GOP Suicide When Women Rule Israeli Spring? Catholic Miseducation BRUCE BARTLETT noah millman william s. lind bruce frohnen

DECEMBER 2012

IDEAS OVER IDEOLOGY • PRINCIPLES OVER PARTY

The Myth of American Meritocracy How corrupt are Ivy League admissions?

RON UNZ

When News Becomes

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6 14 54

FRONT LINES articles ARTS & LETTERS 6 A life on the Republican right— As high-school students 54 The End of Men: And the Rise and how it all went wrong across America submit college of Women by Hannah Rosin bruce bartlett applications this winter, NOAH MILLMAN The American Conservative 10 Israel’s greatest military historian presents an exposé of 56 Living the Faith: A Life of Tom dissects the Arab Spring corruption and discrimination in Monaghan by James Leonard william s. lind elite university admissions. BRUCE P. FROHNEN

Commentary Publisher Ron Unz examines 59 Living With Guns: A Liberal’s the data to reveal what Ivy League Case for the Second Amendment 5 Party politics is a bad investment and other top schools are really by Craig R. Whitney looking for—and what role merit BRIAN DOHERTY 11 CIA’s Benghazi role actually plays, or fails to play, philip giraldi in the process. 60 A Capitalism for the People: Recapturing the Lost Genius of 12 How the GOP lost America 14 The Myth of American American Prosperity by Luigi PATRICK J. BUCHANAN Meritocracy Zingales WILLIAM RUGER 52 The greatest antiwar pop song How corrupt are Ivy League Bill kauffman admissions? 63 Defending the Free Market: The Moral Case for a Free Economy 66 Becoming American begins 45 Paying Tuition to a by Robert Sirico with baseball Giant Hedge Fund ELIAS CRIM taki Student debt is unnecessary, and here’s the way to abolish it.

Cover illustration: Michael Hogue

DECEMBER 2012 THE AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE 3 The American Conservative Publisher Reactions Ron Unz Editor Daniel McCarthy Senior Editors Rod Dreher Daniel Larison WAR ON THE FAMILY serve. Libertarianism is liberalism, Mark Nugent A real irony is how many “fam- pure and simple. We long ago adopted Editorial Director, Digital ily values”-types are war hawks (“Why the liberal rhetoric of Milton Fried- Maisie Allison Conservatives Hate War,” November man and Michael Novak, of Ludwig Associate Editor 2012). It is hardly an obscure fact that von Mises and Ayn Rand, and what Jordan Bloom military life is deadly to family life, we now conserve are the values of the National Correspondent both in the literal sense and in the di- Enlightenment. Libertarianism sacri- Michael Brendan Dougherty vorce rate military couples suffer. And fices everything to “freedom,” but will Contributing Editors W. James Antle III, Andrew J. Bacevich, now we even send our mothers to war. not define freedom, or will only define Doug Bandow, Jeremy Beer, James Bovard, DAN DAVIS it negatively so that it becomes indis- Patrick Deneen, Michael Desch, Richard Gamble, Web comment tinguishable from license. Philip Giraldi, David Gordon, Paul Gottfried, Freddy Gray, Leon Hadar, Peter Hitchens, We cannot create a conservative Philip Jenkins, Christopher Layne, CULTIVATING CASH space by becoming liberals; at best, that Chase Madar, Eric Margolis, James Pinkerton, Justin Raimondo, Fred Reed, Stuart Reid, American agriculture (“Not Amish, But makes us neocons. We might become Sheldon Richman, Steve Sailer, Close,” October 2012) is structured the a political majority, and have, several John Schwenkler, Jordan Michael Smith, way it is both from a desire to prevent times. But it always turns out to be a R.J. Stove, Kelley Vlahos, Thomas E. Woods Jr. scarcity, which was a real problem in the paradoxical victory, with more govern- Associate Publisher early 20th century, and to influence geo- ment not less; higher debt, not lower; Jon Basil Utley politics in the Cold War era—“Get Big more license for the powerful, less Publishing Consultant Ronald E. Burr or Get Out.” The planners certainly suc- freedom for the rest. This is because Editorial Assistants ceeded, much too well unfortunately: the libertarians do no understand the Audrey Anweiler the biggest health problem among the law of unintended consequences. Con- Vijay Vikram poor is obesity. Surpluses lowered prices sequences are always larger than our Founding Editors and forced small operators out of busi- intentions, and any goal, even the goal Patrick J. Buchanan, Scott McConnell, ness, and such surpluses were turned of liberty, pursued in disregard of any Taki Theodoracopulos into products like high-fructose corn other proper goal will always double The American Ideas Institute syrup and ethanol, which created more back to negate itself, to become its own President health problems or took grain out of opposite. Wick Allison food production to make more money. JOHN C. MÈDAILLE The American Conservative, Vol. 11, No. 12, What is hoped for is a way small via email December 2012 (ISSN 1540-966X). Reg. U.S. Pat. & Tm. Offic. Published 12 times a producers can survive and thrive in ag- year by The American Ideas Institute, 4040 riculture and recreate what’s been lost INCUMBENT BIAS Fairfax Drive, Ste. 140, Arlington, VA 22203. Periodicals postage paid Arlington, VA and in trying to turn farming from com- Excellent analysis of the biggest problem additional mailing offices. Printed in the USA. munity into just a pure industry. with our federal government (“Who POSTMASTER: Send address changes to The American Conservative, P.O. Box 9030, Maple SEAN SCALLON Needs a President?” November 2012). Shade, NJ 08052-9030. Web comment It has reached the point where the Subscription rates: $49.97 per year (12 issues) incumbent president always has a big in the U.S., $69.97 in Canada (U.S. funds), and DEFINING LIBERTY DOWN $89.97 other foreign via airmail. Back issues: advantage, no matter how badly he has $6.00 (prepaid) per copy in USA, $7.00 in With all due respect to Rod Dreher failed to live up to his promises or to Canada (U.S. funds). (“Paris in Fall,” November 2012), I the needs of the American people. For subscription orders, payments, and other have a serious problem with his state- The advantage is that the presidency subscription inquiries— By phone: 800-579-6148 ment, “Libertarianism, with it exal- is so powerful, nobody is plausible as (outside the U.S./Canada 856-380-4131) tation of freedom and choice, could president—nobody is smart enough Via Web: www.theamericanconservative.com be, in the American context, the only or has enough experience to execute By mail: The American Conservative, P.O. Box 9030, Maple Shade, NJ 08052-9030 political means of creating space for the duties of the office. But once Please allow 6–8 weeks for delivery of your the conservation of the permanent someone has been elected, he has a de first issue. things.” The statement is 30 years out facto plausibility from holding office Inquiries and letters to the editor should be sent to [email protected]. 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4 THE AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE DECEMBER 2012 { Vol. 11, No. 12, December 2012 }

Political Capital, Not Campaigns epublicans grope for answers: how could Votes, Liberal Victories,” as Pat Buchanan once put it. Barack Obama have been reelected amid a Policy and elections alike are the end results of a stagnant economy and unemployment over long chain of production, much as computers and 8 percent? How could the GOP have suf- automobiles only reach consumers after their compo- Rfered a net loss of two seats in the U.S. Senate—and a nents have been manufactured and assembled by com- handful in the House, though not enough to cost the panies which, in turn, depend on other capital goods party control—when it did so well in the midterms and an infrastructure of finance. Candidates and laws two years ago? Everything from ineptitude at court- are finished goods—but unlike consumer goods, these ing minority voters to failure to mobilize enough of are tailored more to the tastes of the producers than the party’s white, Christian base has been suggested, the buyers. At the retail level—as any veteran of the alongside technical explanations such as glitches in battles third parties must wage for ballot access will tell Romney’s get-out-the-vote software. you—politics is a closed market, almost monopolized. One thing at least is certain: donors did not This is why the GOP base winds up having to settle for get their money’s worth. The Republican Par- the likes John McCain or Mitt Romney, and it’s why ty spent $776 million this cycle, according to there wind up being so few policy choices that differ OpenSecrets.org, while GOP-affiliated Super PACs from a Republican administration to a Democratic put in another $296.5 million. Well over a billion one. Policy—law—is written by experts: lobbyists and dollars in all—a nice payday for Karl Rove and the lawyers. Elected officials choose from the menu pre- brotherhood of campaign consultants, who come sented to them—the pre-selected policy equivalents of out the real winners of the GOP spending spree. a McDonald’s “value meal.” The party’s grassroots base, on the other hand, has Challenging this closed market at the retail level, reason to feel as cheated as its high-dollar donors: through third parties or populist agitation, proves they invested more than money in the formerly lib- futile. But the political market is less tightly con- eral former Massachusetts governor at the top of the trolled at the capital level—the very top of the chain ticket, and it bought them nothing but ashes. They of production, where the ideas that shape the ideas might find consolation in this painful truth: if Rom- that shape politics get their start. That’s the level of ney had won, he would soon have burdened them philosophy and education. A billion dollars—even with the same regrets they feel for having nominat- the mere $296 million spent by right-leaning Super ed and elected George W. Bush. PACS—can achieve much more at this stage of pro- Behind the partisan glaze, something more fun- duction; by the time the goods are on the retail mar- damental must be seen. The GOP’s greatest problem ket, it’s too late. is not its inability to win elections, but its inability Conservatives—small donors as well as large— to govern in a principled and prudent conservative should again think more strategically about their po- fashion. What happens on election night is second- litical investments, putting philosophy and education ary—by far—to what happens during a president’s ahead of enriching Karl Rove. Venture capitalism is al- tenure, whatever party he may belong to. Conserva- ways risky, but its rewards translate not into mere bal- tive policy, not mere electoral victory, is the goal. Too lot-box victories for one party or another, but a change few conservatives thought carefully enough about the for the better in the climate that influences policy at disjunction between the two: about “Conservative every stratum, no matter who the president is.

DECEMBER 2012 THE AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE 5 Front Lines

moved over to the Treasury Depart- Revenge of the Reality-Based Community ment, where I remained throughout My life on the Republican right—and how I saw it all go wrong. the George H.W. Bush administration. by bruce bartlett Afterwards I worked for the Cato Institute and the National Center for know that it’s unattractive and bad thesis on how Franklin Roosevelt cov- Policy Analysis, a conservative think form to say “I told you so” when ered up his responsibility for the Pearl tank based in Dallas. I wrote regular- one’s advice was ignored yet ulti- Harbor attack—long a right-wing ob- ly for the Wall Street Journal editorial Imately proved correct. But in the wake session. My first real job out of gradu- page, National Review, and other con- of the Republican election debacle, it’s ate school was working for Ron Paul the servative publications. For 12 years I essential that conservatives under- first time he was elected to Congress in wrote a syndicated column that ran in take a clear-eyed assessment of who a special election in 1976. (He lost that the Washington Times, Investor’s Busi- on their side was right and who was same year and came back two years lat- ness Daily, the New York Sun, and other wrong. Those who were wrong should er.) In those days, he was the only Tea conservative newspapers. be purged and ignored; those who were Party-type Republican in Congress. I supported George W. Bush in 2000, right, especially those who inflicted After Paul’s defeat, I went to work for and many close friends served in high- maximum discomfort on movement Congressman Jack Kemp and helped level administration positions. I was conservatives in being right, ought to draft the famous Kemp-Roth tax bill, especially close to the Council of Eco- get credit for it and become regular which Ronald Reagan signed into law nomic Advisers and often wrote col- reading for them once again. in 1981. I made important contribu- umns based on input and suggestions I’m not going to beat around the tions to the development of supply-side from its chairmen, all of whom were bush and pretend I don’t have a vested economics and detailed my research in friends of mine. Once I even briefed interest here. Frankly, I think I’m at a 1981 book, Reaganomics: Supply-Side Vice President Dick Cheney on the ground zero in the saga of Republicans Economics in Action. economy. closing their eyes to any facts or evi- After Reagan’s victory, I chose to dence that conflict with their dogma. stay on Capitol Hill, where I was staff ut as the Bush 43 administration Rather than listen to me, they threw director for the Joint Economic Com- Bprogressed, I developed an in- me under a bus. To this day, I don’t mittee and thought I would have more creasingly uneasy feeling about its di- think they understand that my motives impact. I left to work for Jude Wanni- rection. Its tax policy was incoherent, were to help them avoid the permanent ski’s consulting company in 1984, but and it had an extremely lackadaisical decline that now seems inevitable. missed Washington and came back attitude toward spending. In Novem- For more than 30 years, I was very the following year. Jude was, of course, ber 2003, I had an intellectual crisis. comfortable within the conservative the founding father of supply-side eco- All during the summer of that year, wing of the Republican Party. I still nomics, the man who discovered the an expansion of Medicare to pay for recall supporting Richard Nixon and economists Robert Mundell and Ar- prescription drugs for seniors was Barry Goldwater as a schoolchild. As thur Laffer and made them famous. under discussion. I thought this was a student, I was a member of Young I went to work for the Heritage a dreadful idea since Medicare was al- Republicans and Young Americans Foundation, but left in 1987 to join the ready broke, but I understood that it for Freedom at the height of the Viet- White House staff. I was recruited by was very popular politically. I talked nam War, when conservatives on col- Gary Bauer, who was Reagan’s principal myself into believing that Karl Rove lege campuses mostly kept their heads domestic policy adviser. Gary remains was so smart that he had concoct- down. well known among religious conser- ed an extremely clever plan—Bush In graduate school, I wrote a master’s vatives. Late in the administration I would endorse the new benefit but do

