80-20 Presidential Candidate Questionnaire
"With liberty and justice for all." Thus
ends our pledge of allegiance to the flag with a ringing commitment
to all citizens. Unfortunately, liberty and justice remain an
unrealized dream for Asian Pacific Americans, APAs. A low glass-ceiling
hangs instead over our heads, denying us the opportunity to rise
to the top of our professions, just as it hung over women and
blacks until recently.
Statistical evidence, mostly gathered by government
sponsored studies, shows a dismal picture: APAs have only one-third
the opportunity of all other Americans to "rise to the top,"
in the academic world, in corporations, or even in federal government.
To illustrate, let's look at the situation in universities,
the so-called bastion of idealism in our society. University administrators
are recruited almost exclusively from the ranks of faculty and
professionals already employed in universities. Hence the ratio
of [administrators / (faculty + professionals)], broken down to
races, is a measure of the opportunity enjoyed by American citizens
of different races. Nationwide, for full-time staff that ratio
for blacks (non-Hispanic) is 0.193. That is, for every 100 black
faculty and professionals there are 19 black administrators. The
ratio for Native American is 0.169; for white (non-Hispanic) is
0.157; and for Hispanic is 0.145. However, it is only 0.057 for
Asian American. For resident aliens, it is 0.046.
http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d02/tables/XLS/Tab224.xls
The situation in the corporate world is worse, much worse. All
Asian American CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, with one exception,
started the companies themselves.
Therefore, we, Asian Pacific Americans,
wish to know your answers to the following questions:
(1) If elected, will you direct
the Labor Secretary to hold public hearings regarding the validity
of the huge amount of statistical data strongly suggesting discriminatory
practices against Asian Pacific Americans in workplaces today?
(2) If the data were shown
valid, will you issue a directive to the Labor Department asking
it to focus on enforcing Executive Order 11246 on behalf of Asian
Pacific Americans, since in the past similar efforts have already
been made on behalf of women and other minorities?
(3) Two years after you have
issued a directive described in item 2, will you meet with a group
of Asian Pacific American leaders, put together jointly by 80-20
and the Labor Department, to review the progress in extending
equal opportunity to Asian Pacific Americans?
My answer to Question 1 above is (Yes/No)
______________
My answer to Question 2 above is (Yes/No)
______________
My answer to Question 3 above is (Yes/No)
______________
Signature: ________________________ DATE: ________________
(Name of Candidate)
