Dealing With Discrimination: Lessons For Sri Lanka From US Engineering

By S. Ratnajeevan H. Hoole -June 2, 2013

Prof S. Ratnajeevan H. Hoole

American Asians – Engineering Demographics

The US population is 72% White, 16% Hispanic, 13% African American, and 5.6% Asian (2010 figures).  Asians are 13.1% of American engineers. Asians garner 16% of the prestigious Ivy League university admissions. According to the American Society of Engineering Education (ASEE)  24.1% of engineering professors are Asian.

But all is not well. It is strongly suspected that Ivy League admission is based on secret discriminatory quotas. Princeton sociologist Thomas Espenshade says, “to receive equal consideration by elite colleges, Asian Americans must outperform Whites by 140 points, Hispanics by 280 points, Blacks by 450 points in the Scholastic Aptitude Test scores totaling 1600 (NY Times, 19.12.2012).

Furthermore our students may not like us – in AC Carle’s study of 10,392 Florida classes taught by 1120 instructors, minority instructors received “significantly lower” teacher ratings in face-to-face teaching, but that difference vanished in online classes. (Computers and Education, 53(2) 429-435, 2009). Yet these evaluations determine hiring and promotion.

Preaching Diversity: ASEE, NSF and IEEE

Devolving true power to the provinces is the way to diminish the abuse of power, and to move Sri Lanka forward.

Lessons for Sri Lanka From US Engineering by nelvely