6 THE AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE DECEMBER 2012 nothing to bring competing House A couple of weeks before the 2004 Times had to say about anything. They and Senate versions of the legislation election, Suskind wrote a long article all viewed it as having as much cred- together. That way he could get credit for the New York Times Magazine that ibility as Pravda and a similar political for supporting a popular new spending quoted some of my comments to him philosophy as well. Some were indig- program, but it would never actually be that were highly critical of Bush and the nant that I would even suspect them of enacted. drift of Republican policy. The article is reading a left-wing rag such as the New I was shocked beyond belief when best remembered for his quote from an York Times. it turned out that Bush really wanted anonymous White House official dis- I was flabbergasted. Until that mo- a massive, budget-busting new entitle- missing critics like me for being “the ment I had not realized how closed the ment program after all, apparently to reality-based community.” right-wing mind had become. Even buy himself re-election in 2004. He The day after the article appeared, assuming that my friends’ view of the put all the pressure the White House my boss called to chew me out, saying Times’ philosophy was correct, which could muster on House Repub- it most certainly was not, why licans to vote for Medicare Part would they not want to know D and even suppressed internal what their enemy was thinking? administration estimates that it This was my first exposure to would cost far more than Con- what has been called “epistemic gress believed. After holding the closure” among conservatives— vote open for an unprecedented living in their own bubble where three hours, with Bush him- nonsensical ideas circulate with self awakened in the middle of no contradiction. the night to apply pressure, the My growing alienation from House Republican leadership the right created problems for me was successful in ramming the and my employer. I was read the legislation through after a few riot act and told to lay off Bush cowardly conservatives switched because my criticism was threat- their votes. ening contributions from right- It’s worth remembering that wing millionaires in Dallas, many Paul Ryan, among other so- of whom were close personal called fiscal hawks, voted for this friends of his. I decided to stick to irresponsible, unfunded expan- writing columns on topics where sion of government. I didn’t have to take issue with Re-

Suddenly, I felt adrift, po- Davilla Miguel publican policies and to channel litically and intellectually. I now my concerns into a book. saw many things I had long had I naïvely thought that a con- misgivings about, such as all the servative critique of Bush when Republican pork-barrel projects he was unable to run for reelec- that Bush refused to veto, in tion would be welcomed on the sharper relief. They were no longer ex- that Karl Rove had called him person- right since it would do no electoral ceptions to conservative governance ally to complain about it. I promised to harm. I also thought that once past the but its core during the Bush 43 years. be more circumspect in the future. election, conservatives would turn on I began writing columns that were Interestingly, a couple of days after Bush to ensure that the 2008 Republi- highly critical of Bush’s policies and the Suskind article appeared, I hap- can nomination would go to someone those of Republicans in Congress—all pened to be at a reception for some who would not make his mistakes. based on solid conservative principles. right-wing organization that many of As I wrote the book, however, my ut- In other words, I was criticizing them my think tank friends were also attend- ter disdain for Bush grew, as I recalled from the inside, from the right. ing. I assumed I would get a lot of grief forgotten screw-ups and researched In 2004 I got to know the journalist for my comments in the Suskind arti- topics that hadn’t crossed my radar Ron Suskind, whose book The Price of cle and was surprised when there was screen. I grew to totally despise the man Loyalty I had praised in a column. He none at all. for his stupidity, cockiness, arrogance, and I shared an interest in trying to fig- Finally, I started asking people about ignorance, and general cluelessness. I ure out what made Bush tick. Neither of it. Not one person had read it or cared also lost any respect for conservatives us ever figured it out. in the slightest what the New York who continued to glorify Bush as the

DECEMBER 2012 THE AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE 7 Front Lines second coming of Ronald Reagan and white group could they attract? Maybe from Obama would make them highly as a man they would gladly follow to the time had come for them to make a receptive to GOP outreach, I believed. the gates of hell. This was either gross, major play for the black vote. I thought I even met with John McCain’s staff willful ignorance or total insanity, I that blacks and Latinos were natural about this. thought. political and economic competitors, As we know, McCain took a sharp My book, Impostor: How George and I saw in poll data that blacks were right turn after Obama won the Demo- W. Bush Bankrupted America and receptive to a hardline position on ille- cratic nomination. The Arizona sena- Betrayed the Reagan Legacy, was pub- gal immigration. I also knew that many tor abandoned any pretense of being a lished in February 2006. I had been blacks felt ignored by Democrats, who moderate or “maverick” and spent the summarily fired by the think tank simply took their votes for granted—as campaign pandering to the Republican I worked for back in October 2005. Republicans did for 60 years after the Party’s lowest common denominator. Although the book was then only in Civil War. His decision to put the grossly un- manuscript, my boss falsely claimed If Republicans could only increase qualified Sarah Palin on his ticket was that it was already costing the orga- their share of the black vote from nothing short of irresponsible. Perhaps nization contributions. He never de- 10 percent, which it had been since more importantly, it didn’t work, and tailed, nor has anyone, any factual or Goldwater, to the 30 percent level that Obama won easily. analytical error in the book. Dwight Eisenhower enjoyed, it would Among the interesting reactions to have major electoral ramifications. fter the failure of my race book, I my book is that I was banned from Fox The best way to get Republicans to Aturned my attention again to eco- News. My publicist was told that orders read a book about reaching out for nomics. I had written an op-ed for the had come down from on high that it the black vote, I thought, was to detail New York Times in 2007 suggesting was to receive no publicity whatsoever, the Democratic Party’s long history of that it was time to retire “supply-side not even attacks. Whoever gave that maltreatment of blacks. After all, the economics” as a school of thought. order was smart; attacks from the right party was based in the South for 100 Having been deeply involved in its would have sold books. Being ignored years after the war, and all of the ugly development, I felt that everything was poison for sales. racism we associate with that region important the supply-siders had to I later learned that the order to ig- was enacted and enforced by Demo- say had now been fully incorporated nore me extended throughout Rupert cratic politicians. I was surprised that into mainstream economics. All that Murdoch’s empire. For example, I such a book didn’t already exist. was left was nutty stuff like the Laffer stopped being quoted in the Wall Street I thought knowing the Democratic Curve that alienated academic econo- Journal. Awhile back, a reporter who Party’s pre-1964 history of racism, mists who were otherwise sympathetic left the Journal confirmed to me that which is indisputable, would give to the supply-side view. I said the sup- the paper had given her orders not to Republicans a story to tell when they ply-siders should declare victory and mention me. Other dissident conser- went before black groups to solicit go home. vatives, such as David Frum and An- votes. I thought it would also make I decided to write a book elaborat- drew Sullivan, have told me that they Republicans more sympathetic to the ing my argument. I thought I had a are banned from Fox as well. More problems of the black community, nice thesis to put forward. All success- epistemic closure. many of which are historical in their ful schools of economic thought fol- Seeing the demographic trends to- origins. Analyses by economists and low a progression of being outsiders ward an increasingly nonwhite elec- sociologists show that historical rac- and revolutionaries, achieving success torate, which were obvious in easily ism still holds back African-Ameri- when economic circumstances cannot available census projections, I decided cans even though it has diminished be explained by orthodox theory, ac- to write a book about how Republicans radically since the 1960s. ceptance for the dissidents, followed could deal with it. I concluded that the So I wrote Wrong on Race: The Dem- by inevitable failure when new circum- anti-immigrant attitude among the ocratic Party’s Buried Past. Unfortu- stances arise that don’t fit the model, Republican base was too severe for the nately, it was published the day Barack leading to the rise of a fresh school party to reach out meaningfully to the Obama won the Iowa caucuses. But I of thought. It was basically a Thomas fast-growing Latino community. Re- still held out hope that Hillary Clin- Kuhnian view of economic theory. call that Bush’s proposal for immigra- ton, who was pandering to the white I thought I had two perfect examples tion reform was soundly rejected by his working class in unsubtle racial terms, that fit my model of the rise and fall of own party. would capture the Democratic nomi- economic ideas: Keynesian economics If Republicans had no hope of at- nation. The anger among blacks at hav- and supply-side economics. I thought tracting Latino votes, what other non- ing the nomination effectively stolen at first I knew enough about the former

8 THE AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE DECEMBER 2012 to say what I wanted to say, but eventu- a Keynesian cure that holds up very center-left after all, not center-right as ally I found the research I had previ- well in light of history. Annoyingly, conservatives thought. Overwhelming ously done to be wanting. It was based however, I found myself joined at the losses by Republicans to all the na- too much on what academics thought hip to Paul Krugman, whose analysis tion’s nonwhite voters have created a and not enough on how Keynesian was identical to my own. I had previ- Democratic coalition that will govern ideas penetrated the policymaking ously viewed Krugman as an intellec- the nation for the foreseeable future. community. tual enemy and attacked him rather Tellingly, a key reason for Obama’s I hit upon the idea of ignoring the colorfully in an old column that he victory, according to exit polls, is none academic journals and looking instead still remembers. other than George W. Bush, whom 60 at what economists like John Maynard For the record, no one has been percent of voters primarily blame for Keynes, Irving Fisher, and others said more correct in his analysis and pre- the nation’s economic woes—an ex- in newspaper interviews and articles scriptions for the economy’s problems traordinary fact when he has been out for popular publications. Recently than Paul Krugman. The blind hatred of office for four years. Even though computerized databases made such in- for him on the right simply pushed me they didn’t read my Impostor book, vot- vestigation far easier than it previously further away from my old allies and ers still absorbed its message. had been. comrades. Although the approach I suggested After careful research along these The final line for me to cross in com- in my race book was ill-timed, the un- lines, I came to the annoying conclu- plete alienation from sion that Keynes had been 100 per- the right was my rec- cent right in the 1930s. Previously, I ognition that Obama had thought the opposite. But facts is not a leftist. In fact, were facts and there was no denying he’s barely a liberal— No one has been more correct in his my conclusion. It didn’t affect the ar- and only because the analysis and prescriptions for the gument in my book, which was only political spectrum has economy’s problems than Paul Krugman. about the rise and fall of ideas. The fact moved so far to the that Keynesian ideas were correct as right that moderate well as popular simply made my thesis Republicans from the stronger. past are now consid- I finished the book just as the econ- ered hardcore leftists by right-wing derlying theory is more true than ever. omy was collapsing in the fall of 2008. standards today. Viewed in historical If Republicans can’t bring blacks into This created another intellectual crisis context, I see Obama as actually being their coalition, they are finished at the for me. Having just finished a careful on the center-right. presidential level, given the rapid rise study of the 1930s, it was immediately At this point, I lost every last friend of the Latino population. Perhaps after obvious to me that the economy was I had on the right. Some have been 2016, they may be willing to put my suffering from the very same problem, known to pass me in silence at the su- strategy into operation. a lack of aggregate demand. We needed permarket or even to cross the street The economy continues to conform Keynesian policies again, which com- when they see me coming. People who to textbook Keynesianism. We still pletely ruined my nice rise-and-fall were as close to me as brothers and sis- need more aggregate demand, and thesis. Keynesian ideas had arisen from ters have disowned me. the Republican idea that tax cuts for the intellectual grave. I think they believe they are just dis- the rich will save us becomes more ri- The book needed to be rethought ciplining me, hoping I will admit error diculous by the day. People will long and rewritten from scratch in light of and ask for forgiveness. They clearly remember Mitt Romney’s politically new developments. Unfortunately, my don’t know me very well. My attitude tone-deaf attack on half the nation’s publisher insisted on publishing it on is that anyone who puts politics above population for being losers, leeches, schedule. I tried to repair the damage friendship is not someone I care to and moochers because he accurately as best I could, but in the end the book have in my life. articulated the right-wing worldview. was a mishmash of competing ideas At least a few conservatives now with no clear narrative. It sold poorly. o here we are, post-election 2012. recognize that Republicans suffer for On the plus side, I think I had a SAll the stupidity and closed-mind- epistemic closure. They were genuinely very clear understanding of the eco- edness that right-wingers have dis- shocked at Romney’s loss because they nomic crisis from day one. I even played over the last 10 years has come ignored every poll not produced by a wrote another op-ed for the New York back to haunt them. It is now widely right-wing pollster such as Rasmussen Times in December 2008 advocating understood that the nation may be or approved by right-wing pundits such

