AFFIRMATIVE ACTION FOR THE STUPID

It was revealed this week that a whole bunch of rich people were paying off to get their kids into good colleges. What a shock! You mean the wealthy have advantages in this country? Well, tie me up and call me whip me hard (which, by the way, is one of my favorite S&M fantasies).  Sure, in this case, the parents weren’t just donating buildings or sending their toddlers to $40,000 a year pre-schools. This time they were just doing it the old-fashioned way – straight out bribery.

Yet, there is another aspect of this scandal that occurs to me, if not to anyone else.  What I thought about is why should only the best students get into the best schools? Maybe it should be the other way around. Here’s what I mean.

The most brilliant students don’t need the best schools.  They are already smart.  They’ll do fine if they go to a decent but not extraordinary college.  They are the ones with the study ethic.  They are ones who hit the books on Friday night and have probably never puked their guts out after guzzling a dozen beers.  Their lifestyle will allow them to take advantage of the perfectly fine educational opportunities of, say, a state school.

I went to an excellent Law School – Georgetown.  We had kids in our class from all the best colleges.  But, you know who the top student was?  He was a guy who had graduated from Monmouth College. Not knocking Monmouth College, but it ain’t Harvard.  Yet, this guy obviously wasn’t the least bit harmed by having gone there.  That’s because he was very smart to begin with. 

Another example – as I type this, I am watching Kaitlin Collins on CNN.  She’s the White House correspondent and I think she’s really good – smart and perceptive.  I looked her up.  She’s 26 years old . And is she an Ivy League grad? Nope. University of Alabama. 

On the other hand, it’s the not-so-brilliant kids who need the best colleges.  It’s those who limped their way through high school getting OK grades, but whose interest in economics was less about Resource Allocation and more about the rising cost of weed. These are the kids with potential who, if placed in the kind of academic environment that make the best colleges the best colleges, would benefit most. They should be able to go where they can’t avoid exposure to thought; where the professors are the authors of the books they have to read; where the lectures are fascinating; where the standards compel performance.  

In a nutshell, under my proposal, the smart kids will not be hurt and the not-so-smart will be helped. What’s wrong with that?

So, no more affirmative action for the wealthy.  Let’s have affirmative action for the stupid.