Can any sane person believe that when the President’s daughters matriculate at Harvard, Stanford or even the lowly University of Chicago, these privileged girls will be addressing a need those schools have for greater diversity?
The Project on Fair Representation*, an Alexandria, Virginia-based legal defense fund, has filed lawsuits filed against Harvard University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The suits argue that race based admissions hurt the chances of high achieving White and Asian students gaining admission to elite colleges. The Project has said that these first in a larger series of cases the Project sees as banning race based admissions policies at colleges across the nation. One plaintiff named in the case is “Students for Fair Admissions” , a nonprofit group made up of recently rejected applicants, prospective students and parents. The group claims that rejected Asians and Whites “understand that they are not competing” against “the entire applicant pool. They are competing only against each other, and all other racial and ethnic groups are insulated from competing against high-achieving Asian Americans.”
The suits argue that socio-economic background and minority candidate recruitment efforts do a better job of promoting diversity than affirmative action based on membership in a gr0up identified by race. The suit also argues against the practice of giving preference based on “legacy,” that is, favoring students whose relatives had attended the prestigious school. 
The charges against Harvard allege that the university maintains a quota-like system, likening it the quota system that limited the number of Jewish students up until WW II. There have also been discussions at Harvard itself that the School’s prestige means that Harvard College drains away a pool or students who while from under represented minorities, actually come from elite families already in the middle or upper classes. The same is true of other schools in this category. Can any sane person believe that when the President’s daughters matriculate at Harvard, Stanford or even the lowly University of Chicago, these privileged girls will be addressing a need those schools have for greater diversity?
I wonder if that issue will also come up in court?
Both universities defended their admission policies Monday, noting that they are fully compliant with federal law.
The cases are Students For Fair Admissions Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College et al, 1:14-cv-14176, U.S. District Court, District of Massachusetts (Boston); and Students For Fair Admissions Inc. v. University of North Carolina et al., 1:14-cv-00954, U.S. District Court, Middle District of North Carolina (Greensboro).
* The Project on Fair Representation is affiliated with Project Liberty Inc., a nonprofit organization focused on “free market and liberty oriented solutions to society’s most pervasive and radial needs,” according to its IRS filings.
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In fact, I think the Obama daughters represent a very small population; they are the children of world leaders. How many of students with that particular background do you suppose there are in each class? Their perspectives can’t be matched by many.
The President’s girls would be equally worthwhile additions to an Ivy salad no matter whether they were Kenyan, Kansan, or Koch. Obviously the Ivies cater to the elite. The problems I have are two. First, these elite schools are obviously unsuccessful in offering much opportunity to underprivileged kids. In part this may come from equating skin color with being “under represented.” Second, the elitism itself is an issue .. is the over representation of elite schools in law, government and medicine an accident or is it a result of a form of prejudice and privilege like that in 1800s Britain? You might read the article at http://handbill.us/?p=32827.
Of course, elitism is the issue. Noone is suing for access to smallsville college or midrange state u. Why sue for something anyone can have? But everyone knows and lots of people want Harvard, which explains the bitterness of the folks who get the thin envelopes and their desire to find an easy scapegoat.
If anything, I am impressed that the whole legacy thing is rolled into this suit (although aren’t those O’girls legacies too? drat! they can’t catch a single break this time).
The irony of course is that the elite are typically fierce defenders of the right to pass on benefit (unearned) to their own children. And anyone who won access to Harvard by denying that elite status to the O’daughters would certainly want for their own daughters to follow parental footsteps to that same elite hallowed ground.
I am rambling, but I am done now. Thanks for entertaining my response.
Actually I do not believe Harvard (or most of the others of tis class) are trying to preserve the sort of hereditary elite you presume. I think they want to select students most likely to succeed and would, if they knew better how to do so, cast much broader net. The problem they face is weaning the best from the pool of kids who do not have perfect SATs etc is difficult. Remember these élite schools have relatively small class sizes. In contrast the mega size elite state schools .. like the UW, admit a lot of kids only few of whom have the ability to do as well as a the kids Harvard gets. The ADVANTAGE that the elite pubic schools have .. and their challenge .. is seeing that these wonderful ids are found and do prosper. Unfortunately, most state legislators do not see things this way. They are anti-elitist and see even the premier state research schools as degree factories. That is an especial disaster n my state (WA) where our only elite school is the UW and while some students do take advnartgse of what is here, the finds to help these kids are hard to come by.