This is related to something Josh Harkinson at Mother Jones pointed out recently: Asians are far underrepresented in top management in relation to their representation among rank and file workers, especially in technical positions, in Silicon Valley. This is well known. People make all sorts of excuses for this. For example, a large number of the Asians are immigrants to the children of immigrants, who may not have the “social capital” to be successful in management at an American firm.

For me, here’s the upshot: we just need to be honest. Perhaps the cultural skills and dispositions that Asian Americans bring to the labor force are naturally more amenable to technical positions and professions like medicine than they are to management. It may not be as much discrimination, even of the implicit sort, as opposed to the natural sorting of personality types. This is an option we may need to entertain, rather than assuming that it is all invidious discrimination. It does strike me as obvious that Harvard and other Ivy League schools are attempting to racially balance by putting their fingers on the admission knobs in just the perfect manner. Though I’m not particularly happy about this, being transparent and honest would at least allow us to address what’s going on, and wonder whether we should do something about it. The fact is that Asian Americans are doing relatively well, even if their proportion at Harvard is 20% instead of 40%. Do we as a society need to abolish all discrimination by any means necessary? I’d say no.