Like many, I was thrilled to see the Supreme Court strike down affirmative action at the end of June. However, we are at the very beginning of the fight to reclaim education and to rid our country of its obsession with race and identity - not the end. Here, a few brief thoughts on the ruling’s impact.
First, as most observers of our nation’s elite universities understand, by no means will SCOTUS’s decision mark a return to meritocratic admissions. It might, in fact, make things worse. (On a brighter note, the ruling may have a stronger impact on private corporations; expect lots of lawsuits over hiring preferences and toxic DEI programs).
In his lead opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts laid the groundwork for universities to continue to take an applicant’s race into account:
“At the same time, as all parties agree, nothing in this opinion should be construed as prohibiting universities from considering an applicant’s discussion of how race affected his or her life, be it through discrimination, inspiration, or otherwise.”
And of course, elite universities are doing exactly that. Here’s my own alma mater’s new application essay prompt for the upcoming admissions year:
Unfortunately, SCOTUS’s decision will only accelerate the elimination of objective admissions criteria such as standardized tests in favor of subjective measures such as adversity scores and essays that focus on grievance and signal race. The less objective an institution’s admissions policy, the harder it will be to prove discrimination and violations of the court’s ruling. And with even less objective admission criteria, expect further deterioration of academic standards.
It must be understood that elite universities aren’t just wedded to the principles of affirmative action because of social justice concerns. Over the past two generations, the entire structure of the university has been transformed to conform to the foundations of affirmative action.
As I wrote last year when the Supreme Court heard oral arguments on the affirmative actions cases, most of the social sciences and humanities, especially the grievance studies departments, exist primarily to support the beneficiaries of affirmative action (both students and professors). An end to racial preferences and a transition to meritocratic admissions would naturally result in the shuttering of many of these departments and mass layoffs of professors of color and of women, who collectively make up the bulk of the faculty in these departments. This is, of course, unpalatable to the Harvards of the world.
In light of the SCOTUS decision, many commentators on both the left and the right have proposed replacing race based preferences with preferences based on socio-economic status and economic disadvantage. While perhaps being morally more defensible, and not violating the colorblind principles of our constitution, this would have the affect of watering down the academic quality of higher education even more. Whether fair or not, it is indisputable that impoverished students are less well prepared for elite universities than racial minorities who attend private schools on the upper east side of Manhattan.
Since the affirmative action ruling was announced, the strongest response from the left, including the left-leaning mainstream media, has been an attack on legacy admission preferences. Just days after the Supreme Court ruling was announced, three minority advocacy groups announced a lawsuit against Harvard, accusing the university of discrimination by giving preferential treatment to children of wealthy donors and alumni. The Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights has also opened a civil rights investigation into Harvard’s legacy admissions policy.
Regardless of one’s opinion of legacy admissions, it should be noted that the children of alumni are actually slightly more qualified than typical applicants to elite universities, something even the NY Times recently admitted.
Personally, I concede that I am somewhat ambivalent about legacy admission preferences. On the one hand, I’d be in favor of purely meritocratic and objective admissions criteria - say a single test like in some Asian countries. Of course, this would also mean the end of competitive sports at elite schools - something that is not likely to happen. On the other hand, I see the value of maintaining tradition, and of having a constituency that holds a long-term interest in preserving the institution (something dearly lacking in our society as a whole).
The question of the legitimacy of legacy preferences is inseparable from the question of the true purpose of elite universities. Is the goal to create an elite class, or to educate the elite class? For most of recorded history, including in this country, the purpose was the latter. Sadly, and to the detriment of society, our country’s elite universities have become the credentializers of our elite, but are utterly failing their responsibility to properly educate them.
I wish to make one final point about legacy admissions, one I find both ironic and amusing. In at least three ways the left’s attack of legacy preferences is a textbook example of “cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face.”
Most obviously, it is the children of alumni who are paying full tuition, whose parents or grandparents are making large donations, and who are subsidizing the tuitions of recipients of affirmative action. Second, do the opponents of legacy admissions really want to deny admissions to the increasing number of second generation beneficiaries of affirmative action?
Third, with elite universities having gone fully woke, doesn’t the left want the children of the rich to be indoctrinated in social justice activism, and use their inheritance to support progressive causes? Deny these kids admission to woke Harvard and Princeton, and they just may be stuck going to somewhat more conservative, southern state universities. My tongue-in-cheek warning to the opponents of legacy preferences: be careful what you wish for.
A campaign update
The most significant piece of news to report is that we recently announced our fundraising results for the quarter ending June 30th, my first quarter as a candidate. We posted a total of over $300,000 raised, exceeding our goal of $250,000. We significantly outraised both my Republican primary opponent (by a 4-to-1 margin in individual donations) and the Democratic incumbent. We’re getting enormous enthusiasm for my campaign from both local donors, including many independents, and some very prominent national Republican donors.
To those of you who have contributed or helped spread the word - thank you! I am very grateful.
Of course, the plight of a congressional candidate (or incumbent for that matter) is that fundraising never ends. We’ve got another big goal for this quarter so please continue to help support my candidacy to save education and reclaim our country’s values.
If you’re interested, our results were covered by several media outlets and radio shows, including Florida Politics, Florida Jolt, The Ed Dean Morning Show, and The Mel K Show.
Back in June, I made a trip to Washington DC to meet with a number of organizations, including the National Republican Congressional Committee, the Republican Jewish Coalition, FreedomWorks, the National Federation of Independent Businesses, the US Chamber of Commerce, Americans for Prosperity, and Americans for Tax Reform where I spoke at their weekly meeting. The meetings all went very well, and my story and reasons for running for Congress strongly resonated.
