The Supreme Court heard arguments in another affirmative action case. The one vote against affirmative action nobody questions is that of Justice Clarence Thomas, who has raged against affirmative action from day one of his tenure.
Why would a Black man rage against a program which, from its inception was intended to give Black children a better shot at success? Because he knows, as did everyone that once you set up a separate system to consider the virtues of Black applicants to Harvard, you have everyone saying about the Black Harvard graduate, "Well, he is Black." Which means, of course, well, you don't have to be impressed he went to Harvard because it's easier to get into Harvard if you are Black.
Scott Brown has tried to smear Elizabeth Warren with the stain of having used affirmative action to get into Harvard, saying she gamed the admissions system by claiming to have Indian blood, so her admission to Harvard was tainted, and the fact she did well enough there to wind up on the Law School faculty could not wash that stain out.
In Warren's case, of course, this is just dirty lying politics--throw some mud and hope it sticks in the minds of Joe Sixpack.
But even dating back to 1965, when Lyndon Johnson first backed the notion of affirmative action, there were objections which predicted where we have come today: What will this stamp of validation coming from the meritocracy mean, if there is a "sneak" around the perilous rapids for some people? In kayaking, you can go right through the class five rapids and if you make it out alive on the other side, you have proven you are a world class kayaker--but if you can take the "sneak" around the rapids, even if you arrive at the same end point. what have you proven?
One might argue, this is a poor analogy. The applicant to Harvard who is admitted, still has to perform once they arrive. All you have done is to allow the Black student to line up at the starting line, not sneak around the tough rapids. But this would be more convincing if those applicants, once admitted, majored in engineering, science or math. If they major in English, sociology or African studies, maybe not so much.
Of course, the whole idea of meritocracy is pretty fraught. Athletes, legacy students, children of rich people, potential benefactors have always had a sneak around the admissions gauntlet. In fact, the children of Ivy league graduates applying to their parent's alma maters do not have an advantage at all, never have, unless those parents gave big time to the alma mater. A mere $200 a year got your kid no selective advantage. A $10,000 annual contribution might get your kid a little boost, but $20,000 a year for 10 years, with the potential for a million for a building or sports program virtually guaranteed admission for your feckless offspring. So the "meritocracy" idea was always perverted by money.
It was very evident that Black students who had not been read to as children, who did not have enrichment by tutors, music lessons, travel, coaches, highly competitive friends, affluent communities where Ivy League educations were valued were simply not in a position to compete when they got to university, for the highly competitive places in medical schools. When they were jumped ahead of the line, they were unable to perform as medical students.
Except for those who were able to perform, despite having lower test scores and/or grades.
The exceptional case, that Black man who played football at a state school, got into medical school and performed well then was a star at the radiology program at a first line medical school like Duke raises basic questions for the entire concept of meritocracy.
How meaningful were those test scores, when you get right down to it? How important was that grade in calculus? How important was that grade in organic chemistry? Why is it the male athlete who was a swimmer or a college level soccer player did better as a resident in medicine, surgery or radiology than the girl who had never had lower than an "A" from kindergarten onward?
"That girl, now a woman, never learned to learn from her mistake," a chief of a renown academic department suggested. "You correct her now, at age 26, and she falls to pieces. That man, who as an athlete was always getting beaten, coached, corrected, shakes off a setback, a little failure and he's better the next time. In short, he learns. At the end of three years, he's a great radiologist, a terrific surgeon. The thing about a jock is the one thing he's demonstrated is perseverance and the capacity to grow."
So maybe the idea of meritocracy is not completely bogus. Maybe what's bogus is the criteria by which we judge merit. We have been lazy. We say, "Oh, there are SAT exams to tell us who's bright, who to bet on." We have stopped thinking about what intelligence, aptitude really means. We have destroyed meritocracy by failing to think hard about what constitutes real merit and real virtue.
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