Top schools training ground for leaders

<p>NYT article about how the top colleges are still training America's diverse leaders...</p>

<p>"No longer would Harvard, Yale, Princeton and Columbia be the domain of the privileged. Instead, in response to the national soul-searching prompted by the civil rights movement, America’s premier colleges would try to become more representative of the population as a whole."</p>

<p><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/26/weekinreview/26cooper.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/26/weekinreview/26cooper.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>I read this article and I found the following odd:</p>

<p>“It would have been impossible for Barack Obama to go from a historic black school to become president, at this time. The whole point is that a broad swath of America had to be able to identify with him.”</p>

<p>I understand what Prof. Gates is saying - by going to a traditionally white and elite school, Barack extended his association, relationship, and affiliation in an academic and professional sense from just black people to black people and white people. But a “broad swath of America had to be able to identify with him”??? In the vain of education, this seems somewhat faulted. How many Americans - black or white - can identify with Columbia undergrand and Harvard law?</p>