Entry into the school of your choice ™

It’s back to school time! Lunch pails and school slates may have given way to Uber eats and iPads, but one anachronism that remains is the ability for donors to get their kids into the best schools. With the Trump Justice Department launching a dubious new project targeting discrimination against white students in university admissions policies, I’m not going to explain why a diverse population in any university is not just a nice thing, but inarguably a crucial component in a country or society’s progress. Straight-up affirmative action cannot even be used college admissions, and yet still the white kids suffer.
But I do wonder how all Harvard (or any college where this happens) students and alumni are not diminished when a rich guy can make a large donation to assure admission for his under-achieving offspring? Maybe this clumsy attempt to mollify the persistent mythology of oppressed white students will accidentally put the spotlight on just how uneven admissions processes – and other, nefarious types of preference – in the round remain. There is something rigged about the process, just not probably what is commonly believed.

Arguments That Needed To Be Lost

argument5It’s been a strange week, in a very good way.

Another interview I’m working on reminded me of a point to share: when parking lots are made into parks or public spaces, parking companies lose X number of spaces. If there spaces aren’t there, people are usually just okay with it. But the imposition itself is often the hard part. But that is an argument the parking advocates need to lose.

The same can be said for arguments in favor of flying the Confederate flag, against the availability of affordable healthcare and against the right to love how and whom you wish. These arguments exist, and they all deserve to be lost. Beaten, actually, by better, more decent, more just arguments.

Thankfully, this week, they have. And this isn’t triumphalism, though it might feel really good.

Good Faith Arguments

The idea that there are principled stands being taken on various sides of issues, and therefore legitimate points of view worth highlighting, and perhaps defending or bringing into high contrast with opposition, is seeming more and more quaint.

Environmentalist groups and celebrities are celebrating “Earth Hour” tonight. They ask that you turn your lights out for an hour, to call attention to global warming.  Folks at the Competitive Enterprise Institute suggest that “this sends the wrong message — to plunge us all into darkness as a rejection of technology and human achievement.” In fact, they point out that it’s Earth Hour every night in North Korea, where people lack basic freedoms, as well as affordable, reliable access to many human achievements, such as electricity. Check out this famous photo of environmentally conscious North Koreans observing Earth Hour all night, every night.

CEI rejects the rejection of technology.

Via. So while it may seem more interesting to set up the complex moral conundra surrounding an issue as a way of laying bare the essence of a particular debate, noting does it quite like realizing that some, many, in denial of ______ (because, really, the issue often doesn’t even matter) only want to piss off hippies.