I love you guys, but you're wrong on this one. You don't sound like right-wingers, you sound like academics. If you want to win this argument, step out of the sandbox.
I appreciate that you both are brilliant scholars at the top of your field with many citations and fond memories of the rarified experiences of being in graduate school. But this isn't 19th century Germany, elite education in the United States is not primarily about preparing people for PhDs. Some of these students stay in academia, 99% do not. Elite university education is primarily the mechanism through which elite hierarchies are established and reinforced, social capital is preserved or gained, leadership skills and credentials are accumulated. The universities are looking for people who will be of high impact on the world in positions across society, not just academic research. Certainly these will and should include many people of color.
Most professors don't think of themselves primarily as gatekeepers to elite access to all levels of society - after all, nearly everyone there took the same exact off-ramp to graduate school because they love their field. But if you look around at the buildings, these Universities resemble nothing so much as vast European aristocratic estates and castles. Would Princeton be Princeton without the gothic architecture and manicured grass? The British are comfortable with the role that Oxford and Cambridge play in their society; they don't pretend it's all about the research. With this broader utility in mind, one might be more open to policies which actively uplift people who don't already come from elite background.
Finally, these universities have always let in a certain double digit percentage of their students for reasons other than sheer academic achievement (legacies, almost entirely white) - because, again, it's always been about more than sheer academic achievement at these places. Hamilton Cabot Thayer III doesn't mind that he got in with a little help, he's happy to be there because these are tickets to the world, not just graduate school. I think that makes the case for affirmative action, through the lens of social capital development, defensible. If we wait on the entire primary school system to catch up, we're waiting too long.
I love you guys, but you're wrong on this one. You don't sound like right-wingers, you sound like academics. If you want to win this argument, step out of the sandbox.
I appreciate that you both are brilliant scholars at the top of your field with many citations and fond memories of the rarified experiences of being in graduate school. But this isn't 19th century Germany, elite education in the United States is not primarily about preparing people for PhDs. Some of these students stay in academia, 99% do not. Elite university education is primarily the mechanism through which elite hierarchies are established and reinforced, social capital is preserved or gained, leadership skills and credentials are accumulated. The universities are looking for people who will be of high impact on the world in positions across society, not just academic research. Certainly these will and should include many people of color.
Most professors don't think of themselves primarily as gatekeepers to elite access to all levels of society - after all, nearly everyone there took the same exact off-ramp to graduate school because they love their field. But if you look around at the buildings, these Universities resemble nothing so much as vast European aristocratic estates and castles. Would Princeton be Princeton without the gothic architecture and manicured grass? The British are comfortable with the role that Oxford and Cambridge play in their society; they don't pretend it's all about the research. With this broader utility in mind, one might be more open to policies which actively uplift people who don't already come from elite background.
Finally, these universities have always let in a certain double digit percentage of their students for reasons other than sheer academic achievement (legacies, almost entirely white) - because, again, it's always been about more than sheer academic achievement at these places. Hamilton Cabot Thayer III doesn't mind that he got in with a little help, he's happy to be there because these are tickets to the world, not just graduate school. I think that makes the case for affirmative action, through the lens of social capital development, defensible. If we wait on the entire primary school system to catch up, we're waiting too long.