Poison Ivy

All of the churn over the Supreme Court’s overturning of race as a consideration in college admissions is really only about a handful of schools. The vast majority of colleges admit pretty much all comers.

But a degree from Harvard, Yale, Princeton and a few other selective schools punches your ticket to the higher echelons of government, business, law and just about any other field you can think of. That’s only partly justified. These schools are hard to get into, so if you’ve cleared that bar when you’re 18 it’s an indiction that, at the very least, at that point in your life you’ve figured out how to do well in an academic environment — unless of course you’ve figured out how to do well at throwing a football or you’ve figured out how to get yourself born into a “legacy” family.

It almost doesn’t matter what you do after you move into the dorms your freshman year. Nobody ever asks a Harvard grad about their class ranking or their GPA. They went to Harvard. Good enough.

And then there are the connections. Ivy League grads are everywhere on the higher rungs of every ladder. They’re there to give fellow alums a hand up. The otherwise ridiculous phrase “check your privilege” originated on these campuses and, in this one case, it makes some sense. Graduating from, or even attending, an Ivy League school confers fantastic privileges, only partially earned.

In the area of government the Ivy’s like to think of themselves as the gatekeepers to American political leadership. All but one of the current Supreme Court Justices went to Harvard or Yale. Sixteen presidents, including the last five, have gone to Ivy League institutions — if you count Georgetown for Clinton, which I do. So then wouldn’t we expect these schools to imbue their graduates with an understanding of history and political philosophy and a reverence for classical liberal values of reason, truth, honesty and the rest?

And yet, consider these Ivy League grads.

Samual Alito, Yale and Princeton. One of the Court’s two most conservative justices, he’s shown a willingness, even an eagerness, to erode the separation of church and state.

Tom Cotton, Harvard. Has endorsed Trump. Called for the deployment of Federal troops in the wake of protests over the killing of George Floyd. Voted against a border security deal worked out by Senators from his own party while continuing to fan the issue.

Ted Cruz, Harvard and Princeton. Has endorsed Trump despite Trump’s ridiculing his wife and suggesting that Cruz’ father was involved in the JFK assassination.

Ron DeSantis, Yale and Harvard. Has endorsed Trump. Has attacked Disney, a private business, for corporate policies and positions that it deems good for its business. Has used people as pawns by shipping migrants to northern cities to make a political point. Has endorsed book bans.

Josh Hawley, Stanford and Yale. Was the first Senator to support rejecting the Electoral College vote in the 2020 election and went forward with his objection even after the January 6h insurrection. Fair to say he was a leader in overturning a free and fair election.

Elise Stefanik, Harvard. Once a moderate, the New York Congresswoman is now auditioning to be Trump’s running mate by echoing his lies about the 2020 election and referring to those convicted in the violent January 6th attacks as “hostages.”

Clarence Thomas, Yale. When joining the majority to overturn Roe, he also suggested that the Court should revisit its ruling in support of same sex marriage. Has freely accepted expensive vacations and other perks from people with business before the Court and has resisted calls for a code of ethics for justices.

Donald Trump, Penn. Has recently started referring to migrants in terms (“vermin”, “poisoning our blood”) reminiscent or sometimes exactly the same as Hitler’s descriptions of Jews and others he considered undesirable.

These aren’t just conservatives in the American tradition, like William Buckley (Yale) or George Will (Princeton). These are people who believe in, or go along with, a hard-right authoritarian Christian nationalism that swims in conspiracy theories, ignores facts while it makes others up, and openly attacks the institutions of American democracy as well as the very philosophical underpinnings of liberal thought. Every one of the politicians listed above is smart enough to understand perfectly well that Trump is lying about the last election as well as a lot of other things. Instead of standing up to him, they’re aiding and abetting his lies.

If the Ivy League really deserved to be the shapers of American political leadership don’t these eight prominent people alone (I’m sure you could find more) make a mockery of that claim?

The answer to all this hubbub over admissions to the Ivy League schools is to pull those schools down several pegs in terms of the prestige that is heaped upon them from the media and others. Maybe that prestige is valid in other realms, but in government and politics it clearly is not.