DECEMBER 2012 THE AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE 9 Front Lines as the perpetually wrong Dick Morris. White House and probably the Sen- TAC: What is really going on in the Living in the Fox News cocoon, most ate as well, which means they can only Arab Spring? Is it the rise of democra- Republicans had no clue that they were temporarily block Democratic initia- cy and “freedom” as the West defines losing or that their ideas were both stu- tives and never advance their own. it? Or something very different? pid and politically unpopular. I’ve paid a heavy price, both person- I am disinclined to think that Re- al and financial, for my evolution from MVC: The situation seems to vary publicans are yet ready for a serious comfortably within the Republican from one country to another. In Tu- questioning of their philosophy or Party and conservative movement to nisia, the so-called Yasmin revolution strategy. They comfort themselves a less than comfortable position some- has led to the installation of a rela- with the fact that they held the House where on the center-left. Honest to tively moderate Islamic government. (due to gerrymandering) and think God, I am not a liberal or a Democrat. Whether or not that means democ- that just improving their get-out-the- But these days, they are the only people racy, will, however, only be put to the vote system and throwing a few bones who will listen to me. When Republi- test if and when the time comes for to the Latino community will fix their cans and conservatives once again start another election which the opposition problem. There appears to be no rec- asking my opinion, I will know they are may win. In Libya, the outcome has ognition that their defects are far, far on the road to recovery. been virtual disintegration of the cen- deeper and will require serious intro- tral state which is unable to cope with spection and rethinking of how Re- Bruce Bartlett is the author of The Benefit the various regional militias. Yemen publicans can win going forward. The and the Burden: Tax Reform—Why We following the revolution has become alternative is permanent loss of the Need It and What It Will Take. even more anarchic and more of a stomping ground. In Egypt, the most important effect of the revolution so far has been the loss of control over Arab Spring, Israeli Winter the Sinai, which likewise is becom- ing, [or] has already become, a haven Martin van Creveld on what the Muslim uprisings mean for Israel for terrorists and criminals. As I said by william s. lind earlier, the fate of Syria hangs in the balance. ince the late 1980s, I have argued ening or destruction of Arab states It would seem that, in each country, that the fundamental question would benefit Israel. Van Creveld of- four outcomes are possible. They are, in war and foreign affairs has fers a useful corrective to that optimis- first, the substitution of one military Schanged. It is no longer which state tic assessment. dictator for another; second, the rise will triumph over which other state. of an Islamic dictatorship; third, an- The new question is whether, in the The American Conservative: Does archy; and fourth, democracy. Gen- face of the rise of powerful non-state the Arab Spring point to summer or erally speaking, the last possibility is entities, the state system itself will winter for Israel? the least likely one. The reason for this survive. is the persistence of tribalism, which The two most important books on Martin van Creveld: For Israel so far, makes democracy very difficult to that question were both written by the “spring” has been a minor disaster. achieve. Israeli military historian Martin van Let’s not waste time on countries such To use a historical analogy, ere Creveld. The first isThe Transforma- as Tunisia, Libya, and Yemen, which Cleisthenes was able to establish the tion of War, the second is The Rise and are far away and whose impact on the world’s first true democracy in ancient Decline of the State. Though published Arab-Israeli conflict is relatively mi- Athens he had to demolish the tribes later, Rise and Decline offers the his- nor. The revolution in Egypt has led to into which the population was divid- torical evidence behind the thesis in a sharp deterioration in the relations ed. In Rome, by contrast, the survival Transformation and is best read first. between that country and Israel. The of the tribes led to the creation of an Over the years Martin and I have fate of Syria hangs in the balance, but aristocratic republic. Only late in the become friends. I recently interviewed it is entirely possible that the fall of the second century B.C. did attempts at him on the subject of the misnamed Assad regime will result in anarchy greater democratization get under “Arab Spring” and its potential out- and cause Syria to turn into a second way: the outcome, as we know, was comes for Israel. America’s neocon- Afghanistan, a base for anti-Israel ter- military dictatorship. servatives have cheered events in the rorism. Jordan too is not necessarily Arab world, thinking that the weak- immune. TAC: American neocons reportedly

10 THE AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE DECEMBER 2012 played a major role in devising for by those events as anybody else. There country to the next. Likud a strategy that called for the was no question here of any coherent destruction of every Middle Eastern strategy aimed at achieving anything. TAC: How does this end? state that could threaten Israel—with no thought about what might replace TAC: What role did the Iraq invasion MVC: Depending on the country, those states. Are you aware of this play in current events in the Middle in one of the first three ways on the strategy? What role has it played in East? above list. One thing appears certain: events we are now witnessing? Does it namely, that no Arab country is going remain Israel’s strategy today? MVC: To be honest, I do not know to become a nice, democratic, liberal, that it played any role. Saddam, after and apple-pie loving state anytime MVC: I’d say that, as the invasion of all, was brought down not by his own soon. Iraq showed, the neocons have grossly people but by U.S. military power. By overestimated their own ability to contrast, the various [Arab Spring] William S. Lind is director of the American influence events in the Arab world. revolutions were indigenous, the Conservative Center for Public Typical of them! As to Israel, as far as I product of long-standing pressures Transportation and the author of the know it was as much taken by surprise and grievances that differed from one Maneuver Warfare Handbook.

DEEPBACKGROUND by PHILIP GIRALDI

he various accounts of the Sept. 11 Benghazi accurate the person’s recollection was. The Chief of incident in which four Americans died demon- Station answered that the information was completely Tstrate that there is a profound misunderstanding reliable but there was no one else in the room—avoid- of what the Central Intelligence Agency does and how it ing having to say that it was a highly sensitive technical interacts with the State Department overseas. The U.S. intrusion and letting the ambassador work out the ambassador in any country is the personal representa- meaning of the reply. tive of the president of the United States, and he is Benghazi has been described as a U.S. consulate, nominally in charge of all the American officials posted but it was not. It was an information office that had no to the country. But the key word is “nominally.” The diplomatic status. There was a small staff of actual State Chief of Station is the senior CIA representative, and Department information officers plus local translators. he directs the activities of the intelligence personnel. The much larger CIA base was located in a separate His direct line of command is to the CIA headquarters building a mile away. It was protected by a not com- in Langley, Virginia—not to the State Department—and pletely reliable local militia. Base management would that is the relationship that provides him with his have no say in the movement of the ambassador and authority. Normally, the ambassador has little desire to would not be party to his plans, nor would it clear its own learn what the CIA is doing because he has no real need operations with the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli. In Benghazi, to know about the details of operations and is only the CIA’s operating directive would have been focused interested in oversight relating to situations that might on two objectives: monitoring the local al-Qaeda affiliate cause serious damage to Washington’s relationship group, Ansar al-Sharia, and tracking down weapons with the local authorities. Apart from that, the CIA oper- liberated from Colonel Gaddafi’s arsenal. Staff consisted ates independently and only shares partial information of CIA paramilitaries who were working in cooperation on what it is doing if the ambassador seems interested with the local militia. The ambassador would not be privy and there is a good reason to do so. to operational details and would only know in general To cite one example from my own experience, the what the agency was up to. When the ambassador’s agency had a hidden microphone in the office of a top party was attacked, the paramilitaries at the CIA base Italian Communist official in the 1970s, which enabled came to the rescue before being driven back into their Washington to know exactly what the Partito Communi- own compound, where two officers were subsequently sta Italiano was planning. The information obtained was killed in a mortar attack. shared through an unsourced “eyes only” memo to the ambassador, who assumed the source was a CIA agent Philip Giraldi, a former CIA officer, is executive present at the Communist meeting and asked how director of the Council for the National Interest.

DECEMBER 2012 THE AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE 11 Made in America Patrick j. Buchanan

The Party That Lost America

fter its second defeat at the for NAFTA, GATT, the WTO, and these folks and losing their votes, what hands of Barack Obama, opening America’s borders to all goods would be gained by amnesty for, say, 10 under whom unemploy- made by our new friends in the Peo- million illegal aliens? ment has never been lower ple’s Republic of China. Assume in a decade all 10 million Athan the day George W. Bush left of- Swiftly, U.S. multinationals shut became citizens and voted like the His- fice, the Republican Party has at last factories here, laid off workers, out- panics, black folks, and Asians already awakened to its existential crisis. sourced production to Asia and China, here. The best the GOP could expect— Eighteen states have voted Demo- and brought their finished goods back, the Bush share in 2004—would be 40 cratic in six straight elections. Among tax-free, to sell in the U.S.A. Profits percent, or 4 million of those votes. But the six are four of our most populous: soared, as did the salaries of the out- if Tuesday’s percentages held, Demo- New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, and sourcing executives. crats would get not just 6 million, but California. And Obama has now won And their former workers? They 7 million new votes to the GOP’s less two of the three remaining mega- headed for the service sector, along than 3 million. states, Ohio and Florida, twice. Only with their wives, to keep up on the Easy to understand why Democrats Texas remains secure—for now. mortgage payment, keep the kids in are for this. But why would a Republi- At the presidential level, the Repub- Catholic school, and pay for the health can Party that is not suicidally inclined lican Party is at death’s door. Yet one al- insurance the family had lost. favor it? ready sees the same physicians writing These ex-Reagan Democrats came Still, the GOP crisis is not so much prescriptions for the same drugs that out to vote against some guy from illegal as legal immigration. Forty mil- have been killing the GOP since W’s Bain Capital they had been told in ads lion legal immigrants have arrived in dad got the smallest share of the vote all summer was a big-time outsourcer recent decades. Some 85 percent come by a Republican candidate since Wil- who wrote in 2008, “Let Detroit Go from Asia, Africa, Latin America, and liam Howard Taft in 1912. Bankrupt!” the Middle East. Most arrived lacking In ascertaining the cause of the Yes, the simplest explanation is often the academic, language and labor skills GOP’s critical condition, let us use the right one. to compete for high-paying jobs. What Occam’s razor—the principle that the Republicans are also falling all over does government do for them? simplest explanation is often the right one another to express a love of His- Subsidizes their housing and pro- one. Would the GOP wipeout in those panics, after Mitt won only 27 percent vides free education for their kids from heavily Catholic, ethnic, socially con- of the Hispanic vote. Head Start through K-12, plus food servative, blue-collar bastions of Penn- And what is the proposed solution to stamps and school lunches, Pell Grants sylvania, Michigan, Ohio, and Illinois, the GOP’s Hispanic problem, coming and student loans for college, Medicaid which Richard Nixon and Ronald Rea- even from those supposedly on the real- if they are sick, earned income tax cred- gan swept, have anything to do with istic right? Amnesty for the illegals! Stop its if they work, and 99 weeks of unem- the fact that the United States since talking about a border fence and self-de- ployment checks if they lose their job. 2000 has lost 6 million manufacturing portation. Drop the employer sanctions. These are people who depend upon jobs and 55,000 factories? Make the GOP a welcoming party. government. Why would they vote for Where did all those jobs and facto- And what might be problematic a party that is going to cut taxes they ries go? We know where. They were about following this advice? do not pay, but take away government outsourced. And in the deindustrializa- First, it will enrage populist conser- benefits they do receive? tion of America, the Republican Party vatives who supported the GOP be- Again it needs be said. When the has been a culpable co-conspirator. cause they believed the party’s pledges country looks like California demo- Unlike family patriarch Sen. Prescott to oppose amnesty, secure the border, graphically, it will look like California Bush, who voted with Barry Goldwater and stop illegals from taking jobs from politically. Republicans are not whis- and Strom Thurmond against JFK’s Americans. tling past the graveyard. They are right free-trade deal, Bush I and II pumped And in return for double-crossing at the entrance.

12 THE AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE DECEMBER 2012 BECKRETURNS TO TV Glenn Beck’s new TV channel, TheBlaze, is available exclusively on DISH! The people may have spoken, but the political pundits have plenty left to say. Join the conversation today – sign up for DISH to get TheBlaze!

