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What the Supreme Court Decision on College Admissions Means and Doesn’t Mean.
Far be it for me to ever find myself in agreement with a legal decision made by a Supreme Court shaped by jurists nominated by Donald Trump, but I think yesterday’s ruling which prohibits college admission decisions based on race needs to be considered from a different perspective than the way the decision is being discussed by both sides.
A story in this morning’s WaPo has the kids of color lamenting their chances of getting into a top school, now that schools like Harvard and Stanford can’t give an admission break to applicants who are Asians or blacks. A white kid from Maryland, on the other hand, thinks the decision will allow to consider applying to the Ivy League instead of the local state school where he was planning to apply.
Meanwhile, what I think needs to be considered is how higher education has changed over the last few years, and why these changes may make the whole issue of getting into college and the so-called ‘value’ of a college education very different from what the Supreme Court appears to have had in mind.
So, here I go again, telling a story about what life was like when I was a kid, but in this case the perspective really needs to be said and understood.