I didn’t say WASPs are given an edge. But the institutions are controlled by them. And minorities must appeal to their fancy to get in.
You are making a nuanced argument for sure then. But the Students for Fair Admissions have explicitly made the case that whites are given an advantage that takes Asian seats at Harvard via the children of faculty admissions, donations, essays, athletics, etc. But this discounts donations from certain foreign governments and I think it creates a misconception about the average white student there and pressures Harvard to specifically accept fewer whites (WASPs in particular imo) because that is the only socially acceptable result of their lawsuits despite whites being underrepresented there anyway. No one questions whether any other group has a backdoor admissions advantage though.
But the institutions are controlled by them. And minorities must appeal to their fancy to get in.
If you had said this about any other group it would not be socially acceptable even though a case could plausibly be made that Harvard is not run by the stereotypical blazer and khaki wearing WASPs. That's really what I am trying to point out is how strange it is that only WASPs can ever be criticized. I am not even trying to play a race card and I am strongly in favor of free speech. I am just trying to point out that in my opinion there is misdirection going on and that WASPs are probably being scapegoated in the fight over Harvard. Especially since anti-WASPishness has been the esprit de corps in academia for some time, I doubt they have any real control there. See other commenter's posts for example.
edit: this is a deep topic for sure and touches on a lot of American history. Given that every US president until Kennedy was a WASP, and that Harvard was started by WASPs for WASPs, Harvard's student body was undoubtedly slanted towards WASPs. But I personally doubt this has been true for at least a decade now but probably longer.
It’s not a nuanced argument at all. Harvard and similar universities are WASP institutions run by WASPs. When you have non-objective admissions standards, you have to appeal to their WASP sensibilities to get admitted. That doesn’t necessarily mean they prefer other WASPs. They also like minorities that affirm their worldview (but not so much minorities that don’t affirm their worldview).
The root of your confusion seems to be thinking that I’m using “WASP” to mean “white people” generically. White people aren’t a monolith. Harvard WASPs have nothing to do with folks in Appalachia (who may literally be white and Protestant).
https://www.harvardmagazine.com/2020/09/jhj-changemaker-in-a...
you would have to convince me of this. It was previously a WASP institution but I don't think it is anymore or has been for some time. There are still fencing teams and professors in tweeds but that doesn't make it a WASP institution, maybe one that borrowed WASP culture. The ethnicity of the current president and provost and past few say otherwise. I think WASPs have been defeated in the court of public opinion and Harvard is no exception in fact more sensitive to public opinion because of its global significance.
The root of your confusion seems to be thinking that I’m using “WASP” to mean “white people” generically.
I am not sure it really matters to admissions but I know what the difference is. No one will argue there should be fewer Hispanic or Black students. It will never happen, it is socially unacceptable. There is a lot of momentum to accept more Asians and Harvard can't possibly accept being called racist. The end result will be whites of all groups will be accepted less as the future goes forward in order to appease all the other groups. This is in spite of the fact that whites appear to be within a general SD of Asian test scores[1]. Of course it seems unlikely that the school would deliberately accept fewer Jews because that also seems like a socially unacceptable result given that there was previously a Jewish quota. That could never happen again.
But I think the stereotype of modern WASP as a lazy, corrupt, and dumb legacy admit is nefarious because no one really knows what a WASP is, it's not obvious, so any white student there could fit this. Also WASPs themselves are not necessarily this stereotype. Couldn't they be as hardworking and studious as any other group?
edit: my point here is that Harvard admissions policies and lawsuits just seem like blatant evidence of ethnic conflict in the US and WASPs are a scapegoat who I don't think even have a say in the policies. Also here is the current fencing team[2]. Doesn't look WASPy.
[1]: https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2018/10/22/asian-american...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Bacow
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Salovey
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_L._Eisgruber
That doesn't full show the degree to which those institutions reflect the Jewish view of the world, but it gives one an idea.
In a sense all of the above were indeed WASP institutions: Those evil, evil WASPs created them, funded them, and built them into fine schools. But that part of their history is over and now they are controlled by a different group with a different purpose.