College Admission Scam is Why Affirmative Action Exists
Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, “It’s all right to tell a man to lift himself by his bootstraps, but it is cruel jest to say to a bootless man that he ought to lift himself by his own bootstraps.”
For decades, if not longer, many White Americans have chastised African-Americans for expecting a handout from the government and not wanting to earn their place in society.
Many racists say that African-Americans are lazy, unintelligent and inferior.
Therefore, the African-American community needs handouts like welfare and affirmative action.
To many, especially White students who file lawsuits on affirmative action policies at colleges throughout the nation, reserving spots or lowering admission standards for people who come from impoverished backgrounds and communities of color takes space away from deserving White students.
But what do affirmative action critics say about rich, famous and elite White parents who use their wealth, connections and power to devise scams to get their underachieving children into prestigious universities?
CNN reported, “Fifty people—from Hollywood stars and top industry CEOs to college coaches and standardized test administrators—stand accused of participating in a scheme to cheat on admission tests and admit students to leading institutions as athletes regardless of their abilities, prosecutors revealed Tuesday in a federal indictment. The scandal is being called the largest college admissions scam ever prosecuted.
“As the alleged culprits, including actresses Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin and fashion designer Mossimo Gianulli, position their defenses, the fallout continues for players across the wide-ranging case, which spans six states and raises seminal questions about how level the post-secondary playing field really is.”
The recent indictments of dozens of adults, who allegedly paid approximately $25 million collectively to help bribe their children into elite schools shows why affirmative action for minorities exists in the first place.
Affirmative action for rich White children has always existed at the nation’s top schools disguised as legacy programs, philanthropy or outright bribery.
The college admission scandal shows that affirmative action is still needed in an attempt to level the playing field as much as possible.
Many Black and brown students do not come from such privileged backgrounds so they cannot bribe their way into school, financially.
Many African-Americans have very little wealth because of the centuries of slavery and segregation in this country, not to mention the discrimination that still exists in the workplace and in the housing market today.
The wealthy African-Americans of yesteryear like the musicians; actors and athletes often got cheated out of their wealth by discriminatory laws and unscrupulous White corporate executives.
Therefore, people of color often innately find themselves at a disadvantage to their White peers whose families had a centuries head start building wealth, power and connections thanks to the racial caste system known in America as centuries of slavery and a century of Jim Crow laws.
It is not as difficult to build wealth when your “employees” work for free and you basically have no overhead costs associated with your wealth-generating businesses.
But critics of affirmative action never had a problem with “preferential treatment.”
Those critics only have a problem when “preferential treatment” benefits African-Americans and other minorities.
Preferential treatment is preferred when it benefits rich and elite White people.
For the record, the alleged college admission scam does not just adversely affect Black and brown students who had their spots taken by someone unqualified for the spot.
This alleged college admission cheating scam also is detrimental to poor and middle-class Whites who also do not have the wealth to purchase their success.
Like African-Americans and other less affluent minorities, poor and middle-class Whites often have to earn their spots like the rest of us who were not fortunate enough to have filthy rich parents.
That fact is why many African-Americans can never understand why poor Whites do not do more to stand up against the discrimination that African-Americans endure in this country.
Poor Whites have more in common with minorities because they too are looked down and discriminated against by some of their wealthier brethren.
But America is so preoccupied with color that people often do things that are not in their best self-interest just to hold on to the fact that White is right in their minds.
Even during the Civil War, Southern Whites who could not afford slaves gave their life to maintain slavery just so that the wealthy among them could keep their wealth even if the wealthy did not even fight in the war themselves.
The system has always been set up for the haves to trounce over the have-nots.
Centuries of oppression have created a playing field that is not level.
But it is funny that it took this scandal on March 12 for the majority of Americans to realize how unjust and unfair the system is.
People have become so oblivious to racism and in denial about oppression, that the programs that are trying to correct those wrongs get criticized more than the actual wrong itself.
It’s like people say, racism is so much in the DNA of America that people think you are anti-America if you are anti-racism and anti-oppression.
Rich children already have advantages that many poor, Black and brown students do not have.
Those rich children have well-funded schools.
Those rich children have the best private schools in the country.
Those rich children have access to every legal academic resource that money can buy.
Those rich children already have the money to hire the best tutors and test coaches that money can buy.
Those rich children can already afford to attend the most prestigious and expensive colleges in the world.
Therefore, why do they have to pay to take a spot from a child who was not blessed to have all of those resources but still did good enough to actually earn a spot at those prestigious schools?
The only reason that they cannot attend is because their working-class parents cannot afford to bribe the school.
And even if they could afford to bribe the schools, their ethical standards might not allow them to commit a crime.
Therefore, the need for affirmative action can never appear clearer.
America gave land away to poor Whites.
America forced African-Americans to work for free as slaves.
And now America only wants African-Americans to pull themselves up from their bootstraps.
We cannot do so because America stole our boots from us centuries ago.
