About a month ago I discussed (here) an interesting article in the New Yorker by Malcolm Gladwell about the illuminating and entertaining history of admissions in the Ivy League. Gladwell’s article was based on a new book by Jerome Karabel, a Berkeley sociologist, The Hidden History of Admission and Exclusion at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, which was reviewed in the Washington Post yesterday.
It’s too bad that review couldn’t have been written before the book under review was published, because it provides more grist (as if any were needed) for Karabel’s mill.
First, its title/subtitle: “The Ivy Curtain: How meritocracy in higher education arose from a system built to keep WASPs in and Jews out.” Although the review’s author, Jeffrey Kittay, is probably not responsible this title, it does appear at the top of his review, and the subtitle is almost entirely wrong, largely contradicted not only by the book but by the review itself. One of the central thrusts of Karabel’s marvelous book is his demonstration of how “meritocracy,” the new emphasis on higher academic admission requirements around the turn of the century, led to the admission of too many Jews, an unfortunate fact that led all the guardians of the gates to the Ivy League to come up with new flexible (we, to our eternal discredit, would now say “holistic”), subjective requirements stressing leadership, character, etc., in order to keep the academically successful but socially unwanted undesirables out.
Although Kittay may not be responsible for this inaccurate title, he is responsible for the review itself, and it reveals almost the same level of not quite getting it. Note, for example:
Astonishingly, this subjective college admissions system — designed in the 1920s to discreetly exclude as many “social undesirables” as possible — is the system we continue to use today. And the central irony of The Chosen is that the very flexibility that was designed to exclude nontraditional students and placate the alumni up to the middle of the 20th century was subsequently available to administrators to accomplish essentially opposite goals.
But there is nothing at all either “astonishing” or “ironic” about discriminatory admissions policies that differ only in the racial or ethnic identity of the groups whose numbers the policies are designed to restrict. They both derive from the principle that regards racial and ethnic discrimination as not only defensible but desirable, so long as the “best people” are doing it in what, by definition (since they are the best people), is a worthy cause.
Are we slandering the Ivy administrators of the 1920’s, by comparing the current prodiversity quotas to their policies? They were in process of establishing a mighty merit system which shook the world, unleashing even nuclear weapons. What have our quotamongering, racial administrators allowed to be achieved, since they established their antimerit system in the 1970’s? The older diversifiers moved in both promerit and antimerit directions. They allowed the numbers of Jews admitted to increase; their counterparts today insist that the white percentage must fall every few years, just to fill quotas. Worse, the older policies were private affairs using zero to negligible public funds; the antimerit activists of today use public funds, taken by mere aggression, for policies very much against the majority judgement.
The admissions policies at public universities are fraught with lies and corruption. They lie about how they admit people based on race (saying it’s merely a small factor among many, when it’s almost always the major, deciding factor), and they are corrupt because if the public actually knew the truth, they would never approve of their tax money being used in such a way.
I take it that Galdwell’s commentary was taken from his reading of Karabel’s book the ” |The Chosen ” . Karabel is a Berkeley prof who has written about community colleges and one time tried to meddle in Berkeley’s admission policies . His proposals were eventually overturned. Bolton really got it all wrong. The admissions system of the Ivies was really a nighmarish garbage that resonates even today for being NONMERITOCRATIC, undemocratic and downright unfair. I suggest that he read Karabel’s book the ” The Chosen ” . I had been saying for a long time that the admissions practices of the Ivies, the LACs and many private schools as the complete antithesis of a democracy. It was a vast system of preferences that simply bordered on obscenity whose main objective was to retain the stranglehold of the ruling classes in this country.It fed on the greed and the selfishness of parents and students who wanted their offspring to be perceived as intelligent. It created the system of alumni legacies and alumni donations which was totally abhorrent , repugnant and despicable. Lies and deceit was the currency of this admissions realm. Bolton’s claim that the Ivies created a merit system that developed the atomic bomb is pure rubbish and ridiculously laughable. Aside fromt the usual qoutas against Jews and blacks by these Ivies, in the earlier part of this century these schools were fed by the pipeline of the white aristocracy coming out of prep schools of the sort of Groton, Philips Exeter, Andover, St. Paul, Milton, Choate, Deerfield etc. Even the chemist James B. Conant who became president of Harvard was appalled by the level of mediocrity of the students coming out from these schools. Contrast the Ivies with a school like the City University of New York ( CUNY ). The public CUNY system graduated more people from the 20’s to the late 50’s who became members of the college professioriate and the intelligentsia compared to any Ivy school including harvard. AS late as 1963 The math team of CUNY Brooklyn was ahead of the Harvard math team in the William Lowell PUtnam competition. It is ironic that that competition was sponsored by Harvard.EVen now the admissions system at the Ivies and Stanford is not meritocratic nor is it need-blind and does practice athtletic preferences inspite of their avowals to the contrary. AS for the saga of the American atomic bomb, it was not developed by some merit system in the Ivies but by the efforts of many scientists, foreign – born and otherwise, coming from many universities both public and private. I am suggesting that MR. Bolton is a total ignoramus in regards to this matter.
