The justifications offered by educational institutions for trying to reduce the number of Asian students are remarkably similar to those offered a century ago for keeping down the number of Jews.
This is actually just one of many ways in which today's anti-Asian prejudice is similar to past (sometimes also, present) anti-Semitism. I'm far from the first to point this out. But I'm not sure the full scope of the parallels are appreciated.
But here are a few points:
Like today's Asian students, Jewish ones were condemned for being too interested in academics and test scores, and not enough in extracurricular activities, campus social life, and athletics.
Administrators claimed that having too many Jews would undermine geographic representativeness of the student body, and create a problematic social and cultural atmosphere for other groups. Ditto for Asians today (though in the earlier era, the group administrators were concerned for were primarily white Christians, as opposed to today's concerns about blacks and Hispanics).
Jews were seen by critics as lacking in school spirit and loyalty to the institution; they were, it was claimed, just using it to get ahead. A legislator said much the same thing about Asians at Thomas Jefferson.
Anti-Asian violence by people who blame Asians for the coronavirus is remarkably similar to the long history of anti-Semitic violence by people who blamed Jews for various past epidemics (most famously, blaming Jews for the Black Plague). Yes, it's true that the Chinese government's policies bear some responsibility for the pandemic. But blaming Asians as a group is still absurd bigotry.
Ted Cruz and others' efforts to keep out Hong Kongers and other Chinese refugees on the theory that they might be spies are reminiscent of 1930s arguments that we must keep out German Jewish refugees because they might be spies for the Nazis.
This is a far from exhaustive list, and more might be said. I would note that there is the key difference that both the left- and right-wing versions of hostility to Asians are minority positions today, whereas anti-Semitic attitudes a century ago were considerably more widespread. But the anti-Asian minority is vocal and prominent enough that it can still cause considerable harm, especially when it resorts to violence and harassment, or controls admissions policies at key educational institutions.