In the Grutter and Gratz Supreme Court decision, proponents of affirmative action claimed that a critical mass of minority students could effectively counter racial marginalization often experienced by students of color due to their racial status. On some campuses, Asian Americans as a pan-ethnic population enjoy a critical mass in undergraduate enrollments, and therefore present an opportunity for scholars to explore the relationship between critical mass, racial marginalization, and racial power within campus racial climate.

Using UCLA as a case study of a campus environment with a critical mass of Asian Americans and controversies over racial disparities in college access, I conducted in-depth interviews of 25 randomly selected Asian American UCLA undergraduates, who represent a diversity of ethnicities, genders, academic majors, and socio-economic class. My dissertation explores ways in which Asian American college students continue to be racially marginalized, based on their experiences of racial microaggressions despite critical mass due to a campus racial climate that maintains White dominance and privilege. I also analyzed the data to show how Asian American college students engage in behaviors that conform to, reinforce, and resist White racial dominance and power.

My project contributes to the literature on campus racial climate through a lens of Critical Race Theory. It also contributes toward the growing literature on Asian American experiences in education. Findings indicate that Asian American college students experience a range of racial microaggressions within the campus environment, indicating that critical mass is limited in its ability to mitigate racial marginalization. Students were also found to engage in various forms of responses to microaggressions that either reinforced or resisted dominant racist ideologies. Racial microaggressions are manifestations of structural racism, and are therefore important to study in order to assess campus racial climate. Based on this study, I present a Critical Race Theory Model to study Campus Racial Climate.