November 27, 2006
In Defense of “Phony Diversity” II Posted by John Steele Gordon at 04:00 PM EST Joshua Zeitz writes, “John Steele Gordon responded to my criticism of his statement that American history has been ‘very white and very male’ by attacking the University of Michigan’s support of affirmative action in college and graduate school admissions. This is one of Mr. Gordon’s favorite rhetorical devices: When he’s on shaky ground discussing apples, he shifts quickly to a discussion of oranges.” Hmmm, let’s see. My post to which he refers was sixteen paragraphs long and exactly one of them was about the University of Michigan’s position on affirmative action, which I used for illustrative purposes. So just who is changing the subject here? Having demonstrated his own mastery of dubious rhetorical devices, he then gets curious. “I’m curious as to whether Mr. Gordon thinks this list should be extended to include the children of alumni; the children of university donors and benefactors; the children of political and entertainment celebrities; students from select high schools; and persons from select geographic regions. College admissions officers routinely use these categories to favor candidates from wealthy and elite families, families with financial or legacy ties to their home institution, and candidates who hail from under-represented states and counties (the latter policy favors white rural applicants, among others).” Mr. Zeitz has left out one important category. Many colleges, including the University of Michigan, have been known to look with uncommon favor upon the applications of those who did very well on their high school football teams. I’m happy to satisfy his curiosity. I’d prefer it if admissions committees at highly competitive colleges did not know the names, addresses, races, religions, school and family ties, wealth and other non-germane information regarding the applicants they were considering. They should be judged by their academic achievements, characters, interests, etc. But, since this is not a perfect world, I won’t hold my breath waiting for that to happen. He writes, “Perhaps Mr. Gordon is consistent on this question. But I certainly don’t hear him crying out in righteous indignation that legacy applicants and the children of white farmers from Idaho enjoy extra privileges in the college admissions game.” Mr. Zeitz hasn’t heard me crying out in righteous indignation on any number of subjects that, were I so moved, I would cry out in righteous indignation on. There is a lot wrong with the world and one can soap-box on only so many subjects. In a post on the 100 most influential Americans, one should, I think, eschew righteous indignation on subjects that have nothing to do with the 100 most influential Americans, such as legacy admissions to colleges. Two anecdotes. 1) There was a boy two years ahead of me at school, nice kid, but no great brain, no great grades or tests scores, and an athletic ability that was the equal of mine (which is to say, nonexistent). Regardless, Harvard wrote him asking him to apply, which he did, and he was accepted. The fact that his last name was Roosevelt might account for that, I suspect. 2) A woman from a well-off but not fabulously wealthy WASPy family in New York (exactly the sort of family that might expect to have the most difficulty getting a borderline candidate son into Harvard) found herself sitting next to the dean of admissions at Harvard at a lunch one day not long after her son had, indeed, been admitted. They got to talking about how admissions decisions were made, and the dean told her that sometimes the decision is based on a seemingly trivial item. He told her about one iffy candidate who had recently been admitted basically because he kept a seven-foot boa constrictor as a pet. The woman looked at him for a second and then said, “Do you mean to tell me that my son got into Harvard because of that [participle form of a four-letter vigorous word] snake?”
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