I feel it is my duty as a student to say that I find Craig Steven Wilder's views on the College's future -- as reflected in his article, "The Passion of the CEO: T.J. Rodgers' Crusade" (The Dartmouth, April 12) -- an appalling and regrettable reflection of the state of affairs in higher education. It is not only misleading, but unjustified, to label someone "anti-diversity" if they seek a more merit-based, teaching-oriented institution. Wilder charges Rodgers with the very same offense he commits countless times in his own essay: implying some social evil within rhetorical semantics.
My contention avoids the issue of how to conduct college admissions proceedings, as Wilder is correct in asserting that if athletics or nepotism can sway admissions results, then race logically could as well. Primarily, I take issue with his invocation of the general principles of "justice" and equality. His view of social injustice manifests itself most explicitly in minorities' "inter-generational exclusion from educational and economic opportunity." His argument follows that while the range of possible life experiences available to a person is limited to a certain extent by birth, including social class, home environment and genetic makeup, there is no problem with the administration's tinkering with that distribution of life chances, as long as the intent is to provide equality of opportunity for those who wouldn't -- based on the College's assessment -- otherwise have it. No one would dare argue that a more equal world would be less desirable than the one we live in presently.
As Thomas Sowell writes, however, "Such a concept of justice seeks to correct not only biased or discriminatory acts by individuals or social institutions, but unmerited disadvantages in general, from whatever source they may arise." If undeserved inequalities must be redressed in the name of "fair" as opposed to "formal" equality, then the knowledge required to sort this out intellectually would be daunting. Some people are wealthy but emotionally impoverished, some are beautiful but unintelligent, and some are athletic but arrogant. As circumstances change through a lifetime -- for example, a beautiful girl losing her beauty in older age as well as the opportunities her beauty once afforded her -- makes determining the net advantages and disadvantages of an individual nearly impossible. What seems to be Wilder's "vision" for a perfectly "just" society, one endemic of intelligentsia writ large, derives from a hubris regarding this ability of policymakers or admissions officials to sort out all the characteristics of personhood that we are either blessed with or lack, and qualify which of those is most important to a college environment. Granted, someone must be endowed with this responsibility. Wilder's determination, however, is that those aspects of society that divide us -- race and gender, specifically -- are the more important distinctions, and those more standard and cross-cultural aspects of life that Rodgers seeks to value more highly and has successfully valued at his own company -- talent, ability and ambition -- are secondary.
Wilder can call me racist, "anti-diversity," misogynist or whatever makes him feel as though he's morally justified in his crusade to create "justice." He's not. Traditional justice is allowing everyone the chance to succeed within the rules of the game, or when we must rectify social injustices, it is doing so with a consideration of the social costs. Milton Friedman wrote, "A society that puts equality " in the sense of equality of outcome " ahead of freedom will end up with neither equality nor freedom. The use of force to achieve equality will destroy freedom, and the force, introduced for good purposes, will end up in the hands of people who use it to promote their own interests."
The College needs students and faculty of various backgrounds, lifestyles, talents and ideas, and chances are good that within one of those categories, the race of applicants will vary. Rodgers' gripe is not with the minority students, but the standards by which they're evaluated. Condoleezza Rice would never have been a Stanford professor if not for affirmative action programs that allow policymakers to ride the high-horse of the anointed visionary and demand thanks from her and successful minorities like her for their benevolence. The same is true of the students here, who in my experience with them, would all have been successful without the politicization of their skin color. The alumni would do well to elect a person to the Board of Trustees who would like to reward all applicants for their own successes and accomplishments rather than those unmerited circumstances into which they were born. If Wilder's article convinced one person of the rightness of his position, then Dartmouth is worse off for it.
