Lessons in Inclusion
Dr. Wallace Loh didn’t quite fit in as a Chinese youth growing up in Peru, and he’s been committed to access and equity ever since
By Lydia Lum
Dr. Wallace Loh still remembers the sting of hearing his high school teachers in Peru call him “el chino” — Spanish for “Chinese boy.”
Why didn’t they simply use his name? After all, they did so with his
“I had lived in Lima since age 2,” Loh recalls. “I spoke Spanish with no accent. But I keenly felt that I didn’t fit in.”
As an educator, Loh has shared that story with many students, especially at the University of Washington, where he was dean of law from 1990-1995. In that time, minority enrollment in UW’s law school doubled, reaching more than 40 percent. The boom in minority enrollment was at least partly because race was used as an admissions factor for the program.
But Loh, who’s now a dean at the private Seattle University, believes the practice of using race in the admissions process is slowly but surely dying. “The public has more reservations about race as a factor in scholarships, in hiring, in so many aspects of daily life compared to 20 years ago. They’re not racist. They just believe that race may not contribute to uniting this country.”
UW and other public universities in the state are now banned from considering race in admissions. Washington voters approved a measure that outlaws preferential treatment for women and minorities in public education, employment and contracting. In the 1997 Smith v. University of Washington Law School case, three White applicants sued the law school, claiming reverse-discrimination case because they were denied admission in the mid 1990’s. Last December, an appeals court ruled in favor of UW. But the law school has seen its minority enrollment dwindle down to 20 percent in recent years.
