UNC MPA Student Digest | January 19, 2024

UNC MPA News and Events

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Diversity Gazette: Issue #63, January 2024

One Student's Perspective on a Tough Issue - by Sarah Zhang

As the daughter of two Chinese immigrants who achieved the American Dream through higher education, going to a good university was in the books since I was young. My parents firmly believed that it was impossible to be successful without a college degree, and we began touring campuses starting in middle school. However, at the same time, they - along with many other Chinese immigrant parents I knew - believed that Asian Americans, in particular men, faced “discrimination” from admissions offices that would disadvantage them. It was continually repeated to my brother that because he was part of a group that was a larger statistic of college applicants, he would be less likely to get into a good school (he currently goes to UC Berkeley).

This is rhetoric that anti-affirmative action advocatess have repeated - that those of East Asian descent are being “cut in line” by other minorities. In the Students For Fair Admissions (SFFA) v. UNC, and SFFA v. Harvard, cases (SFFA) made this a core part of their dialogue, particularly in the Harvard case. However, through my work with organizations such as Asian Americans Advancing Justice and meeting Asian American students who believe they benefitted from affirmative action as firstgeneration and/or low-income students, I’ve found this, in my own experience, to largely be a myth perpetrated by SFFA to drive a racial wedge between Asians and other communities of color. Statistics from Harvard admissions themselves have shown that Asian Americans are not less likely to be accepted; instead, college applications have simply become more competitive as a whole.

I personally also consider myself to be a beneficiary of affirmative action. My Common App essay was about my personal experience overcoming the submissive, docile East Asian woman stereotype to becoming an outspoken activist, and how microaggressions and lack of representation in my K-12 education drove me to explore and be proud of my racial identity and cultural heritage. In my UNC supplementals, I wrote about my desire to engage in Asian American culture on campus through clubs such as the Asian American Student Association (AASA) and Chinese Undergraduate Student Association (CUSA). Not only did affirmative action likely play a role in my acceptance to UNC, but it has impacted the many people I’ve learned from here as well.

Shifting from a high school where the population was 1% Black to a vibrant Black cultural community at UNC, as well as meeting students from all over the world with varied life experiences and having professors with historically resilient identities, has made me a more well-rounded student in broadening my perspectives. Additionally, I feel far more comfortable to stand up to and call out inequality when those in positions of power have personal experiences with discrimination.

I’m personally concerned about the impacts of the Supreme Court’s decision on affirmative action for future classes of students, especially when the banning of race-conscious admissions already in the University of California system or at the University of Michigan have proved to significantly detrimental to diverse demographics within the student population. All students deserve a fair shot to higher education, and when there are so many existing structural barriers for those of color, we should absolutely consider alternatives to the removal of race-conscious admissions.

• Monday, January 22: Career and Networking Fair
• Wednesday, January 31 - Friday, February 2: NCCCMA Winter Conference
• Thursday, February 1 - Winston-Salem Happy Hour Hub
• Monday, February 12: On-campus well-being day
• Tuesday, February 13: On-campus well-being day, Online well-being day
• Friday, February 16: Graduation Application Priority Deadline
• March 11-15: On-campus Spring Break
• Thursday, March 21: Summer registration opens for online classes
• March 27-31: Online Spring Break



You may also find all calendar events on the MPA Intranet calendar or by adding "UNC MPA Student Calendar" on Outlook.

UNC events and beyond

Hybrid Lunchbox Talk: Land of the Longleaf Pine

Date: Thursday, January 25, 2024

Time: 12:00 PM-1:00 PM EST

Location: Hybrid - Virtual and In-person attendance options

Free; preregistration required

REGISTER

DETAILS

Did you know that longleaf pine habitats are home to thousands of other living things? The longleaf pine landscape supports vast groundcover plants which in turn hosts hundreds of insects, birds, mammals, reptiles, and amphibians. Beyond its iconic biodiversity, fire-maintained longleaf pine forests provide numerous benefits to our communities. Join us to learn more about why longleaf pine conservation and restoration is critical for the future of the Southeast.

Lecture - The Jew and The Pig: A History

Monday, January 22

5:30 - 7:00 pm

The Sonja Haynes Stone Center for Black Culture and History

http://jewishstudies.unc.edu

Learn how, over time, the pig became a popular metaphor for Jewish/non-Jewish identity. In this talk, we'll explore this development, starting in the Hebrew Bible and then following the pig as it forages through Jewish history. The event is hosted by the Carolina Center for Jewish Studies and co-sponsored by the Department of Religious Studies.

Abbey Speaker Series: Frank Bruni and Bari Weiss in Conversation

Monday, January 22

7:00 - 8:30 pm

The Frank Porter Graham Student Union, Auditorium

https://publicdiscourse.unc.edu/discourse-event/abbey-speaker-series-frank-bruni-and-bari-weiss-in-conversation/

Veteran journalists and former colleagues Frank Bruni and Bari Weiss reunite for a discussion of objectivity in Journalism, as part of the Program for Public Discourses’ Abbey Speaker Series. Weiss is the founder and editor of The Free Press and host of the podcast Honestly. From 2017 to 2020 Weiss was an opinion writer and editor at The New York Times. Before that, she was an op-ed and book review editor at The Wall Street Journal and a senior editor at Tablet Magazine. Bruni has been a journalist for more than three decades, including more than twenty-five years at The New York Times, the last ten of them as an op-ed columnist who appeared frequently as a television commentator

Links and resources

• UNC MPA website
• Student intranet
• School of Government website