Legacy admissions

Liberals are quick to decry legacy admissions to universities (where the children
of alumni — usually big-time donor alumni — are granted admission), silver-spoon
heirs who take over their fathers’ companies, nepotism in the workplace — all on
the grounds that what should matter most in all of these scenarios is merit, not
connections, family trees and contributions to university coffers. Underlying all
of this is the assumption that, were it not for these crucial connections, the people
who benefit from them would never otherwise have been considered. In other words,
liberals stereotype all such beneficiaries as unqualified but for daddy’s grace.

Right?

Tell me you don’t hear this every time a liberal discusses it — the language she
uses dripping with contempt, and probably envy, for the self-evidently mediocre
family members of important people who are able to capitalize on their family name
to get ahead when their own skills wouldn’t otherwise have allowed it.

And yet somehow in their minds, the race-preferential policies they support don’t
carry with them the same stigma? Because we’re talking about essentially the same
problem, aren’t we? Chances are, the children of well-educated Harvard-graduated
parents are probably just as well-educated and prepared to be students at Harvard
— even “legacy” beneficiaries must have stellar scores and resumes to get in — and
yet you don’t ever hear liberals conceding that minorities who are pushed through
school are widely perceived as less qualified than their white counterparts.

Wherefore the disconnect? The answer is simple: politics.

Armstrong Williams is on Sirius/XM Power 169, 7-8 p.m. and 4-5 a.m., Monday through Friday. Become a fan on Facebook at www.facebook.com/arightside, and follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/arightside.