Rabbi Yaakov Menken on Mrs. Obama:
"As a fellow Princeton student at the time Michelle Robinson was there, I have to make a few comments. Her claim that she was one of the "few" Black students is ridiculous. Affirmative action was in full force, and the Third World Center was a popular campus destination for Blacks, Latinos, Native Americans and others. There were far more Blacks than Jews, and there were not "a few" Jews on campus.
Despite the foregoing, she also wrote a senior thesis claiming she felt like she really didn't belong.
When she claims her "heart breaks for any young person," she helps explain why her husband's tenure was the most racially divisive presidency in the last 30 years (at the end of his second term, people recorded more friction between races than at the beginning of the first). She might as well say openly that she means "any young person" only if they're Black. What about the students who now think that if they work hard and study hard, they will actually have a fair chance at admission, thanks to this decision?
A good friend of mine told me openly, at Princeton, that he was happy with affirmative action "because I didn't have the grades." He was Black, of course. And I couldn't help thinking, "it's great that you are here, but which student, that actually did have the grades, didn't get to come to Princeton because they gave the spot to you?" I didn't like that thought, like I said, he was a friend, but he just told me he really didn't have the academic scores needed to get in, and that meant someone else was left out.
Multiple times over the past few years we have read stories about a student getting into each and every one of the Ivy League schools. Without even opening the article, we knew the skin color of the student in question. Don't tell me it's racist to notice, blame the admission system. You knew it too. And, sadly, there was a recent story of an Asian student with an outstanding record of academic and extracurricular achievement, a first-generation American from an impoverished immigrant background, who got into none of the top schools.
There is another good friend of mine who went to Princeton with me, my best friend since third grade. He didn't need a special leg up, he was an academic performer. And now no one will look at future students like him and wonder if he got in due to the color of his skin or the content of his mind.
The other forms of "special consideration" that she mentions are in no way comparable. Legacy kids are more likely to succeed, have loyalty, and of course that only works for the schools mom and dad attended. Schools need sports teams for their own prestige. And those who got coaching and academic training are, of course, coming into college better prepared to succeed and elevate the academic level of the school. Stating that race is somehow comparable is precisely the opposite of what MLK hoped for, a society in which skin color was irrelevant.
Now we will move at least closer to his dream, and a situation in which every child feels that the way to get into a school like Princeton is with real dedication and hard work."
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