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Society can either do the healthy thing and accept this and embrace it (won't happen, because it's not "fair"), or not, and make the inherent lottery explicit.
> ...leftism is appealing to many who want to avoid work, so they won't be familiar with the concept of having their hard work pay off
You seem unfamiliar with the values of those you classify as 'leftist'.
A lot of this comes down to what you think the mission of college is. Is it to educate the highest achieving kids who apply? Or to graduate a certain type of student? Or something else?
For me I know it’s not just to educate the highest achieving kids. If the top college in the world ended up accepting all terrorists who were trained to be exceptional students that wouldn’t sit right with me. Even if I could acknowledge they had the best academic records. That seems like such a shallow goal for university.
If you aren't actively trying to achieve stardom in the professional world, there are tons of good universities that will provide a great education and will look good on your resume, you just might not be hired right out of the gate at Apple with only one or two rounds of interviews.
But if I'm looking to educate the best politicians, judges, business people, activists -- I think that I really do care about a lot more than SATs and transcripts.
It's funny because I feel like no one has this argument about Cal Tech. They might have affirmative action, but if they didn't everyone seemed to be OK with it.
I don't think he means a purely random lottery (at least I hope he doesn't). My son was a high achiever (valedictorian, top 1% SAT, honor society, etc. etc.) but still didn't get admitted to MIT because he was competing with 30,000 other similar high achievers for 1000 spots. That's where the lottery concept comes in - you have to compete to qualify for the lottery. It's already in place after all, they just try to make it less lottery-ish.
And if rewarding hard work were the only criteria for admission, then legacy preferences wouldn't exist, either. That is the sort of thing affirmative action attempts to balance out.
I don't have an answer, and I hope that all who have earned an opportunity are rewarded. But whenever I see that a group is under-represented relative to population, I have to wonder what the reasons are and what can be done to help.
I am OK with having to work harder if it means someone who has had fewer opportunities, resources and support than me – not only in their lifetime, but for generations in their family – gets a boost.
It seems some are afraid of having to work as hard as someone who was not born with a silver spoon in their mouth.
I think the point is that it doesn't need to. College admission is 18 years late for trying to correct racial and social disadvantages.
Affordable/free preschool, childcare, school lunches, summer programs, etc., would all be helpful. Perhaps universities can (are?) getting involved in that. But until we do a better job as a country/society funding these programs for all, then disparities will persist.
In the absence of that, the need remains.
This is actually something I was thinking about reading through these comments. These universities should focus on "giving back" type programs, I think. Something like sending their professors to underprivileged schools to speak to or involve themselves in students lives. Mentorship programs that start much earlier in a child's life could make a massive difference.
The problem with programs like that is they don't provide tangible results fast enough for administrator and politicians to justify themselves.
The suggestion is that MIT or Northeastern State A&M for that matter set a minimum standard bar that they will consider. Then, all of those applicants that meet the standard are entered into a lottery to determine who gets the spots.
It's not all that different from today except it eliminates the problems from whether Reader A or Reader B looks at your application and whether Reader A had a good night's sleep or a fight with their partner that morning.