Adam Liptak collects some of the usual criticisms of legacy preferances, as well as some new-fangled ones, in this New York Times column yesterday. (HatTip to reader Jian Li for reminding me that it is worth attention.)
“The usual justification for legacy preferences,” he writes,
is candidly cynical: they generate contributions from alumni. That crass bargain seems a poor substitute for the usual considerations in admissions decisions, like merit and diversity. But private universities are certainly entitled to trade money for principle.
Let’s leave aside the view that a university exercising the prerogatives protected by academic freedom and adopting educational policies that raise money is “crass.” Let’s even leave aside the conventional wisdom that “diversity,” i.e., selecting and rejecting students in part on the basis of their race, is now not only “usual” but is in fact a “principle” to be contrasted with “crass” fund-raising.
What should not be left aside, however, is the surprising obtuseness of Liptak’s immediately following remark:
Public universities, which are part of state and city governments, may be another matter. Why in the world should the government be allowed to discriminate based on heredity?
A very good question, but noteworthy here primarily because Liptak is obviously oblivious to the fact that “diversity” admissions — choosing some and rejecting others because of their race — is itself “to discriminate based on heredity.”
As usual John, you hit the nail squarely on the head. To use another cliche, it is amazing how proponents of affirmative action cannot see the forest because of the trees. Fortunately, for all thoughtful Americans, they keep tripping over the roots while trying to make their argument that affirmative action is not discrimination.
Liptak’s argument is full of beans. It’s the old Marxist argument against inherited wealth.
We’ve learned through hard, murderous experience that families must be granted the perogatives of inherited wealth. Custom is not, as the bonehead left likes to argue, just an arbitrary “social construct.” Custom is what humans learned over thousands of years.
Stash this one inside the knucklehead left’s “good intentions” folder along with all the other history lessons the left refuses to learn.
Always, the left thinks that these arguments are new. They are not. These arguments were widespread in Russia from 1850 forward. These arguments were dramatically and decisively destroyed by the reality of human experience in the Soviet Union and Communist China.
Hey, leftists! When will you ever learn? Just because something sounds good and makes you feel all pious… well, that doesn’t mean a damned thing.