Enjoy TheBlaze at no extra charge with America’s Top 250 package or add it to another package for just $5 a month Get fired up! GLENN Call 1-888-675-6174 Visit dish.com/theblaze BECK DISH

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249913_7_x_9.5.indd 1 10/4/12 3:07 PM Education

The Myth of American Meritocracy How corrupt are Ivy League admissions?

by ron unz

ust before the Labor Day weekend, a front page America’s richest 1 percent now possessing nearly New York Times story broke the news of the larg- as much net wealth as the bottom 95 percent.2 This est cheating scandal in Harvard University his- situation, sometimes described as a “winner take all Jtory, in which nearly half the students taking a society,” leaves families desperate to maximize the Government course on the role of Congress had pla- chances that their children will reach the winners’ cir- giarized or otherwise illegally collaborated on their cle, rather than risk failure and poverty or even merely final exam.1 Each year, Harvard admits just 1600 a spot in the rapidly deteriorating middle class. And freshmen while almost 125 Harvard students now the best single means of becoming such an economic face possible suspension over this single incident. A winner is to gain admission to a top university, which Harvard dean described the situation as “unprec- provides an easy ticket to the wealth of Wall Street or edented.” similar venues, whose leading firms increasingly re- But should we really be so surprised at this behavior strict their hiring to graduates of the Ivy League or a among the students at America’s most prestigious aca- tiny handful of other top colleges.3 On the other side, demic institution? In the last generation or two, the finance remains the favored employment choice for funnel of opportunity in American society has drasti- Harvard, Yale or Princeton students after the diplo- cally narrowed, with a greater and greater proportion mas are handed out.4 of our financial, media, business, and political elites being drawn from a relatively small number of our leading universities, together with their professional The Battle for Elite College Admissions schools. The rise of a Henry Ford, from farm boy mechanic to world business tycoon, seems virtually As a direct consequence, the war over college admis- impossible today, as even America’s most successful sions has become astonishingly fierce, with many college dropouts such as Bill Gates and Mark Zuck- middle- or upper-middle class families investing erberg often turn out to be extremely well-connected quantities of time and money that would have seemed former Harvard students. Indeed, the early success of unimaginable a generation or more ago, leading to an Facebook was largely due to the powerful imprimatur all-against-all arms race that immiserates the student it enjoyed from its exclusive availability first only at and exhausts the parents. The absurd parental efforts Harvard and later restricted to just the Ivy League. of an Amy Chua, as recounted in her 2010 bestseller During this period, we have witnessed a huge na- Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, were simply a much tional decline in well-paid middle class jobs in the more extreme version of widespread behavior among manufacturing sector and other sources of employ- her peer-group, which is why her story resonated so ment for those lacking college degrees, with median deeply among our educated elites. Over the last thir- American wages having been stagnant or declining ty years, America’s test-prep companies have grown for the last forty years. Meanwhile, there has been an astonishing concentration of wealth at the top, with Ron Unz is publisher of The American Conservative.

14 THE AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE DECEMBER 2012 from almost nothing into $5 billion annual industry, allowing the affluent to provide an admissions edge to their less able children. Similarly, the enormous annual tuition of $35,000 charged by elite private schools such as Dalton or Exeter is less for a superior high school education than for the hope of a great- 5 ly increased chance to enter the Ivy League. Many American Bottom New York City parents even go to enormous efforts Top 1% 95% to enroll their children in the best possible pre-Kin- 35.4% Household 36.9% dergarten program, seeking early placement on the educational conveyer belt which eventually leads to Net Wealth, Harvard.6 Others cut corners in a more direct fashion, 2010 as revealed in the huge SAT cheating rings recently uncovered in affluent New York suburbs, in which students were paid thousands of dollars to take SAT exams for their wealthier but dimmer classmates.7 But given such massive social and economic value Next 4% now concentrated in a Harvard or Yale degree, the 27.7% tiny handful of elite admissions gatekeepers enjoy enormous, almost unprecedented power to shape the leadership of our society by allocating their supply An admissions system based on non-academic of thick envelopes. Even billionaires, media barons, factors often amounting to institutionalized venality and U.S. Senators may weigh their words and actions would seem strange or even unthinkable among the more carefully as their children approach college age. top universities of most other advanced nations in And if such power is used to select our future elites in Europe or Asia, though such practices are widespread a corrupt manner, perhaps the inevitable result is the in much of the corrupt Third World. The notion of a selection of corrupt elites, with terrible consequences wealthy family buying their son his entrance into the for America. Thus, the huge Harvard cheating scan- Grandes Ecoles of France or the top Japanese univer- dal, and perhaps also the endless series of financial, sities would be an absurdity, and the academic recti- business, and political scandals which have rocked tude of Europe’s Nordic or Germanic nations is even our country over the last decade or more, even while more severe, with those far more egalitarian societies our national economy has stagnated. anyway tending to deemphasize university rankings. Just a few years ago Pulitzer Prize-winning former Or consider the case of China. There, legions of an- Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Golden published gry microbloggers endlessly denounce the official cor- The Price of Admission, a devastating account of the ruption and abuse which permeate so much of the eco- corrupt admissions practices at so many of our lead- nomic system. But we almost never hear accusations ing universities, in which every sort of non-academic of favoritism in university admissions, and this impres- or financial factor plays a role in privileging the privi- sion of strict meritocracy determined by the results leged and thereby squeezing out those high-ability, of the national Gaokao college entrance examination hard-working students who lack any special hook. In has been confirmed to me by individuals familiar with one particularly egregious case, a wealthy New Jer- that country. Since all the world’s written exams may sey real estate developer, later sent to Federal prison ultimately derive from China’s old imperial examina- on political corruption charges, paid Harvard $2.5 tion system, which was kept remarkably clean for 1300 million to help ensure admission of his completely years, such practices are hardly surprising.9 Attending a under-qualified son.8 When we consider that Har- prestigious college is regarded by ordinary Chinese as vard’s existing endowment was then at $15 billion their children’s greatest hope of rapid upward mobility and earning almost $7 million each day in investment and is therefore often a focus of enormous family ef- earnings, we see that a culture of financial corruption fort; China’s ruling elites may rightly fear that a policy has developed an absurd illogic of its own, in which of admitting their own dim and lazy heirs to leading senior Harvard administrators sell their university’s schools ahead of the higher-scoring children of the honor for just a few hours worth of its regular annual masses might ignite a widespread popular uprising. income, the equivalent of a Harvard instructor raising This perhaps explains why so many sons and daugh- a grade for a hundred dollars in cash. ters of top Chinese leaders attend college in the West:

DECEMBER 2012 THE AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE 15 Education

enrolling them at a third-rate Chinese university would and the balance of contending forces rather than any be a tremendous humiliation, while our own corrupt idealistic considerations. For example, in the aftermath admissions practices get them an easy spot at Harvard of World War II, Jewish organizations and their allies or Stanford, sitting side by side with the children of Bill mobilized their political and media resources to pres- Clinton, Al Gore, and George W. Bush. sure the universities into increasing their ethnic en- Although the evidence of college admissions cor- rollment by modifying the weight assigned to various ruption presented in Golden’s book is quite telling, academic and non-academic factors, raising the impor- the focus is almost entirely on current practices, and tance of the former over the latter. Then a decade or two largely anecdotal rather than statistical. For a broader later, this exact process was repeated in the opposite di- historical perspective, we should consider The Chosen rection, as the early 1960s saw black activists and their by Berkeley sociologist Jerome Karabel, an exhaustive liberal political allies pressure universities to bring their and award-winning 2005 narrative history of the last racial minority enrollments into closer alignment with America’s national population by partially shifting away from their recently enshrined America’s uniquely complex and subjective focus on purely academic considerations. system of academic admissions actually arose Indeed, Karabel notes that the most sudden and extreme increase in minority enrollment as a means of covert ethnic tribal warfare. took place at Yale in the years 1968–69, and was largely due to fears of race riots in heav- ily black New Haven, which surrounded the century of admissions policy at Harvard, Yale, and campus.13 Princeton (I will henceforth sometimes abbreviate Philosophical consistency appears notably absent these “top three” most elite schools as “HYP”). in many of the prominent figures involved in these ad- Karabel’s massive documentation—over 700 pages missions battles, with both liberals and conservatives and 3000 endnotes—establishes the remarkable fact sometimes favoring academic merit and sometimes that America’s uniquely complex and subjective sys- non-academic factors, whichever would produce the tem of academic admissions actually arose as a means particular ethnic student mix they desired for per- of covert ethnic tribal warfare. During the 1920s, the sonal or ideological reasons. Different political blocs established Northeastern Anglo-Saxon elites who waged long battles for control of particular universi- then dominated the Ivy League wished to sharply cur- ties, and sudden large shifts in admissions rates oc- tail the rapidly growing numbers of Jewish students, curred as these groups gained or lost influence within but their initial attempts to impose simple numerical the university apparatus: Yale replaced its admissions quotas provoked enormous controversy and faculty staff in 1965 and the following year Jewish numbers opposition.10 Therefore, the approach subsequently nearly doubled.14 taken by Harvard President A. Lawrence Lowell and At times, external judicial or political forces would his peers was to transform the admissions process be summoned to override university admissions policy, from a simple objective test of academic merit into often succeeding in this aim. Karabel’s own ideological a complex and holistic consideration of all aspects of leanings are hardly invisible, as he hails efforts by state each individual applicant; the resulting opacity per- legislatures to force Ivy League schools to lift their de mitted the admission or rejection of any given appli- facto Jewish quotas, but seems to regard later legislative cant, allowing the ethnicity of the student body to be attacks on “affirmative action” as unreasonable assaults shaped as desired. As a consequence, university lead- on academic freedom.15 The massively footnoted text ers could honestly deny the existence of any racial or of The Chosen might lead one to paraphrase Clausewitz religious quotas, while still managing to reduce Jew- and conclude that our elite college admissions policy ish enrollment to a much lower level, and thereafter often consists of ethnic warfare waged by other means, hold it almost constant during the decades which fol- or even that it could be summarized as a simple Lenin- lowed.11 For example, the Jewish portion of Harvard’s esque question of “Who, Whom?” entering class dropped from nearly 30 percent in 1925 Although nearly all of Karabel’s study is focused on to 15 percent the following year and remained rough- the earlier history of admissions policy at Harvard, ly static until the period of the Second World War.12 Yale, and Princeton, with the developments of the last As Karabel repeatedly demonstrates, the major three decades being covered in just a few dozen pages, changes in admissions policy which later followed were he finds complete continuity down to the present day, usually determined by factors of raw political power with the notorious opacity of the admissions pro-

16 THE AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE DECEMBER 2012 cess still allowing most private universities to admit years, with similar levels reached at other elite schools. whomever they want for whatever reasons they want, Such fears that checking the “Asian” box on an ad- even if the reasons and the admissions decisions may missions application may lead to rejection are hardly eventually change over the years. Despite these plain unreasonable, given that studies have documented facts, Harvard and the other top Ivy League schools a large gap between the average test scores of whites today publicly deny any hint of discrimination along and Asians successfully admitted to elite universities. racial or ethnic lines, except insofar as they acknowl- Princeton sociologist Thomas J. Espenshade and his edge providing an admissions boost to under-repre- colleagues have demonstrated that among under- sented racial minorities, such as blacks or Hispanics. graduates at highly selective schools such as the Ivy But given the enormous control these institutions ex- League, white students have mean scores 310 points ert on our larger society, we should test these claims higher on the 1600 SAT scale than their black class- against the evidence of the actual enrollment statistics. mates, but Asian students average 140 points above whites.19 The former gap is an automatic consequence of officially acknowledged affirmative action policies, Asian-Americans as the “New Jews” while the latter appears somewhat mysterious. The overwhelming focus of Karabel’s book is on hese broad statistical differences in the admis- changes in Jewish undergraduate percentages at each Tsion requirements for Asians are given a human university, and this is probably less due to his own face in Golden’s discussions of this subject, in which ethnic heritage than because the data provides an ex- he recounts numerous examples of Asian-American tremely simple means of charting the ebb and flow of students who overcame dire family poverty, immi- admissions policy: Jews were a high-performing group, grant adversity, and other enormous personal hard- whose numbers could only be restricted by major de- ships to achieve stellar academic performance and viations from an objective meritocratic standard. extracurricular triumphs, only to be rejected by all Obviously, anti-Jewish discrimination in admis- their top university choices. His chapter is actually sions no longer exists at any of these institutions, but entitled “The New Jews,” and he notes the consider- a roughly analogous situation may be found with able irony that a university such as Vanderbilt will a group whom Golden and others have sometimes announce a public goal of greatly increasing its Jew- labeled “The New Jews,” namely Asian-Americans. ish enrollment and nearly triple those numbers in Since their strong academic performance is coupled just four years, while showing very little interest in with relatively little political power, they would be ob- admitting high-performing Asian students.20 vious candidates for discrimination in the harsh re- All these elite universities strongly deny the ex- alpolitik of university admissions as documented by istence of any sort of racial discrimination against Karabel, and indeed he briefly raises the possibility of Asians in the admissions process, let alone an “Asian an anti-Asian admissions bias, before concluding that quota,” with senior administrators instead claim- the elite universities are apparently correct in denying ing that the potential of each student is individually that it exists.16 evaluated via a holistic process far superior to any There certainly does seem considerable anecdotal mechanical reliance on grades or test scores; but such evidence that many Asians perceive their chances of public postures are identical to those taken by their elite admission as being drastically reduced by their academic predecessors in the 1920s and 1930s as doc- racial origins.17 For example, our national newspapers umented by Karabel. Fortunately, we can investigate have revealed that students of part-Asian background the plausibility of these claims by examining the de- have regularly attempted to conceal the non-white cades of officially reported enrollment data available side of their ancestry when applying to Harvard and from the website of the National Center for Educa- other elite universities out of concern it would greatly tional Statistics (NCES). reduce their chances of admission.18 Indeed, wide- The ethnic composition of Harvard undergraduates spread perceptions of racial discrimination are almost certainly follows a highly intriguing pattern. Harvard certainly the primary factor behind the huge growth had always had a significant Asian-American enroll- in the number of students refusing to reveal their ra- ment, generally running around 5 percent when I had cial background at top universities, with the percent- attended in the early 1980s. But during the follow- age of Harvard students classified as “race unknown” ing decade, the size of America’s Asian middle class having risen from almost nothing to a regular 5–15 grew rapidly, leading to a sharp rise in applications percent of all undergraduates over the last twenty and admissions, with Asians exceeding 10 percent of

