I can’t say that I support all of the student demands, but the sweeping insults I’ve read on this thread suggest that many of the complaints are valid. It sounds as if African-American students are routinely trivialized and dismissed as less competent. I read an eloquent post from the daughter of my brother’s best friend: she is a junior, and among the students occupying Nassau Hall. She is a History major. Her parents are both attorneys. Her father had the most elite education imaginable (think of the most renowned prep school and the most illustrious university, and you’ll be right). I can’t remember where her mother went to school, but she comes from a fairly privileged background, also. This particular student is African-American, and she apparently faces constant insinuations regarding her qualifiations for admission.
In my experience, the people who sound off about this subject the most are those who are least likely to be admitted to these elite institutions themselves, today, without their own hooks. They are likely to be members of varsity Lacrosse or Hockey teams . . . or men who graduated decades ago . . . or people who would never get in.
Oh, dear; am I making unsubstantiated, sweeping generalizations about certain groups of people?!
True, but as time goes on, societies and groups within societies reassess the histories of their societies, themselves, and historically prominent individuals and act accordingly. Most societies and groups prefer to name institutions for individuals who not only had a positive impact on such institutions, but were also through their lives and actions a credit to them. The latter aspect is what seems to be called into question with the Princeton protests.
Sometimes this means institutions named for an individual whose legacy has come under serious question may end up being called upon by some groups to take that individual’s name off. And depending on the institution and the individual concerned, sometimes institutions have done so.
One extremely recent example was the removal of a Walmart Heiress’ name from a university arena after it was revealed she paid someone else to complete all the work for the USC degree which ended up being rescinded when it became public:
Anyone familiar with Abe Lincoln’s racial beliefs?
He wasn’t an abolitionist. While he personally opposed slavery, he was more than willing to support it to serve political ends. And he clearly and explicitly opposed any notion of equality among the races. Also advocated the Trump-ish idea of deporting former slaves out of the U.S.
Might as well erase his name along with Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Lee and Wilson.
My preference is to retain the name so the instruction value can continue. What’s done is done. He can’t harm you unless you let him, which, by the way, has additional import for this entire issue.
“This particular student is African-American, and she apparently faces constant insinuations regarding her qualifiations for admission.”
That is unavoidable if there are admissions policies that are based on race. Personally, I would prefer affirmative action policies based on SES rather than race.
But people also question the qualifications of jocks and legacies who get in. Because there are special admissions policies for them as well. Where I went to school, out-of-state students did the same thing to in-state students since the admissions policies differed between IS and OOS. It isn’t just a race thing.
According to some studies, the strength of the hooks is as follows: AA > recruited athlete > Hispanic > legacy. Less well documented is the more recent phenomenon of male > female and non-Asian > Asian.
You’re taking that quote out of historical context in the same manner common among neo-Confederate sympathizers and some Lost-Causer revisionists.
That quote was in the historical context of him attempting to think of a possible political compromise to get the secessionist states to come back to the table and thus, reunify the country as he felt his main duty as President was to try reunifying the nation even if it meant making what was to him an odious concession to the secessionists.
Lincoln’s position on race evolved to the point he did come to the view Blacks and Whites were equal as illustrated in this quote from one of his private papers:
Quotes taken from David Potter’s “Impending-Crisis-1848-1861”
Can some one explain why most of these politically sensitive threads almost always start with articles from extremely conservative journals or an affiliate of fox news? It seems as if there is a built in bias from the start
Competition for Princeton admission is brutal. There is a very good chance that this girl was admitted because of the AA if she did not have exceptional accomplishments. Education status of her parents is irrelevant and can only be a negative. This does not mean that she is not qualified to be at Princeton.
Based on the description above how anyone in his right mind may consider this girl "marginalized"?
Ha. I’m hardly a Lost Cause-er or a Faux News lover. Just look at what Lincoln himself said during the Lincoln/Douglas debates.
Lincoln clearly said he was not in favor of racial equality. He opposed AA’s having the right to vote, to serve on juries, to hold office and to marry whites. But he thought that AAs did have a theoretical right to be paid for their labor. But was absolutely willing to compromise on that principle in order to preserve the Union for expediency sake. He also favored colonization as a practical method for dealing with the serious issues of what was going to happen in the south after the salves were freed.
It is a slippery slope when you get on the path of applying today’s standards to the past. Lincoln’s views on race were likely worse than Wilson’s as an objective matter and clearly highly objectionable today. But for his time, Lincoln was likely more enlightened than Wilson was for his time.
P.S. Lincoln later evolved to supporting the vote for AA men who had served in the Civil War. But he didn’t support the vote for vote for women (regardless of race). So there is that too!
Unfortunately, insinuations about whether one qualified for admission can occur even in the absence of AA or even holistic admissions.
Several HS classmates and I encountered this for various reasons from classmates and even some teachers/admins at our public magnet despite the fact admission is solely by examination and whether one exceeded the cutoff score or not and back then…with some concession* granted to low-income students with scores within 60-90 points of the cutoff out of 800 for a second chance through taking a rigorous summer academic program to prove they can handle the academics.
Some Black and Latino classmates/alums have recounted having this insinuation tossed their way despite the fact we all took the same exam. Also, athletes were also sometimes subjected to having their qualifications for admission questioned due to jock stereotyping despite the fact they likewise took the exact same exam and met/exceeded the exacting standards which made us all among the 4.5% admitted from the pool of examinees in our incoming 9th grade class.
No one ever used this as a factor as 1. There's no way to tell someone was one of the students who was given that concession and 2. Several I know of who were given that concession ended up graduating in the top quarter of my graduating class with Ivy/Peer elite U admission offers to boot.
Actually, I am speaking as someone who has a HYPSM degree, and who has directly hired or been involved in hiring several Ivy Leagure grads, and unfortunately let a couple go for performance reasons.
The aura is better from the outside than inside. Anyone interacting with lots of HYPSM grads immediately knows that there is a wide range of abilities with some being extraordinarily brilliant and some of them leave you scratching your head about why they were admitted in the first place. In other words, it is no different among the HYPSMs than anywhere else.
“This slippery slope has no end. For instance, Cornelius Vanderbilt owned a plantation with slaves. Should Vanderbilt University consider changing its name in order to avoid offending black students?”
Don’t forget Brown University.
New England, and especially Rhode Island, was a hub for the slave trade. The founding Brown family were very active slave owners and slave traders.
Pretty much any significant old money (north or south) will be connected. I think Brown’s approach on this has been good. They chose not to erase the name. They kept it and now teach about the history.
As for people generally saying that calling these students stupid or lacking critical thinking is unfounded and unwarranted, let me say this: One can have grey matter, but it does not mean one employs it well; hence, one can have lots of grey matter and be stupid and, frankly, dumb.
The critical thinking is the starkest of the obvious issues. They do not seem to see the absolute warped logic of protesting segregation, racism and assignment of things by race, but then in the same breath ask for a space dedicated solely to people with colored skin and hiring of people based on skin color. Seriously, can they not even deduce that they are asking for the exact same things they are protesting against? Critical thinking 101 is not even present at this level - it is like zero thinking.
There is, I believe, a majority of people in the US - so let’s say a hundred million just for fun - who think that one reasonable way to address racial injustice is to tinker with racial preferences. (Hence the broad, but not universal, support for AA and similar policies).
Are they ALL “zero thinkers” in your estimation?
If so, then OK, I see where you’re coming from. But that goes WAY further than a handful of student protesters.
I doubt you would get anything close to 100M people who, if asked privately, would support AA. Whenever the NY Times editorial board proposes something along those lines, its left-leaning readership shoots it down.