Affirmative action in higher education raises all sorts of interesting legal, political, and ethical issues. In the specific context of litigation alleging that Harvard discriminates against Asian students, now pending before the Supreme Court, I wonder if any of the Justices will ask Harvard University's counsel how it justifies classifying "Asian Americans" as a homogenous category.
Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that preferences for African Americans, Hispanics, and Native Americans are justified, legally and otherwise. Let's also assume--though it's far from unproblematic--that it makes sense to classify everyone with European, North African, and West Asian ancestry as generically "White."
The problem remains that in keeping track of the race/ethnicity of its students for "diversity" purposes, Harvard classifies students with ancestry in the rest of Asia as "Asian American." This includes everyone from Pakistani to Chinese to Indonesian to Filipino to Vietnamese Americans. These various groups differ dramatically in appearance, cuisine, culture, and religion. South Asians, East Asians, and Micronesians, all encompassed within the "Asian American" category, even have different genetic and anthropological origins.
