In the U.S., ethnic East Asians are often depicted as a “model minority” and assumed to be thriving in educational and professional terms. But reality is more complex. A new study co-authored by Jackson Lu, the Mitsui Career Development Professor in the MIT Sloan School of Management, finds that students of East Asian descent often struggle in U.S. business schools and law schools, seemingly due to a culturally influenced lack of vocal assertiveness in these classroom settings — where verbal participation is prized. The results of the study, which analyzes…