During the time when the merit system was being developed, there were giants in the country, and in the best schools. During the intellectual pygmy era of antimerit activism, of racial quotas, there are no giants to be found there. Bad money, and quota placeholders, drive out the good. Everybody does it why can’t we, is not a proper moral argument. It is not clear that Harvard or Columbia had quotas against Jews then; but even if they did that would not justify the use of aggression to get racial representation. You still have no excuse to use aggression.
John Bolton,
A rehash of a lot of nonsense is what you are telling me. What is the difference between alumni legacy qoutas and racial qoutas? Nothing, if it were a DNA molecule racial qoutas would exactly have the same molecular formula as alumni legacy qoutas. What is this nonsense that you are talking about Colu mbia and harvard not having racial qoutas against Jews? Since 1910 harvard had tried to limit the number of Jews in its entering class to just 15 %. It was only in the 1950’s that the school tried to remove this cap. Even today at Harvard, there is still a vast system of preferences that prevents any group from
going above 50 % of the entering class. Asians have now replaced Jews as the targets of this qoutas. Just to tell the case at Yale, when Inslee Clark tried to limit the admittance of alumni children at Yale he faced an alumni revolt that ultimately led to his resignation. Bill Buckleu, that archrigtist and former editor of NR played a leading role in that affair. If you haven’t figured it out yet Bolton, you get inside harvard , stanford and other ivys thru your “hooks ” and not because of what is inside your brain. Even though Columbia enrolled a higher percentage of Jews than harvard during this “blacklist ” period, it was doing so not because out of love for JEws but it felt it could not afford alienating NYC which had a very large JEwish population. So stop dishing your nonsense in this forum , we do not need it.
Antimerit activists seek excuses for supporting aggression against the good. There is no history of any kind that can justify the use of aggression against those who have official quotas imposed on them. A propaganda story about what private schools did or did not do with their own money, cannot justify the current aggression. Your antimerit people have no excuse for their quota grabbing indecency. It is immoral and impractical for racial and other groups tp rely on antimerit policies for their positions. It shows a depraved lack of loyalty to the advancement of civilization, without which the antimerit activists themselves, would be left to die.
John Bolton,
You are so laughable and ridiculous. Discrimination in the Ivies is a long standing tradition. Private universities in general even up to now has the worst record of discrimination. The discrimnatory practices practiced by harvard are very well documented not only against Jews, Asians but a lot of things besides. AT one point, HAbad tried to root out homosexuals or perceived homosexuals from its freshman class. The admissions practices of the Ivies and STanford are an abomination on the face of the earth. They belong to the Age of the Dinosaurs, It is vile, sick, demented and depraved, a pestilential abhorrence in the history of mankind. In 1988 when harvard was being investigated by the Ofiice of Civil Rights for discrimination against Asians , it found particulary unflattering statements made by its admissions officers toward its applicants. On the margins of the admissions files, the Harvard admissions officers called the individual applicants with varying adjectives like ” having short ears “, ” tad frothy ” , ” not good looking” , “shy ” etc. Now what has all these adjectives got to do with passing an exam in Organic Chemistry my little nitwit ? This reminds me of an article that appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle about STanford in the early 90’s that described its admissions practices. For fear of being sued , apparently Stanford allowed enrolled students to look at their admission files for a certain period. Some of the enrolled students were crying after they read their own admission files. The remarks made by the stanford admissions officers about them were simply unflattering. One student said that the admissions officer wrote down on his file that ” he was only admitted because his uncle was a professor in the school of medicine and his dad was a school trustee. Another said that the admissions officer admitted him only because his parents were regular alumni monetary donors. In other words the STanford admission officers were contemptous of student that they were admitting. In other words they were admitting some of the students because of the money and connections that they brought in. Shame,shame , shame on you John Bolton to even suggest that the admissions practices of the Ivies and Stanford are fair and meritocratic. It most certainly is not, it is not transparent, it is flexible and downright undemocratic. ONe thing more during the 1988 investigations that loathsome organization called the Office of Civil Rights promised harvard not to release the unflattering comments on the admissions files and to say that Asians were not being discriminated in the harvard admissions process which was simply a bald faced lie. That was the price exctracted by that loathsome school called Harvard for releasing the admissions files to the investigators.
