- Oops! “Tulane sophomore unknowingly named as plaintiff in lawsuit over college bribery scandal” [John Simerman, New Orleans Advocate] “Admissions scandal class action is ‘fascinating’ but likely doomed – experts” [Alison Frankel, Reuters] Plus advice from Ken at Popehat;
- Some problems with the idea of a sweeping presidential order to decree free speech on campus — and a promising if more modest step the White House could take instead [Donald Downs, Cato] Two more views on how universities can “fend off outside intervention and, more importantly, be true to their own mission… [by] nurturing a better free speech culture” [Keith Whittington, parts one and two; John McGinnis]
- “‘If racial preference [in college admissions] is unjust, then it doesn’t magically become just because people notice some other injustice that has different beneficiaries,’ Olson said. ‘Two things can be unjust at the same time, and two injustices do not add up to one justice.'” [John Blake, CNN, quoting me on the argument that the admissions scandal somehow proves preference advocates’ case]
- Harvard lawprof and residential dean Ronald Sullivan under fire for defending unpopular figures facing MeToo charges
[Randall Kennedy, Chronicle of Higher Education; Conor Friedersdorf (quoting HLS prof Janet Halley: “Finally, the ‘climate survey’ technique is a dangerous precedent as a matter of employment rights and as a threat to academic freedom. It’s a thinly veiled version of the heckler’s veto.”)]
- The Snuggle is real: very long list of demands by Sarah Lawrence students occupying campus building includes consistent access to detergent and fabric softener [Sarah Lawrence Phoenix; Pamela Paresky, Psychology Today] Rather more seriously, the students demand the college reconsider the tenure status of a professor who published a mildly conservative op-ed in the NYT [Colleen Flaherty, Inside Higher Ed]
- Even if occasionally subverted by dishonest actors, standardized tests remain the gold standard among transparent, objective ways to improve the accuracy of college success prediction [Jenna A. Robinson, Martin Center]
Filed under: class actions, colleges and universities, Harvard, racial preferences, scandals
11 Comments
Re: Tulane (New Orleans, Louisiana) sophomore named as class action plaintiff:
Easy to understand. All over Louisiana are billboards advertising attorneys, with the slogan “One call, that’s all.”
Good old Morris “The Turtle” Bart.
Re; class action. Not so fast. If someone pays money for a “fair” shot at admissions, if that person doesn’t get that, the application fee was obtained under false pretenses and needs to be refunded.
SJWs hate standardized tests because they give the wrong answer. They want people to be rewarded purely based on intersectionality points. If you point out that students admitted to a school who are not prepared academically are likely to flunk out and struggle, they do not seem to understand and perhaps simply want standards lowered to fix it. There is already so much lowering of standards that a degree is becoming meaningless. It is the same as when you point out that raising the min wage actually hurts the most vulnerable such as black teen men: they still want it.
The demands of college students re Sullivan and the general heckler’s veto are a very dangerous trend. Mob rule never ever ends well. When a mob of right wing protesters actually appeared (Charlottesville) people nearly lost their minds, but any group can become a mob and they are all dangerous. Antifa isn’t harmless just because you agree with them.
“If racial preference [in college admissions] is unjust, then it doesn’t magically become just because people notice some other injustice that has different beneficiaries. Two things can be unjust at the same time, and two injustices do not add up to one justice.”
I don’t agree that we cannot have a system of trying to right hundreds of years of injustice and evil is the same as equating those preferences for cheating rich kids.
You can argue that we should not have racial preferences. But I really struggle to see how the logic of opposing cheating means that you cannot rationally oppose race-blind admissions.
I don’t think that was the argument. The issue is that whatever the merits of race-preferences, (a) cheating scandals such as these are irrelevant to that analysis and (b) increasing race-preferences because of a scandal like this is a double-whammy to those who have neither the clout nor the preference.
Say what you want about race-based preferences, it is undeniable that it IS unfair to some people. Additionally, and generally-speaking, government bureaucrats are too stupid to administer these sorts of things. Take the selective enrollment high schools in Chicago–Chicago argues that the program isn’t race-based, but we all know that’s the goal. But putting that to one side–the program takes into account (a) grades, (b) scores on standardized tests and (c) the score on the entrance exam. One glaring problem–grades in Chicago Public Schools has a huge homework component. And the effect of that is to make homework less than mandatory for the favored groups and pretty much mandatory for the unfavored–so now race-preferences are based on whether a kid does his homework?
The other problem–what do you do with the unfavored kid who goes to the same schools as the favored kid–what does the school say if the unfavored kid, who may have beaten the favored kid by a wide margin, decides to pipe up about the unfairness? There really is no good answer.
I agree that it is unfair to some people. I also agree there is no really good answer.
“I don’t agree that we cannot have a system of trying to right hundreds of years of injustice and evil is the same as equating those preferences for cheating rich kids.”
Righting hundreds of years of injustice is impossible. The best you can do without creating new injustices in the process is to try and make the system more just going forward.
You can not right injustices so old that none of the people directly involved are still alive. Trying to do so will actually create new injustices.
You can not right past injustices by asking people who had nothing to do with committing those injustices to pay the price for it.
Agreed. An 18 year old can have suffered at most 18 years of injustice.
We all have someone, or many someones, in our family trees that suffers injustices. Article 3 section 3 lays out the philosophy that punishment of past deeds are not to pass to subsequent generations.
I don’t think I agree but I understand your point.
race-blind admissions? Racial preferences is not, never was and never will be race-blind. In fact, they are race specific.