Equal Opportunity and Asian Pacific Americans - Fact Sheet
Americans for a Fair Chance - January 1, 2004
Equal opportunity is a tool to provide qualified individuals with equal access to opportunities. Equal opportunity programs, including recruitment, outreach, and training initiatives, have played a critical role in providing Asian Pacific Americans with access to educational and professional opportunities they would otherwise have been denied despite their strong qualifications.
Although progress has been made over the last 30 years, ensuring equal opportunity for Asian Pacific Americans remains an elusive goal. Continued use of equal opportunity is necessary to help break down barriers to opportunity and ensure that all Americans have a fair chance to demonstrate their talents and abilities. Consider the following facts:
Pay Inequity
- White men make up 48 percent of the college-educated workforce, but hold more than 80 percent of the top jobs in U.S. corporations, law firms, college faculty, government, and news media. (National Asian Pacific American Legal Consortium, 2000)
- White college graduates earned 11 percent more than Asian college graduates. White high school graduates earn 26 percent more than Asian high school graduates. (National Asian Pacific American Legal Consortium, 2000)
Equal opportunity programs in education ensure that Asian Pacific American men and women have equal access to quality education.
- Equal opportunity has been very successful in increasing the representation of minorities in institutions of higher education. From 1990 to 2001, the percentage of Asian Americans who received bachelor's degrees almost doubled. For the school year 1990-1991, the percentage of Asian Americans receiving bachelor's degrees was 3.8 percent; it was 6.3 percent in 2000-2001. (Twentieth Annual Status Report on Minorities in Higher Education, American Council on Education, 2003)
- Asian Pacific Americans achieved dramatic increases in all degree categories from 1990 to 2001. In 1990-1991, 3.4 percent of Asian Americans received master's degrees, and in 2000-2001, 5.2 percent did. (Twentieth Annual Status Report on Minorities in Higher Education, American Council on Education, 2003)
Equal opportunity programs have made available job opportunities for qualified Asian Pacific American women and men to achieve higher wages, and advance in the workplace, making them better able to meet the financial needs of their families. However, limitations still remain.
- Under the Small Business Administration's Section 8(a) program, Asian American-owned businesses more than doubled their share of contracts in a ten-year period, getting 23.7 percent of contracts in 1996 compared to 10.5 percent of contracts in 1986. (Sharpe, Rochelle, "Asian-Americans Gain Sharply in Big Program of Affirmative Action," The Wall Street Journal, September 9, 1997)
- Before Proposition 209 passed in California, Asian Pacific Americans constituted 18.3 percent of the University of California Law School class (1994 to 1996). From 1997 to 1999, Asian Pacific Americans constituted 17.4 percent of the class. By contrast, white Americans' enrollment figures increase by about 12 percent. Overall, white Americans accounted for 59.8 percent of enrollment in the state law schools during the three years before the ban, but 71.7 percent after the ban. (Kidder, William C. "Situating Asian Pacific Americans in the Law School Affirmative Action Debate: Empirical Facts About Thernstrom's Rhetorical Acts," 2000)
