Schoolism: The underlying problem with affirmative action

Last week, a Federal appeals court overturned a Michigan referendum which banned affirmative action in public universities and state government. The Supreme Court is expected to review this decision.

A student walks on the University of Michigan campus on Friday, the day a U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals panel struck down the state's ban on affirmative action in college admissions and hiring. The university was at the center of the fight after people who were denied admission sued. / Photos by JARRAD HENDERSON/Detroit Free Press

See report in Detroit Free Press.

Sadly, the ugly issue of affirmative action is back on the public agenda. Ugly, because it pits race against race over the limited seats at prestige schools.

Sadly, the advocates and the news media fail to look at the underlying issue.

It's not about getting into college. There are probably seats for everyone qualified to go to college. It's about getting into the right school. It's about schoolism.

Schoolism is soft prejudice by which people are judged by the prestige of their education. It's not what a person knows, how capable he or she is, or what he or she has achieved. It is merely the brand on a diploma. In some communities, one's social standing is largely determined by where one went to school.

A related problem is legacy admissions. If one's family went there, the school gives a preference because of birth. Legacy admissions is affirmative action for the affluent, depriving equally or more capable students the opportunity to attend.

Does George W. Bush think he got into Yale because of his brains?

The Constitution--Artscroll et. al.

With the swearing in of the Republican lead House of Representatives, the Constitution is in vogue. The New Yorker and the New York Times website have written about popular guides and annotations to the Constitution.

Here is a fantasy Jewish library on the Constitution.

1. The Artscroll Constitution. For originalists. Forward by Justice Scalia. Blue cover.

2. The Hertz Constitution. Written by God. Forward by Justice Thomas. Blue cover.

3. The Women's Constitution. New commentary from feminist scholars. Forward by Justice Ginsburg. Green cover.

4. The Plaut Constitution. Not written by God. Forward by Justice Sotomayor.

5. Aryeh Kaplan's Living Constitution. Edited by a physicist. Forward by Justice Breyer. Purple cover.

6. The Eitz Hayim Constitution. Boringly centrist. Forward by Justice Kennedy. Red cover.

The last word on Huck

Today's New York Times website has a masterfull discussion of a publisher's plans to santize Huck Finn. You will never guess what word is being changed. Eleven scholars, from differing backgrounds and viewpoints, largely agree that the word switch is a mistake.

I disagree. As a matter of respect the word should be changed.

I would go even further. The book should be rewritten. I read Huck Finn in High School. At least twice since then, I tried to read it thanks to gutenberg.org. Both times I gave up after a page or two. I could not deal with the dialect. It took work to get through the intentional mispellings and bad grammar. I gave up out of frustration.

Dialect in novels, comedy, movies and television is demeaning. It stereotypes and belittles people who have done no wrong. It stands in the way of the reader's understanding.

So as for Huck, we will never meet again, unless the dialect is translated in a manner respectful to all ethnic groups.

Times Square--10 a.m. Sunday

Find more photos like this on Photographic Society of Philadelphia

Arlen Specter and the coverup of the Kennedy assassination

Arlen Specter has but hours left as a United States Senator. In the past week, Pennsylvania newspapers have editorialized about Specter's career. But the dying newspaper business has missed the lasting legacy of Arlen Specter.

He made the coverup of the Kennedy Assassination possible.

On November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was shot while traveling in a motorcade in Dallas. These were perilous days. The Cold War was hot. Barely a year before, the Soviet Union installed missiles in Cuba. The world was at the brink of nuclear war. We forced the Soviet Union to withdraw the missiles, but we promised not to invade Cuba. Domestically, the right wing was boiling over. Attorney General Robert Kennedy was at war with the mob.

Lee Harvey Oswald, a leftist hanger-on, was charged with the murder. Two days later he was shot to death by mob hanger-on Jack Ruby. Ruby spent the rest of his life in jail. He never talked.

Who killed Kennedy? Was it Cuba, seeking revenge for CIA plots to kill Fidel Castro?
Was it renegade operatives in the CIA? Was it the mob?

President Johnson could not afford to learn the truth. If Cuba was responsible, the public might demand an invasion. Invasion would mean war with the Soviet Union.

President Johnson was slick. He set up the mechanism to get answers which were not answers---a mechanism to bury the truth.

He appointed the Warren Commission to investigate but not investigate. To make sure the truth was not discovered, he made the Chief Justice of the United States, Earl Warren, chair of the Commission. The judiciary was co-opted. He appointed the Minority Leader of the House of Representatives, Gerald R. Ford, to the Commission. The Republican Party was co-opted. The two most likely sources of criticism were on board.

There was a big problem. Though Oswald was blamed for the shooting, witnesses claimed they heard too many shots from different angles and saw a second gunperson. Moreover, both President Kennedy and Texas Governor John Connolly had been shot at the same time.

Enter Arlen Specter, a lawyer working for the Warren Commission. He came up with the Single Bullet Theory. Specter hypothesized that a bullet which passed through President Kennedy's body struck Governor Connolly. The theory gave an answer to the claims of a second shooter.

The Single Bullet Theory stuck. It interfered with valid questions about the assassination. The Warren Commission determined that Oswald acted alone. Enough of the public fell for the story, that we never invaded Cuba. Only the political fringe continued to ask who killed Kennedy.

Did Oswald act alone? Who was the Warren Commission kidding? Was there a cover-up?
The pieces of the puzzle--Oswald, Ruby, Johnson, Warren, Ford, Specter--fit too neatly.

The bad guys got away.

Arlen Specter covered their tracks.

The birth of Modern English

On the internet fantasy can become fact. Here's today's fantasy history.

December 18, 1450. King Henry VI proclaims Modern English as the official language of the realm. Language police are dispatched throughout the land, correcting texts, changing signs, and updating spellcheckers and grammar checkers. Middle English is illegal. Geoffrey Chaucer III is sent to a language re-education camp. Modern English is 660 years old. Speak it, or else.