I now support quotas on (South) Asian Americans at elite universities

A Harvard Law Professor Is Representing Harvey Weinstein. Students Say This Makes Them Unsafe, Demand His Resignation:

Harvard’s administration is taking students’ concerns seriously, and has agreed to conduct a review of Sullivan.

“In this situation, we would like to have a more complete understanding of the current environment at Winthrop House,” wrote Dean of the College Rakesh Khurana in an email, according to The Harvard Crimson.

One of The Crimson’s own staff members*, Danukshi Mudannayake, is spearheading the effort to remove Sullivan. She started a change.org petition that claims his representation of Weinstein as “not only upsetting, but deeply trauma-inducing.” According to Mudannayake, Sullivan has made clear that he does not “value the safety of students he lives with in Winthrop House.”

The American system is upsetting. To be frank, it’s a feature, not a bug. Presumption of innocence exists not in cases where it is easy to support the innocent, but in cases where it is hard. In the United States of America there are people who commit horrible crimes, and lawyers who defend them and lawyers who prosecute them. This is all part of the system.

It is tough on the heart. But it works. Unlike some societies, the will of the majority does not dictate the outcome (in theory).

Seeing those names was like a punch in the stomach. This is not the sort of “model minority” that I’d like to encourage.

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Xerxes the Magian
5 years ago

Maybe ban the Brits instead?

Danukshi Secures Slot at Prestigious Harvard University
By Sujeeva Nivunhella in London

Danukshi Mudannayake, a British student of Sri Lankan origin, earned herself a place at the renowned Harvard University in the USA.

A brilliant student from an early age, she passed her 11+ grammar school entrance exam, securing a place at her local grammar school, where she achieved 10 A*s in her GCSEs (O/Levels).

She obtained 4 As at the AS-Level and is now positive of scoring straight A*s for her A/Levels this summer. Studying at Woodford County High School, in Ilford, Danukshi feels privileged to have secured admission to a top American university.

Harvard University is currently ranked second in the world and has produced some of the finest individuals such as Barack Obama, John F Kennedy and Facebook creator, Mark Zuckerburg.

After competing with over 1,600 applicants, Danukshi was one of the 150 students selected to attend a summer school in the US last year. Yale University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) accommodated these students, who spent a week living on campus and also visited many other American universities.

The daughter of Jude and Dilrukshi Mudannayake, she will be enrolling at Harvard University in August this year.

AnAn
5 years ago

I am confused. What does Sullivan have to do with Asians or South Asians? Can you elaborate Razib?

Danukshi Mudannayake is one person. Does she represent Asians in any way?

As Zack points out she appears to be culturally English.

AnAn
5 years ago
Reply to  Razib Khan

Is Rakesh Khurana really a SJW or a virtue signaling moral posturing protect my behind hypocrite type?

To be fair aren’t most Asians, caucasians, latinos and blacks really type two? Not that this is a good thing mind you.

AP
AP
5 years ago
Reply to  Razib Khan

I see this enrichment towards this progressive illiberalism among brown Americans too (though to be fair, brown Americans are also rather prominent in the GOP relative to other minority groups there, which may be part of the same phenomenon). This is somewhat odd, given the wealth, class origins, and family values of many South Asians. I have met brown people who grew up in the South who simultaneously railed against the decadence of “white trash” with their multiple divorces and all (conservative position acquires from family no doubt) while also playing the grievance minority and intersectional cards.

I think among desi Americans, this is a function of 2nd generation brown people being highly educated and exposed to these ideas in college and the media. Because of their color and minority status, this would be the natural position for them to take or be open to, especially since they’re already conditioned to have a grievance against the British and Western colonialism. Furthermore, most brown people aren’t going to be going out of their way to expose themselves to the Western tradition in its entirety, let alone Christian oriented messaging.

Most brown people I know aren’t really familiar with the Anglo-Saxon legal tradition and norms, but rather feel that whenever a law or idea makes sense, it should be implemented by a competent leader.

Unlike brown people in India, brown Americans are cut off from much of the daily ideology churn going on in India, some of which is highly anti-leftist, and more aligned with “conservative” positions in the US. Beyond Bollywood and food, desi exposure to South Asian trends is relatively surface level. I’d conclude that this, combined with the factors that push generally immigrants toward the Democrats in the US accounts for this illiberalism among brown people. Their parents May vote for a Democrats only because they perceive the GOP as too white and Christian, but their kids have become total true believers for the most part.

AP
AP
5 years ago
Reply to  AP

Sorry for typos, typing on my phone.

AP
AP
5 years ago
Reply to  AP

Anyhow, nothing bothers me so much as people, brown or not, taking a couple of classes in college or joining some group or the other, and then claiming they know everything about all these issues, while also getting involved in activism. There’s no nuance informed by in-depth historical knowledge.