A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to sit down for an hour and a half long interview with documentary filmmaker Eli Steele, and his father, prominent conservative Shelby Steele for their documentary film, White Guilt. We spoke about what happened at Brearley, the state of education, the definition of wokeness, white guilt, and many other topics. I can’t wait to see the final film. The Steeles are also looking to raise money for the film’s distribution so if anyone out there wants to get involved and help please reach out.
I’ll share another update soon. It’s a long road to November 2024 and I’ve got lots of hard work ahead of me, but so far, so good!
In case you missed them, here are some of the latest episodes of my podcast, Take Back Our Schools, available on all major podcast outlets, including Apple, Google, Spotify and Stitcher.
Civics vs “Action Civics”
On this episode, Beth and I speak with education analyst, Tom Kelly who talks about his work with the Jack Miller Center advocating for civics education in K-12 schools. We discuss the appalling results of the recently released assessment of eighth-grade students on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) where only 14 percent of students scored proficient in US history and 22 percent in civics.
Kelly also explains the difference between traditional civics education focused on America’s founding documents and the structure of American government and “action civics” being taught in public schools and favored by the national teachers unions which focuses on civic engagement and social justice issues.
A Liberal Take on the Transgender Cult
On this episode we speak with journalist and author Lisa Selin Davis, who shares how she, as a self-described liberal, started being interested in writing about gender and social justice ideology. We talk about her recent expose in The Free Press, “How Therapists Became Social Justice Warriors” and Davis shares her research on how the fields of psychology and psychiatry have been co-opted by critical social justice, and the role that feminization has played in these trends.
Davis also talks about how her NY Times op-ed, “My daughter is not transgender: She’s a Tomboy” led to her prominent writing about the rise of transgenderism. We also discuss the state of the hyper-polarized media and the deterioration of journalist integrity in recent years.
Can We Salvage Public Education?
On this episode of Take Back Our Schools, Beth and I speak with educator, political scientist, and author, Rick Hess, who shares his views on whether we can reform our country’s failing K-12 education system.
We discuss the appalling results of our public schools in teaching kids reading, math, history and civics, and how they have declined even more since the covid pandemic. Hess talks about how progressive ideology has taken over the education establishment including graduate schools of education and shares his opinions on what we can do to potentially reform the education system and why he is newly optimistic given the rise of the parent’s movement in the post-covid years as a force for change.
Weathering the Storm in Transgender Research
On this episode, Beth and I speak with psychologist J. Michael Bailey, Professor in the Department of Psychology at Northwestern University.
Bailey speaks about his more than three decades of research on gender dysphoria, transsexualism and sexual orientation. He also shares his views on the recent explosion of gender dysphoria amongst young people, especially adolescent girls, and whether it is indeed a social contagion. We also discuss his recent experience having his research on Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria (ROGD) retracted and being censored by the trans activist movement, about which he recently wrote in Bari Weiss’s The Free Press.
I hope you enjoy these episodes of Take Back Our Schools. As always, please subscribe and share any ideas or suggestions, including for podcast guests. You can contact me through the website: speakupforeducation.org or email me at andrew@speakupforeducation.org. I am also on Twitter @AndrewGutmann.
Andrew -- My Ivy League grad husband -- now 50+ yrs out -- and I agree with your points re: AA. Here's my take on the "legacy" admits problem. Since 1979 I have been closely involved with my college class fund-raising efforts, formerly run from the Development Office, now in many places termed the Office for Institutional Advancement. They should call these offices "Ground Zero"!
Getting rid of legacy admits would screw over the class participation percentages in the school's annual fund-raising efforts, among other problems it would cause. Class reunions are a major way to hype gift giving, with goals established by the development office after close scrutiny of "who" is in each class. It's a competitive sport, so the Class of Ooompty-oomp can brag theirs
was the largest-ever 25th Reunion gift, and so on. Development officers soften up the high-dollar targets in each class to help with "setting the pace" for the rest of the group. Many of these targets are legacies, having a family member who's been helpful to the college in some way, not only annual giving. Just being prominent in your home community and being known as, say, a Smith grad works wonders in attracting the kind of student that the college wants more of. Alumnae/i work very hard in these communities raising money and producing scholarships for potential students at these institutions. It's multi-generational and it upsets me no end to impugn these fine efforts! The history of these places is part of why people want to go there, so they can share this identity as a Harvard grad or a Skidmore alum, etc.
Also, as I saw in the giving records through the years, those who were recipients of my college's financial assistance -- often a full ride for 4 yrs -- and who did spectacularly well academically, Phi Beta Kappa, etc., gone on to grad schools and careers of note, have NOT been generous to the school that gave them their start. This was years before AA and all the rest of the changes in operations like coeducation at formerly single-sex schools. These people just simply ignore the pleas for "participation" in their class effort, i.e. a check for $50 will do, yet fill the Class Notes column in the alumni mags with their stellar achievements! Selfish and cheesy is what they are IMO.
It's kind of funny, but I remember one remarkably apt statement that President George W. Bush made at a Yale Commencement where he gave the address: "To all you academic superstars in the class, I say a hearty congratulations and wish you every future success; and I say to you B students, someday you might be lucky enough to work for us C students," or something close. It got a big laugh.
That's life, I guess, but the schools have a brand and inviting too many of the wrong "kind" in without giving thought to how their attendance will enhance said brand will cause long term problems that giant $100,000 donations won't be able to fix. Your kid might as well just attend the local community college for a couple of years and then figure out what she really wants to do! (I say this as a grandmother of a girl about to turn 18 and who starts back in a week as a high school senior;-) Wish us luck.
Andrew, I really appreciate your insight into the plight of the elite universities, now struggling to maintain an outdated, failing race-based policy that will lead to their demise. I am so hopeful about your candidacy, not only as regards your own triumph but also the others you still galvanize along the way! Bravo 🙌🏼