An Inconvenient Minority

June 1, 2021
How Asian Americans have been ill-served by policies of diversity and inclusion. Journalist Xu, who writes for the Federalist, Washington Examiner, and other publications, offers a strident critique of Critical Race Theory, which, as James Lindsay writes in the foreword, "openly denigrates a key American virtue--merit, that combination of talent and hard work that makes for genuine, well-earned success," and in consequence has had "a disproportionate impact on one racial minority group in the United States more than any other: Asian Americans." CRT posits that systemic racism victimizes people of color. According to Xu, it focuses on Black and Latinx groups--people considered "minorities" by liberals and the left--while excluding Asian Americans, who, despite being non-White, have achieved upward social mobility because they prize education and aspire to excellence. Xu shares anecdotes of Asian immigrants and Asian Americans who, despite stellar academic performance, especially in math and science, were rejected by elite colleges--as he was, by Princeton; he took a scholarship at Davidson--or even less prestigious schools, in favor of Black or Latinx students who were not as well prepared but were recruited for the "cosmetic additions they make to the university aesthetic." Even in the tech world, Xu has found, Asians are not considered "diverse" but instead are exploited and underpaid relative to Whites and kept out of leadership roles. Mandates for diversity and inclusion, he argues, are "anti-meritocratic" and undermine "the very principle of objective meritocracy on which this country became a global powerhouse of excellence." Writing as a warning "about what happens when elite discrimination is legitimized and abetted by the world's most powerful institutions," Xu contributes to the ongoing debate about inequality, injustice, and racism that informs recent books such as Daniel Markovits' The Meritocracy Trap and Michael Sandel's The Tyranny of Merit. An ardent defense of meritocracy.

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May 24, 2021
Misbegotten diversity initiatives penalize Asian Americans for their meritocratic success, according to this provocative yet unpersuasive debut from conservative commentator Xu. Contending that the social advancement of “the Asian American community” in spite of historic discrimination “directly challenge the Leftist narrative of minority victimhood,” Xu claims that Asian Americans have been left out of conversations about “diversity, equity, and inclusion” because they suffer from persistent stereotypes and lack the kind of “cultural capital” necessary to make their struggles visible to the mainstream. He delves into Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, a lawsuit alleging that the university uses a “personality score” to discriminate against Asian applicants; profiles Asian tech workers who were passed over for promotion because they were stereotyped as “robotic” and lacking in “management know-how”; and examines attempts to “correct” the predominance of Asians in prestigious magnet schools by eliminating standardized tests. Xu raises intriguing questions about the place of Asian Americans in U.S. society, but his bitterness toward the “woke liberal leftist elite” overshadows his more eloquent case for preserving the American dream of achievement through hard work. This one-sided screed misses the mark. Agent: Andrew Stuart, the Stuart Agency.