2023-01-28
23 分钟This is in conversation from Apple News.
I'm Shemitah Basu.
Today, the problem with elite colleges.
The top universities in America carry a lot of weight symbolism.
All over the world, they mean something.
Oh, you went to Princeton.
You must be smart, you must be hard working, you must be deserving, you must be.
Well, you mustn't be anything other than wealthy.
Evan Mandery has been writing for years about admissions practices at elite schools.
There are pathways, and I don't think people realize how, how common these pathways are that are basically available only to the wealthy, a disproportionate share of whom are white.
Evan is a Harvard graduate himself.
He's also a professor at John Jay College of Criminal justice, which is part of cuny, the City University of New York, where more than half of the students come from families making less than $30,000 a year.
He's also the author of the book Poison How Elite Colleges Divide Us.
There is so much conversation right now about affirmative action and whether it's fair or not fair.
But Evan says we're talking about the wrong thing.
The real problem with the admissions process isn't how much it favors disadvantaged students.
It's how much preference they give to kids with lots of advantages from wealthy families.
I don't know what perfect justice looks like.
I think reasonable minds can differ on affirmative action.
But I know that doing affirmative action for rich whites is unjust.