As Jane wrote last week, if you want to be admitted to a prestigious university, you better not mention organizations like 4-H or the junior ROTC on your application. Ross Douthat discussed the problem of reverse discrimination in college admissions in his Sunday column.
Douthat cites Russell K. Nieli of Minding the Campus, who wrote that white applicants from rural and low-income backgrounds face an extra layer of discrimination:
For minority applicants, the lower a family’s socioeconomic position, the more likely the student was to be admitted. For whites, though, it was the reverse. An upper-middle-class white applicant was three times more likely to be admitted than a lower-class white with similar qualifications.
Amazing, isn’t it? Elite universities are so deeply concerned about equality and social justice when it comes to doling out racial preferences. Meanwhile, they are shunning highly qualified, working-class whites in favor or the rich and privileged. There is a word for this kind of thing: It starts with an “H,” and the last part rhymes with “aristocracy.”