Affirmative Action for the Rich

There has been much debate about the fairness and effectiveness of giving favorable treatment to people who have suffered from past discrimination.  Some believe that giving disadvantaged people extra credit in school, employment and promotional considerations is the least we can do to “level the playing field.” Some believe that it weakens the disadvantaged group by making it easier for its members and not forcing them to give more than 100 percent.

In California, as in other states, the use of affirmative action criteria or preference in education and employment decisions is illegal.  But there is still affirmative action. It is not for the poor underprivileged. It is not for those who are the first in their families to go to college. The affirmative action prevalent in the nation’s best private colleges and universities affects as many as half of the schools’ enrollment.

The Ivy League schools like Yale and Harvard are famous for admitting the children of rich or famous people and of alumni who have made generous donations to the school. Stanford, the school that was started in order to provide Californians with an excellent affordable education, accepts out of state and, even, international children of famous and prominent people, while California students with perfect grades and test scores are turned away because they have no connections.    

The average grade point average of elite, private college graduates is an amazing 3.5, meaning the average student in these prestigious schools, gets only an equal number of ‘A’s’ and ‘B’s.’ This is not the case at the nations top public universities. So not only do the privileged get into the best schools, they get great grades to boot.

Our two most recent presidential races show how serious this problem has been.  George Bush,  Joe Lieberman, Howard Dean, and John Kerry all went to Yale as did Presidents George H. Bush and Bill Clinton before them. One can only wonder how some of them would have gotten in back then had it not been for their parents. (I believe that Clinton got into Yale law school on his own merit.)

When you listen to our most recent Yalie president who also went to one of the best prep schools in the country and got an MBA at Harvard, you wonder what happened. How could that much education be lost on a single person? He, like his father, seems to have no concept of grammar or diction.  But even beyond the severe verbal limitations, our president seems to also never to have learned logic, critical thinking or ethics.

With the most glaring example of the perils of this good old boy system of higher education sitting in the Oval Office, even these prestigious schools themselves should take stock and realize enough is enough.  No more affirmative action for the rich children of important parents.

If this society wants to build an aristocracy that is truly well educated and wise,  our institutions of higher learning should accept students based on their own accomplishments not those of their ancestors. That way people of all kinds know that they must do their very best to succeed and, that if they do, they will be judged and rewarded accordingly.

Isn’t that what a democracy is all about: equal opportunity to excel?