HaoleGwailo
HaoleGwailo
5 years ago

Rakesh Khurana was fully in support of crushing “single-gender social organizations.”

https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2018/12/3/social-groups-sue-over-sanctions/

He is an absolute SJW of #wokecapital.

AnAn
5 years ago
Reply to  HaoleGwailo

HaeleGwailo, the article you cite confuses me.

Why is Rakesh trying to shut down all female only organizations and sororities?

Is it because of an opposition to safe spaces in general? [This I would get, but even then I think this goes too far.]

Is it that Rakesh believes that all female organizations, sororities and safe spaces are anti LBGTQ?

Honestly I can’t make heads or tails of it.

Why are you sure he is an SJW of #wokecapital? Could he be cowardly moral posturing virtue signaler?

Saurav
Saurav
5 years ago
Reply to  Razib Khan

South and East i would say

Walter Sobchak
Walter Sobchak
5 years ago

I am a lawyer and I practiced law for many years, although I am retired now. If I were still in practice I would never hire a law school grad, even one who went to Harvard, who did not understand the core commitment of the profession to representing every client and presenting his case in the best possible light no matter how odious the community thinks the client is. Even Harvey Weinstein deserves competent representation and a fair trial.

What really scares me is that the so called woke children in our law schools have taken the attitude that led to lynchings in the South in the 20th Century. That the law schools think they should coddle this nonsense and not use it as an opportunity to reinforce bedrock lessons in ethics is appalling.

AnAn
5 years ago
Reply to  Walter Sobchak

Walter, maybe I no longer understand America. This new America seems indescribably different from the America of the 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s.

Surely even leftists understand the concepts of fiduciary responsibility, client attorney confidentiality, and the duty a lawyer has to represent their client to the best of their ability.

This is ancient stuff. Even the ancient Sumerians understood this 7 thousand years ago. The ancient Arya people also understood this in the Dharma Shastras and Manu Smriti.

Are you saying that major elite global law schools are really teaching this stuff en mass?

I am having a hard time wrapping my head around this. I keep thinking this can’t possibly be true.

Lizard Catcher
Lizard Catcher
5 years ago

Mumtaz Qadri, a fanatic Islamist, killed Salman Taseer not because Taseer himself committed blasphemy, but because Taseer chose to advocate for an alleged blasphemer.

Fundamental Islamist groups warned clerics not to conduct the funeral of Taseer, not because Taseer was a blasphemer, but because he supported the cause of an alleged blasphemer.

American Left is closer to Islamic right than they even realize.

Shafiq R
5 years ago

Whatever South Asians are good for, they are surely good for talking. In university SJW circles South Asian, mainly girls, are very prominent. They garrulity even make SJWs of other colors into state of uncomfortable silence. Yes, I think South Asians are either overrepresented either as whole or in leadership of SJW groups.

Ikram
Ikram
5 years ago

The sharp left turn of millenial American browns has been a totally surprising development for me. I never would have predicted it back in the Iraq-war days, when young desis were well represented among warbloggers and anti-idiotarians.

But today, Saikat Chakrabarti runs AOC’s office, Bhaskar Sankara is the godfather of young American socialism, Faiz Shakir is Bernie’s campaign manager, Walid Shahid is recruiting left wing challengers at Justice Democrats, and the tag team of Hassan Minhaj and Prashant Venkataramanujam are beaming left-brown political comedy into every American home.

(Not to mention Pramila Jayapal, Kshama Sawant, or Rohit Khanna — left wing desi politicians tearing it up!).

Saurav
Saurav
5 years ago

One thing is how genuinely serious, non left folks are that America really might become a socialist country. I mean in India we have a saying, no one can stop a bad idea whose time has come. I think the sort of post 2008 crisis would have lead to this massive tilt to the other end in economic sense. I actually feel that all this talk of socialism is some sort of great evil and all will not help right/conservative folks.

No amount of “talk” can really take the allure away. .Its only when the a country has experienced socialism will it eventually turn away from it, at least in piece meal (like India). The thing about USA is unlike India it has the resources to make “socialism” work in the short and middle term, unlike India which had to some what be “forced” out of socialism in the 90s.

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ben-canaan
ben-canaan
5 years ago

I lived in Winthrop House for 3 years. Part of the reason Sullivan is getting roasted by an unusually wide coalition on campus (not just SJWs or the other adjacent usual suspects) is that it’s widely known that he doesn’t give a shit about his custodial role as house master.

He gets free premium housing and lots of prestige for the role, but is so uninvolved in the community (again, what he’s nominally there to do) that he misidentified my Mesoamerican-looking roommate as a trespasser to police, despite having lived next to him for a year.

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