Althea Nagai
Research Fellow
Center for Equal Opportunity
Althea Nagai
Research Fellow
Center for Equal Opportunity
In D.C. area for over 20 years, Althea Nagai, Ph.D., is a research fellow at the Center for Equal Opportunity. She has conducted numerous statistical analyses on racial and ethnic preferences in higher education, including racial and ethnic preferences in undergraduate education at five public universities in Virginia, the University of Michigan, two Arizona universities, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, two Ohio universities, and various law and medical schools. In addition, she has written two essays for CEO focusing on Asian Americans, “Too Many Asian Americans,” and “Harvard Investigates Harvard.”
She has also has done work on other statistical studies in the field of social policy. Her first study was a content analysis and critique of the national history standards with John Fonte and Lynne Cheney. She has also conducted studies on marriage, religion, and family structure; on adolescent risk behavior; on philanthropy and social change; and on American elites (American Elites, with Robert Lerner and Stanley Rothman, 1996 Yale University Press).
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Contributions
Deep Dive Episode 216 – Title VI, College Admissions, and Public Opinion
Althea Nagai and Theodore Johnson joined Linda Chavez to discuss new research on public opinion regarding the use of race in college admissions.
Listen to this podcast
Title VI, College Admissions, and Public Opinion
Althea Nagai and Theodore Johnson joined Linda Chavez to discuss new research on public opinion regarding the use of race in college admissions.
Watch this video
Why Did California’s Prop 16 Fail? A County-by-County Assessment
Althea Nagai
The numbers suggest that a majority of voters simply disliked racial/ethnic/gender preferences.
Read this article
Deep Dive Episode 71 – Accounting for Race 101: Virginia Universities and Racial Preferences
This episode features audio from a September 10 panel that explored the implications of a study by the Center for Equal Opportunity that examines how five Virginia public universities preference certain applicants based on race.
Listen to this podcast
Accounting for Race 101: Virginia Universities and Racial Preferences
On September 10, 2019, The Federalist Society hosted a luncheon co-sponsored with the Center for Equal Opportunity (CEO). CEO released and presented a new study and report entitled “Race and Ethnicity in Undergraduate Admissions at Five Virginia Universities,” which examined how admissions programs at five Virginia public universities (University of Virginia, College of William & Mary, Virginia Tech, James Madison University, and George Mason University) preference certain applicants based on race. The results of the study and its implications for the broader academic discussion of racial preferences in college admissions were discussed by the panelists.
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Are U.S. Colleges and Universities Barring Asian Applicants Based on their Race?
The Regulatory Transparency Project and the Center for Equal Opportunity co-sponsored a discussion on the admissions practices at elite colleges as they affect Asian American applicants.
Linda Chavez and her CEO colleagues presented and released a new study and report entitled “‘Too Many Asian Americans?’ Affirmative Discrimination in Elite College Admissions.” The CEO study illustrates that while Caltech admissions decisions are race-blind, its elite sister institutions Harvard University and MIT have established “ceilings”—or a limit—on Asian American acceptances. In addition to addressing the direct ramifications of their study’s findings, event panelists also discussed the unintended consequences of these admissions practices, whether current regulations are adequate to address issues of racial discrimination in college admissions, and what additional role government or civil society may play in redressing racially discriminatory admissions practices.
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Affirmative Discrimination Against Asian American Applicants in College Admissions
Althea Nagai
The Asian American population and the number of Asian Americans going to elite colleges in the United States have exploded in the past few decades. However, since the 1990s, some admissions officers seem to regard being Asian American as a “minus” factor in an application even as they see being black or Hispanic as a “plus.” It’s not as if a college explicitly states that it needs to cap the number of Asian Americans admitted so that more applicants who are not of Asian lineage can get in. Instead, commitments to “holistic admissions” and racial and ethnic “diversity” do the job.
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