The Power of Privilege: Yale and America’s
Elite Colleges by Joseph Soares, Stanford University Press, 2007, Excerpts
Americans believe in the essential goodness of
the idea that people should be able to achieve in school and work to the full
extent of their natural abilities and drive. Being rewarded for what one does,
rather than whom one is, and being able to rise or fall on one’s merits is part
of what defines the American dream on individual freedom and personal
accomplishment. Our national ethos of self-determination may be a delusion, but
its appeal persists, even internationally.
We take great national pride in our premier
universities and like to believe that their academic excellences are matched by
a fair admissions process that selects the best brains for their classrooms.
Our belief in America
What would it mean, however, if Harvard and
Yale and their peers had a history of excluding applicants based on gender,
religion, race, income, and personality? If those Ivy universities pursued, not
only in the recent past, but at present, admissions policies aimed at capturing
youths from families at the top of the income pyramid, and those universities
selected students more for personal qualities than for academic
accomplishments? What sort of academic meritocracy would we have if one’s
chances of being in it were substantially determined by family wealth? Unless
one believes that only rich people can be smart, we have a staggering distance
to travel to achieve a fair opportunity for all to reach every level of our
educational system. Education is supposed to be an equal opportunity leveler,
but at the top, it has become a mechanism of class stratification.
3 Women Sue Yale And 9
Fraternities, Saying They Enable Abuse And Harassment
13
Feb 2019
Three female students are suing Yale and nine
of its fraternities for allegedly enabling the Greek organizations to host
events where sexual harassment, abuse and discrimination run rampant. All three
of the women, who are undergraduate students at the Ivy League school, say they
have been groped without consent at Yale fraternity parties and have seen other
women assaulted and harassed by fraternity members at events. The lawsuit
claims that fraternities have “unrivaled influence over Yale’s social scene.”
Also included in the lawsuit are several references to past instances of
harassment, including an incident in 2011 in which DKE pledge members appeared
in video chanting, “No means yes! Yes means anal!” The suit points out that
Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who faced an accusation of sexually
assaulting a girl when he was in high school, is an alumnus of Yale’s DKE
chapter.
Harvard Law Review Suit Opens New Front in Admissions-Bias Fight
08
Oct 2018
Harvard and New York University were sued by a
group that claims their law schools illegally use race and gender as criteria
for selecting law students to staff their most elite academic journals. The
suits come amid growing scrutiny on affirmative action in college admissions
and may put the policies at elite graduate schools under a microscope. Next
week, a federal judge in Boston is scheduled to hear testimony in a trial
accusing Harvard of discriminating against Asian-Americans in undergraduate
admissions. The U.S. Justice Department is also probing bias in admissions at
Harvard and Yale universities.
Power elite of suburban
Washington split over Kavanaugh allegations
17
Sep 2018
Christine Blasey Ford threw a Supreme Court
confirmation into turmoil with her decision to step forward with sexual assault
allegations against Brett Kavanaugh — but she also broke the delicate social
code of the affluent Maryland suburbs where they both grew up. Their families
have traveled for decades in the same prep school and country-club circles,
populated by Washington power players — including plenty of lawyers, lobbyists
and government officials whose shared goal is to avoid public embarrassment.
Ford attended the elite Holton-Arms School at the time she alleges that
Kavanaugh, who attended the equally elite Georgetown Preparatory School,
attacked her. Ford’s father, Ralph Blasey, was president of the all-male
Burning Tree Golf Club in Bethesda, where Kavanaugh’s father has also been an
active member.
Yale Film 1966: To Be a Man
One of the most popular
films shown by Yale alumni clubs across the nation.
Some of the figures who feature in the film
included the classics professor Erich Segal, five years before his Love Story
would become the top selling work of fiction and the biggest box office hit of
1970, as well as a young John Kerry, member of the class of 1966. One student stated that ”it
needed a few shots of a mixer with gross-outs and beer cans to be complete.”
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