DECEMBER 2012 THE AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE 17 Education

undergraduates by the late 1980s and crossing the 20 peaked at over 20 percent in 1993, then immediately percent threshold by 1993. However, from that year declined and thereafter remained roughly constant at a forward, the Asian numbers went into reverse, gen- level 3–5 points lower. Asians at Yale reached a 16.8 per- erally stagnating or declining during the two decades cent maximum in that same year, and soon dropped which followed, with the official 2011 figure being by about 3 points to a roughly constant level. The Co- 17.2 percent.21 lumbia peak also came in 1993 and the Cornell peak Even more surprising has been the sheer constan- in 1995, in both cases followed by the same substantial cy of these percentages, with almost every year from drop, and the same is true for most of their East Coast 1995–2011 showing an Asian enrollment within a peers. During the mid- to late-1980s, there had been single point of the 16.5 percent average, despite huge some public controversy in the media regarding alle- fluctuations in the number of applications and the in- gations of anti-Asian discrimination in the Ivy League, evitable uncertainty surrounding which students will and the Federal Government eventually even opened accept admission. By contrast, prior to 1993 Asian en- an investigation into the matter.22 But once that investi- rollment had often changed quite substantially from gation was closed in 1991, Asian enrollments across all year to year. It is interesting to note that this exactly those universities rapidly converged to the same level of replicates the historical pattern observed by Karabel, approximately 16 percent, and remained roughly static in which Jewish enrollment rose very rapidly, lead- thereafter (See chart below). In fact, the yearly fluctua- ing to imposition of an informal quota system, after tions in Asian enrollments are often smaller than were which the number of Jews fell substantially, and there- the changes in Jewish numbers during the “quota era” after remained roughly constant for decades. On the of the past,23 and are roughly the same relative size as face of it, ethnic enrollment levels which widely di- the fluctuations in black enrollments, even though the verge from academic performance data or application latter are heavily influenced by the publicly declared rates and which remain remarkably static over time “ethnic diversity goals” of those same institutions. provide obvious circumstantial evidence for at least a The largely constant Asian numbers at these elite de facto ethnic quota system. colleges are particularly strange when we consider that the underlying population of Asians in America n another strong historical parallel, all the other has been anything but static, instead growing at the IIvy League universities seem to have gone through fastest pace of any American racial group, having in- similar shifts in Asian enrollment at similar times and creased by almost 50 percent during the last decade, reached a similar plateau over the last couple of de- and more than doubling since 1993. Obviously, the cades. As mentioned, the share of Asians at Harvard relevant ratio would be to the 18–21 age cohort, but

Asians, Asians Age 18-21 and Elite College Enrollment Trends, 1990-2011 Age 18-21

40% 800

30 600

20 400 ollment Pe rcentage

10 200 Asian En r Asians Age 18-21 (In Thousands)

Caltech Harvard Yale Princeton Brown Columbia Cornell Dartmouth Penn 0 0

1990 1995 2000 2005 2011

Trends of Asian enrollment at Caltech and the Ivy League universities, compared with growth of Asian college-age population; Asian age cohort population figures are based on Census CPS, and given the small sample size, are subject to considerable yearly statistical fluctuations. Source: Appendices B and C.

18 THE AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE DECEMBER 2012 adjusting for this factor changes little: based on Cen- dergraduates at Ivy League schools and their approxi- sus data, the college-age ratio of Asians to whites in- mate peers are selected by academic merit, they would creased by 94 percent between 1994 and 2011, even mostly be drawn from the top one-half to one percent while the ratio of Asians to whites at Harvard and Co- of their American age-cohort, and this is the appro- lumbia fell over these same years. 24 priate pool to consider. It is perfectly possible that a Put another way, the percentage of college-age particular ethnic population might have a relatively Asian-Americans attending Harvard peaked around high mean SAT score, while still being somewhat less 1993, and has since dropped by over 50 percent, a de- well represented in that top percent or so of measured cline somewhat larger than the fall in Jewish enroll- ability; racial performance does not necessarily fol- ment which followed the imposition of secret quotas low an exact “bell curve” distribution. For one thing, in 1925.25 And we have noted the parallel trends in the a Census category such as “Asian” is hardly homog- other Ivy League schools, which also replicates the enous or monolithic, with South Asians and East historical pattern. Asians such as Chinese and Koreans generally having Furthermore, during this exact same period a large much higher performance compared to other groups portion of the Asian-American population moved such as Filipinos, Vietnamese, or Cambodians, just from first-generation immigrant poverty into the as the various types of “Hispanics” such as Cubans, ranks of the middle class, greatly raising their edu- Mexicans, and Puerto Ricans differ widely in their cational aspirations for their children. Although elite socio-economic and academic profiles. Furthermore, universities generally refuse to release their applicant the percentage of a given group taking the SAT may totals for different racial groups, some data occasion- change over time, and the larger the percentage tak- ally becomes available. Princeton’s records show that ing that test, the more that total will include weaker between 1980 and 1989, Asian-American applications students, thereby depressing the average score. increased by over 400 percent compared to just 8 per- Fortunately, allegations of anti-Asian admissions cent for other groups, with an even more rapid in- bias have become a topic of widespread and heated crease for Brown during 1980-1987, while Harvard’s debate on the Internet, and disgruntled Asian-Amer- Asian applicants increased over 250 percent between ican activists have diligently located various types of 1976 and 1985.26 It seems likely that the statistics data to support their accusations, with the recent eth- for other Ivy League schools would have followed a nic distribution of National Merit Scholarship (NMS) similar pattern and these trends would have at least semifinalists being among the most persuasive. Stu- partially continued over the decades which followed, dents receiving this official designation represent ap- just as the Asian presence has skyrocketed at selective proximately the top one-half of one percent of a state’s public feeder schools such as Stuyvesant and Bronx high school students as determined by their scores Science in New York City and also at the top East on the PSAT, twin brother to the SAT. Each year, the Coast prep schools. Yet none of these huge changes NMS Corporation distributes the names and schools in the underlying pool of Asian applicants seemed to of these semifinalists for each state, and dozens of have had noticeable impact on the number admitted these listings have been tracked down and linked on to Harvard or most of the Ivy League. the Internet by determined activists, who have then sometimes estimated the ethnic distribution of the semifinalists by examining their family names.28 Ob- Estimating Asian Merit viously, such a name analysis provides merely an ap- proximate result, but the figures are striking enough One obvious possible explanation for these trends to warrant the exercise. (All these NMS semifinalist might be a decline in average Asian scholastic per- estimates are discussed in Appendix E.)29 formance, which would certainly be possible if more For example, California has a population compara- and more Asian students from the lower levels of the ble to that of the next two largest states combined, and ability pool were pursuing an elite education.27 The its 2010 total of 2,003 NMS semifinalists included well mean SAT scores for Asian students show no such over 1,100 East Asian or South Asian family names. large decline, but since we would expect elite universi- California may be one of the most heavily Asian ties to draw their students from near the absolute top states, but even so Asians of high school age are still of the performance curve, average scores by race are outnumbered by whites roughly 3-to-1, while there potentially less significant than the Asian fraction of were far more high scoring Asians. Put another way, America’s highest performing students. although Asians represented only about 11 percent of To the extent that the hundred thousand or so un- California high school students, they constituted al-

DECEMBER 2012 THE AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE 19 Education

most 60 percent of the top scoring ones. California’s total population as well as over 60 percent of all Asian- list of NMS semifinalists from 2012 also followed a Americans, and each has at least one NMS semifinalist very similar ethnic pattern. Obviously, such an analy- list available for the years 2010–2012. Asians account sis based on last names is hardly precise, but it is prob- for just 6 percent of the population in these states, but ably correct to within a few percent, which is suffi- contribute almost one-third of all the names on these cient for our crude analytical purposes. rosters of high performing students. Even this result In addition, the number of test-takers is sufficiently may be a substantial underestimate, since over half large that an examination of especially distinctive last these Asians are found in gigantic California, where names allows us to pinpoint and roughly quantify the extremely stiff academic competition has driven the academic performance of different Asian groups. For qualifying NMS semifinalist threshold score to nearly example, the name “Nguyen” is uniquely Vietnamese the highest in the country; if students were selected and carried by about 1 in 3.6 of all Americans of that based on a single nationwide standard, Asian numbers ethnicity, while “Kim” is just as uniquely Korean, with would surely be much higher. This pattern extends to one in 5.5 Korean-Americans bearing that name.30 By the aggregate of the twenty-five states whose lists are comparing the prevalence of these particular names available, with Asians constituting 5 percent of the to- on the California NMS semifinalist lists with the total tal population but almost 28 percent of semifinalists. size of the corresponding California ethnicities, we Extrapolating these state results to the national total, can estimate that California Vietnamese are signifi- we would expect 25–30 percent of America’s highest cantly more likely than whites to score very highly on scoring high school seniors to be of Asian origin.32 such tests, while Koreans seem to do eight times better This figure is far above the current Asian enrollment than whites and California’s Chinese even better still. at Harvard or the rest of the Ivy League. (All these results rely upon the simplifying assump- Ironically enough, the methodology used to select tion that these different Asian groups are roughly pro- these NMS semifinalists may considerably understate portional in their numbers of high school seniors.) the actual number of very high-ability Asian students. Interestingly enough, these Asian performance According to testing experts, the three main subcom- ratios are remarkably similar to those worked out ponents of intellectual ability are verbal, mathemati- by Nathaniel Weyl in his 1989 book The Geography cal, and visuospatial, with the last of these representing of American Achievement, in which he estimated that the mental manipulation of objects. Yet the qualifying Korean and Chinese names were over-represented by NMS scores are based on math, reading, and writing 1000 percent or more on the complete 1987 lists of tests, with the last two both corresponding to verbal national NMS semifinalists, while Vietnamese names ability, and without any test of visuospatial skills. Even were only somewhat more likely to appear than the leaving aside the language difficulties which students white average.31 This consistency is quite impressive from an immigrant background might face, East when we consider that America’s Asian population Asians tend to be weakest in the verbal category and has tripled since the late 1980s, with major changes as strongest in the visuospatial, so NMS semifinalists are well in socio-economic distribution and other char- being selected by a process which excludes the stron- acteristics. gest Asian component and doubles the weight of the The results for states other than California reflect weakest. 33 this same huge abundance of high performing Asian students. In Texas, Asians are just 3.8 percent of the his evidence of a massively disproportionate Asian population but were over a quarter of the NMS semifi- Tpresence among top-performing students only in- nalists in 2010, while the 2.4 percent of Florida Asians creases if we examine the winners of national academ- provided between 10 percent and 16 percent of the top ic competitions, especially those in mathematics and students in the six years from 2008 to 2013 for which science, where judging is the most objective. Each year, I have been able to obtain the NMS lists. Even in New America picks its five strongest students to represent York, which contains one of our nation’s most affluent our country in the International Math Olympiad, and and highly educated white populations and also re- during the three decades since 1980, some 34 percent mains by far the most heavily Jewish state, Asian over- of these team members have been Asian-American, representation was enormous: the Asian 7.3 percent of with the corresponding figure for the International the population—many of them impoverished immi- Computing Olympiad being 27 percent. The Intel Sci- grant families—accounted for almost one-third of all ence Talent Search, begun in 1942 under the auspices top scoring New York students. of the Westinghouse Corporation, is America’s most America’s eight largest states contain nearly half our prestigious high school science competition, and since

