race-based policies Harvard and the University of North Carolina used to reject qualified applicants based on their skin color.
In particular, Kuster supports the policy of turning away qualified Asian students in the name of “diversity.”
Why does Annie Kuster support anti-Asian discrimination? You’ll have to ask her. (Kuster will not respond to questions on the topic from NHJournal.)
It’s hard to think of a more anti-American, Fourth-of-July ideological failure than Kuster’s embrace of racial discrimination.
Oddly, Kuster claims that colleges should discriminate based on race to “ensure that all students have a fair chance to succeed.”
How is excluding people based on their skin color “a fair chance?” Once again, Kuster will not answer.
And Kuster is hardly alone in advocating discrimination against Asian Americans. When an Asian-American mom posted a Tweet praising the Supreme Court’s ruling and what it means for her daughter, progressive media personality Soledad O’Brien responded:
“Congrats on screwing over other people of color, ma’am! (Particularly those whose efforts in civil rights paved the way for your family to come to America!).”
Accusing a person of color of “screwing over” others by simply asking for equal treatment is an astonishing notion in 2023. Like Kuster, O’Brien backs unabashed discrimination against Asians, explicitly arguing that the grandchildren of Vietnamese boat people and the children of Uyghur refugees owe it to Black Americans to stay on the back of the bus.
CNN contributor Jeff Yang is even more explicit in expressing the “too many Asians” sentiment among progressives, tweeting: “Is the experience you want for your kids a campus that is 40-60 percent Asian?”
As many in the Jewish community have noted, this same argument was used in support of quotas on the number of Jews allowed to attend Harvard and other elite universities two generations ago. Today, that’s viewed as shameful.
So why isn’t Kuster ashamed of her support for applying the same policy to Asian-American students today?
Defenders of the Harvard policy say it’s not “anti-Asian” but rather “pro-Black” or “pro-Hispanic.” But as Justice John Roberts noted, because the number of students admitted is fixed, “college admissions are zero-sum. A benefit provided to some applicants but not to others necessarily advantages the former group at the expense of the latter.”
Roberts has the receipts, too: Among the top-tier applicants, Black students have a narrow edge over Asian and White applicants. But these are the cream of the crop across the board and represent a small number of applicants. When you get to the more typical students, the numbers are shocking.
“In the second highest academic decile, the disparity is even starker. 83% of black applicants were admitted, while 58% of white applicants and 47% of Asian applicants were admitted,” Roberts wrote. “And in the third highest decile, 77% of black applicants were admitted, compared to 48% of white applicants and 34% of Asian applicants.”
In other words, in the third group, Asian applicants had less than half the chance of admission as their Black counterparts.
Perhaps the most confused person on this issue is U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), who said:
“The Court’s misguided decision reminds us how far we still have to go to ensure that all Americans are treated equally.”
Of course, “all Americans treated equally” is precisely what the Supreme Court is requiring and what Democrats like Schumer and Kuster oppose. So what’s really going on?
Politics. Black and Hispanic voters are a key part of the Democratic Party’s coalition, and they’re more important than Asian voters. Plus, young, progressive voters — including Asians — are more likely to support affirmative action policies, and the youth vote is also key. And so if the cost of keeping political allies happy is sending a few thousand Asian students to the back of the racial justice bus, Democrats are more than willing to do so.
It may be good politics, but it’s a lousy way to celebrate the Fourth of July.
