The great German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche was perhaps best known for his affirmation, “what doesn’t kill me, makes me stronger.” Along the same lines, he often repeated the less-well-known Latin phrase “amor fati” meaning to “love one’s fate”. Nietzsche elaborated on exactly what this phrase meant to him: “That one wants nothing to be different, not forward, not backwards, not in all eternity. Not merely bear what is necessary, still less conceal it….but love it.”
It might be hard to see right now, but amor fati may well end up having been in order with regard to the Supreme Court’s recent decision banning race-based affirmative action in college admissions. I wrote an article about this decision when it was handed down a few days ago and the initial title of that piece was “Not Very Smart White Kids, Against-All-Odds Black Kids and the Tragedy of Today’s Supreme Court Decision.” The title admittedly failed to meet Forbes’ guidelines on editorializing and it was changed to the blander headline, “The Supreme Court’s Action to End Affirmative Action in College Admissions Won’t Eliminate Race as a Factor in Real Life”.
To give myself a little pat on the back, the sentiment of that original title still stands and has now been validated by a new lawsuit challenging Harvard’s own kind of “affirmative action” for the (mostly) white, wealthy (and not necessarily smart or talented) children of Harvard alumni (full disclosure, I was admitted to Harvard twice, aided by the undying, unconditional love, support and motivation of my middle-class parents and devoted high school teachers, but not by any legacy of Harvard attendance. In fact, it used to bug the daylights out of me to see a bunch of people there who had been born about an inch from home plate who seemed convinced that they had hit an inside-the-park home run).
Lawyers for Civil Rights, a nonprofit group based in Boston, is challenging Harvard’s so-called “legacy admissions”, asserting that this longstanding practice amounts to de facto discrimination against black and brown students because it gives an unfair leg up to the mostly white children of alumni. As the group’s executive director Ivan Espinoza-Madrigal rightfully asked, “Why are we rewarding children for privileges and advantages accrued by prior generations?” He proceeded to answer his own question: “Your family’s last name and the size of your bank account are not a measure of merit, and should have no bearing on the college admissions process.”
All that stuff about sunshine being the best disinfectant is really true! The fate of the high court’s initial decision may soon come to be seen as worthy of our love as it has broadly exposed the blatant hypocrisy and heretofore semi-comfortable co-existence of both types of affirmative action. We now must ask the question, what kind of society do we want to live in? One where against-all-odds students of every color—Black, Brown, White, Asian, Native American—strive and work hard to make it to the most elite institutions of our society or one where Mommy and Daddy write a check to Harvard to buy a building or fund a program so that junior can keep the chain of “achievement” unbroken? If it is the latter, I ask one thing only: take Harvard’s motto, another Latin word called veritas, to heart and please refrain from calling this system a “meritocracy”.
In the meantime, speaking of meritocracy, maybe a better system that could be implemented right away would be one that focuses on and gives preference to those students I mentioned above—the ones who have overcome great odds and many obstacles as they doggedly strive to move beyond their hopeless circumstances. These worthy young people look like the author Emi Nietfeld , a white girl who endured extreme poverty, homelessness and foster care to make it to Harvard’s hallowed halls, or Bertrand Cooper, a mixed-race young man who calls himself “black, white, and trash on both sides” but who rose above the bleakness of his childhood to become a successful freelance writer who recently argued in The Atlantic that affirmative action programs at elite Ivy League institutions have only perpetuated a class-based social order regardless of race such that these universities are neither economically nor experientially diverse.
Ryan Holiday, the author and expert in Stoic philosophy, writes a great deal about persistence and perseverance in the face of seemingly insurmountable adversity. “Momentum and defeat are not mutually exclusive”, he writes. Perhaps elite institutions like Harvard should take a page out of Holiday’s wonderful book, “The Obstacle is the Way”, or at least follow the guidance of its title and see the Supreme Court’s decision as an opportunity to emulate the resilience and persistence of these disadvantaged young people who make it against all odds. Or perhaps better yet, they could look at the decision as a clarion call to get their own, often non-meritocratic houses in order.
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