20 THE AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE DECEMBER 2012 1980 some 32 percent of the 1320 finalists have been of fixed size, the pressure can grow enormously. Asian ancestry (see Appendix F). The implications of such massive pressure may be Given that Asians accounted for just 1.5 percent seen in a widely-discussed front page 2005 Wall Street of the population in 1980 and often lived in relatively Journal story entitled “The New White Flight.” 34 The impoverished immigrant families, the longer-term his- article described the extreme academic intensity at sev- torical trends are even more striking. Asians were less eral predominantly Asian high schools in Cupertino than 10 percent of U.S. Math Olympiad winners dur- and other towns in Silicon Valley, and the resulting ing the 1980s, but rose to a striking 58 percent of the exodus of white students, who preferred to avoid such total during the last thirteen years 2000–2012. For the an exceptionally focused and competitive academic Computing Olympiad, Asian winners averaged about environment, which included such severe educational 20 percent of the total during most of the 1990s and tension. But should the families of those Asian students 2000s, but grew to 50 percent during 2009–2010 and a be blamed if according to Espensade and his colleagues remarkable 75 percent during 2011–2012. their children require far higher academic performance The statistical trend for the Science Talent Search than their white classmates to have a similar chance of finalists, numbering many thousands of top science gaining admission to selective colleges? students, has been the clearest: Asians constituted Although the “Asian Tiger Mom” behavior de- 22 percent of the total in the 1980s, 29 percent in scribed by author Amy Chua provoked widespread the 1990s, 36 percent in the 2000s, and 64 percent in hostility and ridicule, consider the situation from the 2010s. In particular science subjects, the Physics her perspective. Being herself a Harvard graduate, Olympiad winners follow a similar trajectory, with she would like her daughters to follow in her own Ivy Asians accounting for 23 percent of the winners dur- League footsteps, but is probably aware that the vast ing the 1980s, 25 percent during the 1990s, 46 percent growth in Asian applicants with no corresponding in- during the 2000s, and a remarkable 81 percent since crease in allocated Asian slots requires heroic efforts 2010. The 2003–2012 Biology Olympiad winners to shape the perfect application package. Since Chua’s were 68 percent Asian and Asians took an astonish- husband is not Asian, she could obviously encourage ing 90 percent of the top spots in the recent Chem- her children to improve their admissions chances by istry Olympiads. Some 61 percent of the Siemens AP concealing their ethnic identity during the application Awards from 2002–2011 went to Asians, including process; but this would surely represent an enormous thirteen of the fourteen top national prizes. personal humiliation for a proud and highly success- Yet even while all these specific Asian-American ac- ful Illinois-born American of Chinese ancestry. ademic achievement trends were rising at such an im- The claim that most elite American universities pressive pace, the relative enrollment of Asians at Har- employ a de facto Asian quota system is certainly an vard was plummeting, dropping by over half during the inflammatory charge in our society. Indeed, our me- last twenty years, with a range of similar declines also dia and cultural elites view any accusations of “racial occurring at Yale, Cornell, and most other Ivy League discrimination” as being among the most horrific of universities. Columbia, in the heart of heavily Asian all possible charges, sometimes even regarded as more New York City, showed the steepest decline of all. serious than mass murder.35 So before concluding that There may even be a logical connection between these accusations are probably true and consider- these two contradictory trends. On the one hand, ing possible social remedies, we should carefully re- America over the last two decades has produced a consider their plausibility, given that they are largely rapidly increasing population of college-age Asians, based upon a mixture of circumstantial statistical evi- whose families are increasingly affluent, well-edu- dence and the individual anecdotal cases presented by cated, and eager to secure an elite education for their Golden and a small handful of other critical journal- children. But on the other hand, it appears that these ists. One obvious approach is to examine enrollment leading academic institutions have placed a rather figures at those universities which for one reason or strict upper limit on actual Asian enrollments, forc- another may follow a different policy. ing these Asian students to compete more and more According to incoming student test scores and re- fiercely for a very restricted number of openings. This cent percentages of National Merit Scholars, four has sparked a massive Asian-American arms-race in American universities stand at the absolute summit of academic performance at high schools throughout average student quality—Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and the country, as seen above in the skyrocketing math Caltech, the California Institute of Technology; and and science competition results. When a far greater of these Caltech probably ranks first among equals.36 volume of applicants is squeezed into a pipeline of Those three top Ivies continue to employ the same ad-

DECEMBER 2012 THE AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE 21 Education

missions system which Karabel describes as “opaque,” Stuyvesant and Bronx Science, perhaps triple the lev- “flexible,” and allowing enormous “discretion,”37 a sys- els during the mid-1980s.40 Yet whereas in 1993 Asians tem originally established to restrict the admission of made up 22.7 percent of Columbia’s undergraduates, high-performing Jews. But Caltech selects its students the total had dropped to 15.6 percent by 2011. These by strict academic standards, with Golden praising it figures seem extremely difficult to explain except as for being America’s shining example of a purely meri- evidence of sharp racial bias. tocratic university, almost untouched by the financial or political corruption so widespread in our other elite institutions. And since the beginning of the 1990s, Asian-Americans and Jews Caltech’s Asian-American enrollment has risen almost exactly in line with the growth of America’s underlying A natural question to consider is the surprising lack Asian population, with Asians now constituting nearly of attention this issue seems to have attracted, despite 40 percent of each class (See chart on p. 18). such remarkably telling statistics and several articles Obviously, the Caltech curriculum is narrowly fo- over the years in major newspapers by Golden and cused on mathematics, science, and engineering, and other prominent journalists. One would think that since Asians tend to be especially strong in those sub- a widespread practice of racial discrimination by jects, the enrollment statistics might be somewhat America’s most elite private universities—themselves distorted compared to a more academically balanced leading bastions of “Political Correctness” and stri- university. Therefore, we should also consider the en- dent anti-racist ideology—would attract much more rollment figures for the highly-regarded University of public scrutiny, especially given their long prior his- California system, particularly its five most prestigious tory of very similar exclusionary policies with regard and selective campuses: Berkeley, UCLA, San Diego, to Jewish enrollment.41 Without such scrutiny and Davis, and Irvine. The 1996 passage of Proposition the political mobilization it generates, the status quo 209 had outlawed the use of race or ethnicity in ad- seems unlikely to change.42 missions decisions, and while administrative compli- Indeed, Karabel convincingly demonstrates that ance has certainly not been absolute—Golden noted the collapse of the long-standing Jewish quotas in the the evidence of some continued anti-Asian discrimi- Ivy League during the decade following World War II nation—the practices do seem to have moved in the only occurred as a result of massive media and politi- general direction of race-blind meritocracy.38 And the cal pressure, pressure surely facilitated by very heavy 2011 Asian-American enrollment at those five elite Jewish ownership of America’s major media organs, campuses ranged from 34 percent to 49 percent, with a including all three television networks, eight of nine weighted average of almost exactly 40 percent, identical major Hollywood studios, and many of the leading to that of Caltech.39 newspapers, including both the New York Times and In considering these statistics, we must take into ac- the Washington Post. By contrast, Asian-Americans count that California is one of our most heavily Asian today neither own nor control even a single signifi- states, containing over one-quarter of the total national cant media outlet, and they constitute an almost in- population, but also that a substantial fraction of UC visible minority in films, television, radio, and print. students are drawn from other parts of the country. The For most Americans, what the media does not report recent percentage of Asian NMS semifinalists in Cali- simply does not exist, and there is virtually no major fornia has ranged between 55 percent and 60 percent, media coverage of what appear to be de facto Asian while for the rest of America the figure is probably clos- quotas at our top academic institutions. er to 20 percent, so an overall elite-campus UC Asian- But before we conclude that our elite media organs American enrollment of around 40 percent seems rea- are engaging in an enormous “conspiracy of silence” sonably close to what a fully meritocratic admissions regarding this egregious pattern of racial discrimina- system might be expected to produce. tion at our most prestigious universities, we should By contrast, consider the anomalous admissions explore alternate explanations for these striking re- statistics for Columbia. New York City contains sults. Perhaps we are considering the evidence from America’s largest urban Asian population, and Asians entirely the wrong perspective, and ignoring the most are one-third or more of the entire state’s top scoring obvious—and relatively innocuous—explanation. high school students. Over the last couple of decades, In recent decades, the notion of basing admis- the local Asian population has doubled in size and sions on “colorblind” meritocratic standards such as Asians now constitute over two-thirds of the students standardized academic test scores has hardly been an attending the most selective local high schools such as uncontroversial position, with advocates for a fully

22 THE AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE DECEMBER 2012 “diversified” student body being far more prominent rarely receive the “legacy boost” going to students within the academic community. Indeed, one of the whose families have been attending the Ivy League for main attacks against California’s 1996 Proposition 209 generations. And it is perfectly possible that ideologi- was that its requirement of race-neutrality in admis- cal considerations of diversity and equity might make sions would destroy the ethnic diversity of California’s administrators reluctant to allow any particular group higher education system, and the measure was vigor- to become too heavily over-represented relative to its ously opposed by the vast majority of vocal university share of the general population. So perhaps highly- academics, both within that state and throughout the qualified Asians are not being rejected as Asians, but nation. Most leading progressives have long argued simply due to these pre-existing ideological and struc- that the students selected by our elite institutions tural policies of our top universities, whether or not we should at least roughly approximate the distribution happen to agree with them.45 In fact, when an Asian of America’s national population, requiring that spe- student rejected by Harvard filed a complaint of racial cial consideration be given to underrepresented or discrimination with the U.S. Department of Education underprivileged groups of all types. earlier this year, the Harvard Crimson denounced his We must remember that at all the universities dis- charges as “ludicrous,” arguing that student diversity cussed above, Asian students are already enrolled in was a crucial educational goal and that affirmative ac- numbers far above their 5 percent share of the na- tion impacted Asians no more than any other applicant tional population, and the Iron Law of Arithmetic is group.46 that percentages must always total to one hundred. So The best means of testing this hypothesis would be if additional slots were allocated to Asian applicants, to compare Asian admissions with those of a some- these must necessarily come from some other group, what similar control group. One obvious candidate perhaps blacks raised in the ghettos of Detroit or des- would be the population of elite East Coast WASPs perately poor Appalachian whites, who might be the which once dominated the Ivy League. Members first in their families to attend college. These days in of this group should also be negatively impacted by America, most Asians are a heavily urbanized, highly admissions preferences directed towards applicants affluent population,43 overwhelmingly part of the mid- from rural or impoverished backgrounds, but there dle- or upper-middle class, and boosting their Harvard seems considerable anecdotal evidence that they are numbers from three times their share of the population still heavily over-represented in the Ivy League rela- up to five or six might not be regarded as the best pol- tive to their academic performance or athletic prow- icy when other groups are far needier. To be sure, the ess, strengthening the suspicion that Asian applicants broad racial category “Asian” hides enormous internal are receiving unfair treatment. However, solid statis- complexity—with Chinese, Koreans, and South Asians tical data regarding this elite WASP subpopulation is being far more successful than Filipinos, Vietnamese, almost non-existent, and anyway the boundaries of or Cambodians—but that is just as true of the equally the category are quite imprecise and fluid across gen- broad “white” or “Hispanic” labels, which also conceal erations. For example, the two wealthy Winklevoss much more than they reveal. twins of Greenwich, Conn. and Harvard Facebook Furthermore, elite universities explicitly claim to consider a wide Racial Trends for Americans range of other admissions factors Age 18-21, 1972-2011 besides academic performance. Geographical diversity would cer- Whites tainly hurt Asian chances since Blacks nearly half their population lives in just the three states of Califor- Hispanics nia, New York, and Texas.44 Top Asians athletes gain a strong admissions Other edge, and few Asians are found in the upper ranks of basketball, football, baseball, and other lead- ing sports, an occasional Jeremy Lin notwithstanding. Since most Asians come from a recent im- migrant background, they would 1972 1980 1990 2000 2011

