Responding to an article from Charlie Savage that sheds light on a video showing Sonia Sotomayor admitting to being a beneficiary of affirmative action, Michael Goldfarb declares victory:
The fact that she graduated summa cum laude argues in favor of her competence, as does her long career on the bench, but by Sotomayor's own account she would not be where she is had she had not benefited from race-based preferences. As a matter of official policy, these schools lowered the bar for Sotomayor, so why do her supporters -- who tend also to be supporters of affirmative action -- not celebrate her nomination, and her career, as proof that affirmative action works? The former president of Princeton University specifically denied that Sotomayor had needed the help of affirmative action in order to gain admission to Princeton. Conservatives who suggested otherwise were called racists or worse. There's only one possible explanation for this -- liberals are embarrassed that their nominee wasn't smart enough to get here on her own.
Goldfarb seems to believe that getting into an elite university is more important than excelling there, which is bizarre. The college admissions process is largely arbitrary, qualified students are accepted and rejected from elite colleges for all sorts of reasons. But to address Goldfarb's point--yes, this is how affirmative action is supposed to work. Sotomayor was let in partially on the basis of her ethnic background, and then she proceeded to wipe the floor with an entire class of students that didn't have to grow up in a housing project in the South Bronx. Affirmative action might get you into an elite school--it doesn't make you the top student in your class. What liberals were objecting to was the notion that benefiting from affirmative action means Sotomayor is dumb or doesn't deserve credit for her accomplishments. I'm not sure why Goldfarb thinks getting admitted to Princeton is a bigger academic achievement than excelling there, except that Goldfarb went to Princeton and doesn't seem to believe it's possible for someone like Sotomayor to be smarter than he is. In any case, I await Goldfarb's brave call for Clarence Thomas to step down from the bench.
But another point--is Goldfarb seriously suggesting that the typical white Ivy League student from an upper middle class or wealthy family, with all the financial or social advantages such things entail, gets there "on their own"? A comforting bedtime story for the privileged, to be sure. But a bedtime story nonetheless.
-- A. Serwer
