- Line 1 of the matriculation paperwork — how much do you intend to donate
With the elite of our society “buying” a college degree for their ‘less gifted’ children from prestigious colleges and universities, all of the consequences that have afflicted well-intended “Affirmative Action ” programs seem now to be affecting, or infecting, many of our most honored institutions and, even more tragically, penalizing the “best and brightest” among us.
In recent months, everyday Americans have been astonished to see and hear the abject ignorance of some of our most prominent and widely publicized members of Congress.
The news of the College Admissions Cheating scandal, in which some of the very rich and “famous” among us have been caught bribing administrators of some of the country’s most prestigious universities to get their often less qualified offspring admitted, is raising new questions.
Not the least among them, and one on which many Americans have now intuitively arrived at an answer, is… “how is it that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the wildly celebrated newly elected Congressperson from New York, is so grotesquely ignorant of the very discipline in which she claims a degree in from one the nation’s elite universities?”
As many have concluded upon hearing of the college cheating scandal, ‘she must have been a beneficiary of just that kind of chicanery…somebody, in effect, ‘bought’ the young phenom a degree in economics from Boston University.
Now that may not be the case. ‘AOC’ may have earned her ignorance the ‘old-fashioned way’, by lacking good judgement, being supremely, and mistakenly, confident that whatever modest skills she might have are superior to anyone else’s, and absorbing four years of misleading information from corrupt and/or leftist instructors.
In either case, Boston University should be re-examining its approach to their delivery of education. Out of self-preservation, so should their alumni demand it!
But, the larger point is that the bribing of officials by rich elites to get their less gifted children into “top” schools and be ‘given’ a degree which will be an unquestionably accepted gateway to a lucrative future, is damaging to society at large and, immorally shortchanges very deserving children of the less-connected, non-wealthy, and honest.
This very closely resembles the glaring failure of a well-intended, but misguided program implemented during the last century to eliminate racial and class injustice in education and employment…Affirmative Action.
Among the unintended consequences of “AA’ was the eventual loosening of qualification standards…qualifications for entry into good schools and into the most desirable occupations and professions.
But, perhaps the greatest unfairness resulting from Affirmative Action programs, as they became more and more distorted and corrupted was that virtually every minority entering an elite school or a coveted profession became viewed with a bit or a lot of suspicion…’was he or she really qualified’, or did they gain entry through special ‘considerations’ unrelated to ability and/or proven skills? While many were ‘really’ qualified, enough were not, which resulted in all being viewed negatively to some extent or another…a genuine tragedy for the best, brightest, and deserving among them.
When considering the bizarre case of Ocasio-Cortez, such questions come front and center.
How many of the people who are in crucial positions of authority and responsibility which impact our nation’s future are in their positions because someone “bought” the “credentials’ which got them there? And, how many of those with the true potential to assure America’s greatness in the future are not in those positions because their parents couldn’t or didn’t ‘buy somebody off’?
DLH