DECEMBER 2012 THE AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE 23 Education

fame might appear to be perfect examples of this so- seem to fare much better at the admissions office. cial class, but their grandfather actually had an eighth- Even more remarkable are the historical trajecto- grade education and came from a long line of impov- ries. As noted earlier, America’s Asian population erished coalminers in rural Pennsylvania.47 has been growing rapidly over the last couple of Fortunately, an alternate comparison population decades, so the substantial decline in reported Ivy is readily available, namely that of American Jews,48 League Asian enrollment has actually constituted a a group which is both reasonably well-defined and huge drop relative to their fraction of the population. one which possesses excellent statistical information, Meanwhile, the population of American Jews has gathered by various Jewish organizations and aca- been approximately constant in numbers, and aging demic scholars. In particular, Hillel, the nationwide along with the rest of the white population, leading to Jewish student organization with chapters on most a sharp decline in the national proportion of college- major university campuses, has for decades been age Jews, falling from 2.6 percent in 1972 and 2.2 per- providing extensive data on Jewish enrollment levels. cent in 1992 to just 1.8 percent in 2012. Nevertheless, Since Karabel’s own historical analysis focuses so very total Jewish enrollment at elite universities has held heavily on Jewish admissions, his book also serves as a constant or actually increased, indicating a large rise compendium of useful quantitative data drawn from in relative Jewish admissions. In fact, if we aggregate these and similar sources.49 the reported enrollment figures, we discover that 4 Once we begin separating out the Jewish portion percent of all college-age American Jews are currently of Ivy League enrollment, our picture of the overall enrolled in the Ivy League, compared to just 1 percent demographics of the student bodies is completely of Asians and about 0.1 percent of whites of Christian transformed. Indeed, Karabel opens the final chapter background.53 of his book by performing exactly this calculation and One reasonable explanation for these remarkable noting the extreme irony that the WASP demograph- statistics might be that although Asian-Americans ic group which had once so completely dominated are a high-performing academic group, American America’s elite universities and “virtually all the ma- Jews may be far higher-performing, perhaps not un- jor institutions of American life” had by 2000 become likely for an ethnicity that gave the world Einstein, “a small and beleaguered minority at Harvard,” being Freud, and so many other prominent intellectual fig- actually fewer in number than the Jews whose pres- ures. Thus, if we assume that our elite universities ence they had once sought to restrict.50 Very similar reserve a portion of their slots for “diversity” while results seem to apply all across the Ivy League, with allocating the remainder based on “academic merit,” the disproportion often being even greater than the Jews might be handily beating Asians (and everyone particular example emphasized by Karabel. else) in the latter competition. Indeed, the average In fact, Harvard reported that 45.0 percent of its Jewish IQ has been widely reported in the range of undergraduates in 2011 were white Americans, but 110–115, implying a huge abundance of individuals since Jews were 25 percent of the student body, the at the upper reaches of the distribution of intellect. So enrollment of non-Jewish whites might have been as perhaps what had seemed like a clear pattern of anti- low as 20 percent, though the true figure was probably Asian discrimination is actually just the workings of somewhat higher.51 The Jewish levels for Yale and Co- academic meritocracy, at least when combined with lumbia were also around 25 percent, while white Gen- a fixed allocation of “diversity admissions.” tiles were 22 percent at the former and just 15 percent The easiest means of exploring this hypothesis is to at the latter. The remainder of the Ivy League followed repeat much of our earlier examination of Asian aca- this same general pattern. demic performance, but now to include Jews as part This overrepresentation of Jews is really quite ex- of our analysis. Although Jewish names are not quite traordinary, since the group currently constitutes just as absolutely distinctive as East or South Asian ones, 2.1 percent of the general population and about 1.8 they can be determined with reasonably good accu- percent of college-age Americans.52 Thus, although racy, so long as we are careful to note ambiguous cases Asian-American high school graduates each year out- and recognize that our estimates may easily be off by number their Jewish classmates nearly three-to-one, a small amount; furthermore, we can utilize especially American Jews are far more numerous at Harvard and distinctive names as a validation check. But strangely throughout the Ivy League. Both groups are highly enough, when we perform this sort of analysis, it be- urbanized, generally affluent, and geographically con- comes somewhat difficult to locate major current evi- centrated within a few states, so the “diversity” factors dence of the celebrated Jewish intellect and academic considered above would hardly seem to apply; yet Jews achievement discussed at such considerable length by

24 THE AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE DECEMBER 2012 Karabel and many other authors. represented, providing around 34 percent of the top For example, consider California, second only to scoring students. Jews and Asians are today about equal New York in the total number of its Jews, and with in number within New York City but whereas a genera- its Jewish percentage far above the national average. tion ago, elite local public schools such as Stuyvesant Over the last couple of years, blogger Steve Sailer and were very heavily Jewish, today Jews are outnumbered some of his commenters have examined the complete at least several times over by Asians.55 2010 and 2012 NMS semifinalist lists of the 2000 or so This same pattern of relative Asian and Jewish per- top-scoring California high school seniors for ethnic- formance on aptitude exams generally appears in the ity, and discovered that as few as 4–5 percent of the other major states whose recent NMS semifinalist lists names seem to be Jewish, a figure not so dramatically I have located and examined, though there is consid- different than the state’s 3.3 percent Jewish population, erable individual variability, presumably due to the and an estimate which I have personally confirmed.54 particular local characteristics of the Asian and Jew- Meanwhile, the state’s 13 percent Asians account for ish populations. Across six years of Florida results, over 57 percent of the top performing students. Thus, Asian students are more than twice as likely to be high it appears that California Asians are perhaps three scorers compared to their Jewish classmates, with the times as likely as Jews to do extremely well on aca- disparity being nearly as great in Pennsylvania. The demic tests, and this result remains unchanged if we relative advantage of Asians is a huge factor of 5.0 in adjust for the age distributions of the two populations. Michigan and 4.1 in Ohio, while in Illinois Asians still One means of corroborating these surprising re- do 150 percent as well as Jews. Among our largest sults is to consider the ratios of particularly distinctive states, only in Texas is the Asian performance as low ethnic names, and Sailer reported such exact find- as 120 percent, although Jews are the group that actu- ings made by one of his Jewish readers. For example, ally does much better in several smaller states, usually across the 2000-odd top scoring California students those in which the Jewish population is tiny. in 2010, there was just a single NMS semifinalist As noted earlier, NMS semifinalist lists are avail- named Cohen, and also one each for Levy, Kaplan, able for a total of twenty-five states, including the and a last name beginning with “Gold.” Meanwhile, eight largest, which together contain 75 percent of there were 49 Wangs and 36 Kims, plus a vast num- our national population, as well as 81 percent of ber of other highly distinctive Asian names. But ac- American Jews and 80 percent of Asian-Americans, cording to Census data, the combined number of and across this total population Asians are almost American Cohens and Levys together outnumber the twice as likely to be top scoring students as Jews. Wangs almost two-to-one, and the same is true for Extrapolating these results to the nation as a whole the four most common names beginning with “Gold.” would produce a similar ratio, especially when we Put another way, California contains nearly one-fifth consider that Asian-rich California has among the of all American Jews, hence almost 60,000 Cohens, toughest NMS semifinalist qualification thresholds. Kaplans, Levys, Goldens, Goldsteins, Goldbergs, Meanwhile, the national number of Jewish semifi- Goldmans, and Golds, and this population produced nalists comes out at less than 6 percent of the total only 4 NMS semifinalists, a ratio almost identical to based on direct inspection of the individual names, that produced by our general last name estimates. The with estimates based on either the particularly dis- 2012 California NMS semifinalist lists yield approxi- tinctive names considered by Sailer or the full set of mately the same ratios. such highly distinctive names used by Weyl yield- When we consider the apparent number of Jewish ing entirely consistent figures. Weyl had also found students across the NMS semifinalist lists of other ma- this same relative pattern of high Jewish academic jor states, we get roughly similar results. New York has performance being greatly exceeded by even higher always been the center of the American Jewish com- Asian performance, with Koreans and Chinese being munity, and at 8.4 percent is half again as heavily Jew- three or four times as likely as Jews to reach NMS ish as any other state, while probably containing a large semifinalist status in the late 1980s, though the over- fraction of America’s Jewish financial and intellectual all Asian numbers were still quite small at the time.56 elite. Just as we might expect, the 2011 roster of New Earlier we had noted that the tests used to select York NMS semifinalists is disproportionately filled NMS semifinalists actually tilted substantially against with Jewish names, constituting about 21 percent of the Asian students by double-weighting verbal skills and total, a ratio twice as high as for any other state whose excluding visuospatial ability, but in the case of Jews figures are available. But even here, New York’s smaller this same testing-bias has exactly the opposite impact. and much less affluent Asian population is far better Jewish ability tends to be exceptionally strong in its

DECEMBER 2012 THE AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE 25 Education

verbal component and mediocre at best in the visuo- probably rank fifth in academic strength, just below the spatial,57 so the NMS semifinalist selection methodol- three HYP schools and Caltech, and whose admissions ogy would seem ideally designed to absolutely maxi- standards are far closer to a meritocratic ideal than is mize the number of high-scoring Jews compared to found in most elite schools, though perhaps not quite other whites or (especially) East Asians. Thus, the as pristine as those of its Caltech rival. Karabel notes number of high-ability Jews we are finding should be that MIT has always had a far more meritocratic ad- regarded as an extreme upper bound to a more neu- missions system than nearby Harvard, tending to draw trally-derived total. those students who were academic stars even if socially But suppose these estimates are correct, and Asians undistinguished. As an example, in the 1930s Feyn- overall are indeed twice as likely as Jews to rank man had been rejected by his top choice of Columbia among America’s highest performing students. We possibly due to its Jewish quota, and instead enrolled must also consider that America’s Asian population at MIT.59 But today, MIT’s enrollment is just 9 percent is far larger in size, representing roughly 5 percent Jewish, a figure lower than that anywhere in the Ivy of college-age students, compared to just 1.8 percent League, while Asians are nearly three times as numer- for Jews. Therefore, assuming an admissions system ous, despite the school being located in one of the most based on strictest objective meritocracy, we would ex- heavily Jewish parts of the country. pect our elite academic institutions to contain nearly five Asians for every Jew; but instead, the Jews are far more numerous, in some important cases by almost a The Strange Collapse of Jewish factor of two. This raises obvious suspicions about the Academic Achievement fairness of the Ivy League admissions process. Once again, we can turn to the enrollment figures From my own perspective, I found these statistical re- for strictly meritocratic Caltech as a test of our esti- sults surprising, even shocking. mates. The campus is located in the Los Angeles area, I had always been well aware of the very heavy Jew- home to one of America’s largest and most success- ish presence at elite academic institutions. But the ful Jewish communities, and Jews have traditionally underwhelming percentage of Jewish students who been strongly drawn to the natural sciences. Indeed, today achieve high scores on academic aptitude tests at least three of Caltech’s last six presidents have been was totally unexpected, and very different from the of Jewish origin, and the same is true for two of its impressions I had formed during my own high school most renowned faculty members, theoretical physics and college years a generation or so ago. An examina- Nobel Laureates Richard Feynman and Murray Gell- tion of other available statistics seems to support my Mann. But Caltech’s current undergraduates are just recollections and provides evidence for a dramatic re- 5.5 percent Jewish, and the figure seems to have been cent decline in the academic performance of Ameri- around this level for some years; meanwhile, Asian can Jews enrollment is 39 percent, or seven times larger. It is in- The U.S. Math Olympiad began in 1974, and all the triguing that the school which admits students based names of the top scoring students are easily available on the strictest, most objective academic standards on the Internet. During the 1970s, well over 40 per- has by a very wide margin the lowest Jewish enroll- cent of the total were Jewish, and during the 1980s ment for any elite university. and 1990s, the fraction averaged about one-third. Let us next turn to the five most selective campuses However, during the thirteen years since 2000, just of the University of California system, whose admis- two names out of 78 or 2.5 percent appear to be Jew- sions standards shifted substantially toward objective ish. The Putnam Exam is the most difficult and pres- meritocracy following the 1996 passage of Prop. 209. tigious mathematics competition for American col- The average Jewish enrollment is just over 8 percent, lege students, with five or six Putnam winners having or roughly one-third that of the 25 percent found at been selected each year since 1938. Over 40 percent Harvard and most of the Ivy League, whose admis- of the Putnam winners prior to 1950 were Jewish, sions standards are supposedly far tougher. Mean- and during every decade from the 1950s through the while, some 40 percent of the students on these UC 1990s, between 22 percent and 31 percent of the win- campuses are Asian, a figure almost five times as high. ners seem to have come from that same ethnic back- Once again, almost no elite university in the country ground. But since 2000, the percentage has dropped has a Jewish enrollment as low as the average for these to under 10 percent, without a single likely Jewish highly selective UC campuses.58 name in the last seven years. Another interesting example is MIT, whose students This consistent picture of stark ethnic decline recurs