I have to declare victory here; the degeneration into ad hominem and maudlin appeals to emotion and unreason are sufficient for that. If rational arguments for racial and other quotas for the disadvatanged lineages were available, they would have been used. Moral arguments, not ‘everybody does it, why can’t we’, would be used. My main point that aggression is not justified to get places for the disadvantaged, remains unchallenged. I still maintain that the Ivies’ switch to national recruitment in the 1920’s, even though it kept Jews from reaching a much higher percentage at Harvard, Columbia and several other schools, was morally of vast superiority to the current affirmative action system. One only has to look at the level of test scores at these schools, and their achievement levels in the past, to realize that.
You are so laughable John Bolton, no one in this forum is sticking out his/her neck trying to defend you. Preferences of any kind be they racial, geographical, alumni legacy etc. are vile, sick, demented and depraved. Nobody is slandering the Ivy admissions committees by accusing them of the worst admissions practices in higher education. In truth, they are the epitome of what is vile, evil and the worst in human nature. The whole history of the Ivy League is one of exclusion, greed , self – interest denying admission to anyone for any reason that they saw fit. You seem to forget that the iVIES, sTANFORD and other private schools are businesses. They are no different from your mom and pop store at the corner or to a pimp running a stable of prostitutes. Throughout its history, the admissions practices of the Ivies and Stanford relied a great deal on opacity, flexibility and ambigousness. Grades and standardized test scores were of little importance to them. What mattered to them was that the applicant would help them survive and that usually meant money.The definition of ” merit ” by these ivies depended on whether that particular definition of ” a student of deserving merit ” would be useful to the
university. In other words alumni legacies got in because of the money that brought to the university, it admitted a certain number of people with high grades and SAT scores in order to raise the mean SAT score of the entering class. This in turn would attract many rich white folks to send their mediocre children to that particular Ivy school so that they would be certified as intelligent. It admitted blacks not because it loved blacks but because it did not want to be accused of being racist and also as in the case of the 60’s era, it did not want black rioters to burn down Yale or harvard (burn baby, burn…..) It admitted academically inferior white athlethes to
help it gain victories in the playing fields. Alas it was a vain hope for most Ivy athletic teams are stuck in Division 2 and 3 of the NCAA. The writer James Traub writing in Slate magazine today admitted that he now knows that he was admitted to Harvard because his father attended Harvard rather than because of any intellectual consideration on the part of the university in regards to his cranial capacity. He was an alumni legacy in other words. Do you think you
could elicit the same kind of admission from George Bush , or the Kennedys or Ronald REagan Jr. ? in your claim that these vile admissions practices of the Ivies were not comparable to the repugnant racial admissions preferences being practiced by both public and private schools right now, Ivy or otherwise ? Wrong Bolton, they are exactly the same. The vile admissions practices of harvard in the past and present are equal to that of any race preferentialist be it the Ku Klux Klan, BAMN or William Buckley (NR editor ) and other race preferentilists on the left like Lani Guinier. Jest to give you an example of the kind of dog these Ivies really are, in 1939 a black kid who graduated from a high school as its valedictorian showed up on opening class day at Princeton. The Princeton admissions office admitted him without seeing his picture. They thought he was white. The moment they found out their error with his black living prescence, they unceremoniously told him to go home. This black kids later became a New York appeals Court judge. Shame on you John Bolton, I am the one who is victorious.