Congress intended affirmative action in school admission and workplace hiring to help poor Black folks. Yet, it has helped rich White women most of all.
Affirmative action for rich white students
This deviant strain of affirmative action shows its perverse impact is worse than generally realized.
It is a narrative ripped from a Hollywood script, and, fittingly, it includes actors. The wealthy parents [among the 50] charged in the conspiracy to get their children into elite schools were more than just the 1 percent.
They had connections at the highest levels, and when the ordinary benefits of extreme wealth failed to shape their children into elite college material, prosecutors said, they turned to William ‘Rick’ Singer, the man authorities say presided over a scheme to facilitate cheating on admission tests and bribery of college coaches to help children of wealthy parents get into prestigious universities.
(The Washington Post, March 13, 2019)
The biggest school scandal in US history
Blaring headlines suggest that this school scandal is the biggest in US history. It might be. And you can bet the number of parents involved is more like 10 x 50. But the privileges of wealth are such that most parents involved in this scandal will be able to buy their way out of trouble.
That’s why the dubious distinction for the biggest school scandal will still belong to the Atlanta Public Schools cheating scandal. It featured 178 educators correcting answers on standardized tests at 44 schools and affected as many as 50,000 students.
Their cheating ran from 2009 to 2015. But nearly all involved were Black. So few in the media seemed to care about the consequences. But none of the 12 educators implicated were rich enough to buy their way out of trouble. So, 11 of them ended up in jail.
Celebrities implicated stoke media interest
Media interest in this admissions scandal reflects prevailing values in our celebrity-obsessed world. Because having two B-list celebrities involved explains much of the coverage. They are Felicity Huffman, whose fame peaked during the 2000s on Desperate Housewives, and Lori Loughlin, whose fame peaked during the 1990s on Full House.
The point is that this scandal should surprise nobody. After all, rich parents paying for their kids to game the system is as expected as President Trump taking bribes from dictators to support their dictatorial regimes. The latter would be a surprise only if you lived in a Cistercian monastery for the past two years.
The rich doing as the rich does
This admissions scandal stems from the symbiotic relationship between schools and the rich donors they depend on to fund endowments. Because those endowments enable them to hire the faculty and build the facilities that make them so elite.
That’s how trust-fund dummies like Trump and his son-in-law Jared Kushner get into “all the best schools.” Nothing betrays this quite like Trump threatening to sue any school that releases his transcripts. Because his grades would show why his admission was based more on his parents’ donation than his qualifications.
Not to mention the college admissions consultants who, for the rich, are as indispensable as nannies:
For prices up to $1.5 million, parents can buy a five-year, full-service package of college admissions consulting from a company in New York City called Ivy Coach.
The service — all of it legal — begins as early as eighth grade, as students are steered toward picking the right classes and extracurriculars to help them stand out from the crowd. Then comes intensive preparation for the SAT or ACT, both ‘coachable exams,’ explained Brian Taylor, the company’s managing director, followed by close editing of college essays.
‘Is that unfair? … Yes. But that’s how the world works.’
(The New York Times, March 13, 2019)
That’s why the real indictment is this: despite all the resources at their disposal, these parents raised dumb, lazy, and untalented kids.
Imagine that no amount of donation was enough to induce elite colleges to accept them the old-fashioned way. And that no amount of coaching was enough for them to get in the nouveau-riche way. So, their desperate and entitled parents resorted to cheating and bribery.
Reports indicate that the 50 charged are only a fraction of those involved in this cheating scandal. The obvious inference is that bribery coeds litter the campuses of America’s elite colleges.
Of course, it has always been thus. Hell, I can personally attest that I encountered a few of those dumb, rich coeds at Williams College decades ago.
Why even bother?
Memes on social media are mocking the irony of these parents spending millions and risking prison for kids who don’t even belong in college. But I submit they do so for the same narcissistic, self-aggrandizing, and materialistic reason they throw their kids the most lavish birthday parties and wedding receptions. That reason is for bragging rights among their social set, i.e., keeping up with the Joneses.
It’s all about them and their brands. So, it’s no wonder their kids are becoming just as narcissistic, self-aggrandizing, and materialistic – far more interested in brands than brains. That’s why so many only “wannabe” Instagram influencers like Kylie, i.e., keeping up with the Kardashians.
Making matters worse, [Loughlin’s daughter] Jade seems far more interested in influencing than in actually attending college. … Last year, she had to post an apology video after coming under fire for proclaiming in a vlog, ‘I don’t know how much of school I’m going to attend … I don’t really care about school, as you guys all know.’
(New York Magazine, March 13, 2019)
Of course, the greater irony is that Jade is probably so narcissistic that she’ll resent her parents for the rest of their lives for getting caught and turning her into an Instagram laughingstock.
Incidentally, it’s noteworthy that, far from cheating to get her into college, Kylie’s parents didn’t even bother to make her complete attendance at high school. Instead, they let her get a high-school diploma through homeschooling while she pursued her career on social media.
That has been very good for Kylie. She’s 21 years old and already worth $1 billion.
So why bother with classes and extracurriculars when social media and cosmetics (including surgeries) will do? God help us.