26 THE AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE DECEMBER 2012 when we examine the statistics for the Science Tal- decades have had the sort of highly distinctive names ent Search, which has been selecting 40 students as which would tend to mark them as recent immigrants national finalists for America’s most prestigious high from the Soviet Union or elsewhere, and such names school science award since 1942, thus providing a were also very common among the top Jewish science huge statistical dataset of over 2800 top science stu- students of the same period, even though this group dents. During every decade from the 1950s through represents only about 10 percent of current American the 1980s, Jewish students were consistently 22–23 Jews. Indeed, it seems quite possible that this large sud- percent of the recipients, with the percentage then de- den influx of very high performing immigrant Jews clining to 17 percent in the 1990s, 15 percent in the from the late 1980s onward served to partially mask 2000s, and just 7 percent since 2010. Indeed, of the the rapid concurrent decline of high academic achieve- thirty top ranked students over the last three years, ment among native American Jews, which otherwise only a single one seems likely to have been Jewish. would have become much more clearly evident a de- Similarly, Jews were over one-quarter of the top stu- cade or so earlier. dents in the Physics Olympiad from 1986 to 1997, This pattern of third or fourth generation Ameri- but have fallen to just 5 percent over the last decade, a can students lacking the academic drive or intensity result which must surely send Richard Feynman spin- of their forefathers is hardly surprising, nor unique ning in his grave. to Jews. Consider the case of Japanese-Americans, Other science competitions provide generally con- who mostly arrived in America during roughly the sistent recent results, though without the long track same era. America’s Japanese have always been a record allowing useful historical comparisons. Over high-performing group, with a strong academic the last dozen years, just 8 percent of the top students tradition, and Japan’s international PISA academic in the Biology Olympiad have been Jewish, with none scores are today among the highest in the world. But in the last three years. Between 1992 and 2012, only when we examine the list of California’s NMS semi- 11 percent of the winners of the Computing Olym- finalists, less than 1 percent of the names are Japa- piad had Jewish names, as did just 8 percent of the nese, roughly in line with their share of the Califor- Siemens AP Award winners. And although I have nia population.62 Meanwhile, Chinese, Koreans, and only managed to locate the last two years of Chem- South Asians are 6 percent of California but contrib- istry Olympiad winners, these lists of 40 top students ute 50 percent of the top scoring students, an eight- contained not a single probable Jewish name. fold better result, with a major likely difference being Further evidence is supplied by Weyl, who estimat- that they are overwhelmingly of recent immigrant ed that over 8 percent of the 1987 NMS semifinalists origin. In fact, although ongoing Japanese immigra- were Jewish,60 a figure 35 percent higher than found in tion has been trivial in size, a significant fraction of today’s results. Moreover, in that period the math and the top Japanese students have the unassimilated verbal scores were weighted equally for qualification Japanese first names that would tend to indicate they purposes, but after 1997 the verbal score was double- are probably drawn from that tiny group. weighted,61 which should have produced a large rise in In his 1966 book The Creative Elite in America, the number of Jewish semifinalists, given the verbal- Weyl used last name analysis to document a similarly loading of Jewish ability. But instead, today’s Jewish remarkable collapse in achievement among Ameri- numbers are far below those of the late 1980s. ca’s Puritan-descended population, which had once Taken in combination, these trends all provide provided a hugely disproportionate fraction of our powerful evidence that over the last decade or more intellectual leadership, but for various reasons went there has been a dramatic collapse in Jewish academic into rapid decline from about 1900 onward. He also achievement, at least at the high end. mentions the disappearance of the remarkable Scot- Several possible explanations for this empirical result tish intellectual contribution to British life after about seem reasonably plausible. Although the innate poten- 1800. Although the evidence for both these historical tial of a group is unlikely to drop so suddenly, achieve- parallels seems very strong, the causal factors are not ment is a function of both ability and effort, and today’s entirely clear, though Weyl does provide some pos- overwhelmingly affluent Jewish students may be far sible explanations.63 less diligent in their work habits or driven in their stud- In some respects, perhaps it was the enormously ies than were their parents or grandparents, who lived outsize Jewish academic performance of the past much closer to the bracing challenges of the immigrant which was highly anomalous, and the more recent experience. In support of this hypothesis, roughly half partial convergence toward white European norms of the Jewish Math Olympiad winners from the last two which is somewhat less surprising. Over the years,

DECEMBER 2012 THE AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE 27 Education

claims have been widely circulated that the mean Jew- Stratifying the white American population along ish IQ is a full standard deviation—15 points—above religious lines produces similar conclusions. An the white average of 100,64 but this seems to have lit- analysis of the data from the National Longitudinal tle basis in reality. Richard Lynn, one of the world’s Survey of Youth found that Americans raised in the foremost IQ experts, has performed an exhaustive Episcopal Church actually exceeded Jews in mean literature review and located some 32 IQ samples of IQ, while several other religious categories came American Jews, taken from 1920 to 2008. For the first quite close, leading to the result that the overwhelm- 14 studies conducted during the years 1920–1937, the ing majority of America’s high-ability white popula- Jewish IQ came out very close to the white American tion had a non-Jewish background.68 mean, and it was only in later decades that the average Finally, in the case of Jews, these assimilation- or figure rose to the approximate range of 107–111.65 environment-related declines in relative academic In a previous article “Race, IQ & Wealth,” I had sug- performance may have been reinforced by powerful gested that the IQs of ethnic groups appear to be far demographic trends. For the last generation or two, more malleable than many people would acknowl- typical Jewish women from successful or even ordi- edge, and may be particularly influenced by factors nary families have married very late and averaged little of urbanization, education, and affluence.66 Given more than a single child, while the small fraction of that Jews have always been America’s most heavily Jewish women who are ultra-Orthodox often marry in urbanized population and became the most affluent their teens and then produce seven or eight children.69 during the decades in question, these factors may ac- As a consequence, this extremely religious subpopula- count for a substantial portion of their huge IQ rise tion has been doubling in size every twenty years, and during most of the twentieth century. But with mod- now easily exceeds 10 percent of the total, including a ern electronic technology recently narrowing the gaps far higher percentage of younger Jews. But ultra-Or- in social environment and educational opportunities thodox Jews have generally been academically medio- between America’s rural and urban worlds, we might cre, often with enormously high rates of poverty and expect a portion of this difference to gradually dissi- government dependency.70 Therefore, the combina- pate. American Jews are certainly a high-ability popu- tion of these two radically different trends of Jewish lation, but the innate advantage they have over other reproduction has acted to stabilize the total number of high-ability white populations is probably far smaller Jewish youngsters, while probably producing a sharp than is widely believed. drop in their average academic achievement. This conclusion is supported by the General Social Survey (GSS), an online dataset of tens of thousands of American survey responses from the last forty years Meritocracy vs. Jews which includes the Wordsum vocabulary test, a very useful IQ proxy correlating at 0.71. Converted into the Although the relative importance of these individual corresponding IQ scores, the Wordsum-IQ of Jews is factors behind Jewish academic decline is unclear, the indeed quite high at 109. But Americans of English, decline itself seems an unmistakable empirical fact, Welsh, Scottish, Swedish, and Catholic Irish ancestry and the widespread unawareness of this fact has had also have fairly high mean IQs of 104 or above, and important social consequences. their combined populations outnumber Jews by al- My casual mental image of today’s top American most 15-to-1, implying that they would totally domi- students is based upon my memories of a generation nate the upper reaches of the white American ability or so ago, when Jewish students, sometimes includ- distribution, even if we excluded the remaining two- ing myself, regularly took home a quarter or more of thirds of all American whites, many of whose IQs are the highest national honors on standardized tests or also fairly high. Furthermore, all these groups are far in prestigious academic competitions; thus, it seemed less highly urbanized or affluent than Jews,67 prob- perfectly reasonable that Harvard and most of the ably indicating that their scores are still artificially other Ivy League schools might be 25 percent Jewish, depressed to some extent. We should also remem- based on meritocracy. But the objective evidence indi- ber that Jewish intellectual performance tends to be cates that in present day America, only about 6 percent quite skewed, being exceptionally strong in the verbal of our top students are Jewish, which now renders such subcomponent, much lower in math, and completely very high Jewish enrollments at elite universities totally mediocre in visuospatial ability; thus, a completely absurd and ridiculous. I strongly suspect that a similar verbal-oriented test such as Wordsum would actually time lag effect is responsible for the apparent confusion tend to exaggerate Jewish IQ. in many others who have considered the topic.

28 THE AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE DECEMBER 2012 For example, throughout his very detailed book, high scoring students. Therefore, we can approxi- Karabel always seems to automatically identify in- mate the number of whites by merely subtracting the creasing Jewish enrollments with academic meritoc- number of Asian and Hispanic names as well as an racy, and Jewish declines with bias or discrimination, estimated black total based on the latter figure, and retaining this assumption even when his discussion then determine the number of white Gentiles by also moves into the 1990s and 2000s. He was born in 1950, subtracting the Jewish total. graduated Harvard in 1972, and returned there to Once we do this and compare the Jewish and non- earn his Ph.D. in 1977, so this may indeed have been Jewish white totals for various lists of top academic the reality during his formative years.71 But he seems performers, we notice a striking pattern, with the strikingly unaware that the world has changed since historical ratios once ranging from near-equality then, and that over the last decade or two, meritocracy to about one-in-four up until the recent collapse and Jewish numbers have become opposing forces: in Jewish performance. For example, among Math the stricter the meritocratic standard, the fewer the Olympiad winners, white Gentiles scarcely outnum- Jews admitted. bered Jews during the 1970s, and held only a three- Most of my preceding analysis has focused on the to-two edge during the 1980s and 1990s, but since comparison of Asians with Jews, and I have point- 2000 have become over fifteen times as numerous. ed out that based on factors of objective academic Between 1938 and 1999, Putnam Exam winners had performance and population size, we would expect averaged about two white Gentiles for every Jew, Asians to outnumber Jews by perhaps five to one at with the ratios for each decade oscillating between our top national universities; instead, the total Jew- 1.5 and 3.0, then rising to nearly 5-to-1 during 2001– ish numbers across the Ivy League are actually 40 2005, and without a single Jewish name on the win- percent higher. This implies that Jewish enrollment ner list from 2006 onward. is roughly 600 percent greater relative to Asians than The elite science competitions follow a broadly should be expected under a strictly meritocratic ad- similar pattern. Non-Jewish whites had only outnum- missions system. bered Jews 2-to-1 among the Physics Olympiad win- Obviously, all these types of analysis may be applied ners during 1986–1997, but the ratio rose to at least just as easily to a comparison of Jews with non-Jewish 7-to-1 during 2002–2012. Meanwhile, white Gentiles whites, and the results turn out to be equally strik- were more numerous by nearly 6-to-1 among 1992– ing. The key factor is that although Jewish academic 2012 Computing Olympiad winners, 4-to-1 among achievement has apparently plummeted in recent de- the 2002–2011 Siemens AP Award winners, and over cades, non-Jewish whites seem to have remained rela- 3-to-1 among 2003–2012 Biology Olympiad champi- tively unchanged in their performance, which might ons. Across the sixty-odd years of America’s Science be expected in such a large and diverse population. Talent Search, Jews had regularly been named finalists As a consequence, the relative proportions of top- at a relative rate fifteen- or even twenty-times that of performing students have undergone a dramatic shift. their white Gentile classmates, but over the last de- We must bear in mind that the official U.S. Cen- cade or so, this has dropped by half. sus category of “Non-Hispanic white” (which I will The evidence of the recent NMS semifinalist lists henceforth label “white”) is something of an ethnic seems the most conclusive of all, given the huge sta- hodgepodge, encompassing all the various white Eu- tistical sample sizes involved. As discussed earlier, ropean ancestry groups, as well as a substantial ad- these students constitute roughly the highest 0.5 per- mixture of North Africans, Middle Easterners, Ira- cent in academic ability, the top 16,000 high school nians, Turks, Armenians, and Afghans. It amounts seniors who should be enrolling at the Ivy League to everyone who is not black, Hispanic, Asian, or and America’s other most elite academic universi- American Indian, and currently includes an estimat- ties. In California, white Gentile names outnumber ed 63 percent of all Americans. Jewish ones by over 8-to-1; in Texas, over 20-to-1; Determining the number of whites among NMS in Florida and Illinois, around 9-to-1. Even in New semifinalists or winners of various academic com- York, America’s most heavily Jewish state, there are petitions is relatively easy. Both Asian and Hispanic more than two high-ability white Gentile students names are quite distinctive, and their numbers can for every Jewish one. Based on the overall distribu- be estimated by the methods already discussed. tion of America’s population, it appears that approx- Meanwhile, blacks are substantially outnumbered imately 65–70 percent of America’s highest ability by Hispanics and they have much weaker academic students are non-Jewish whites, well over ten times performance, so they would produce far fewer very the Jewish total of under 6 percent.

DECEMBER 2012 THE AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE 29 Math Olympiad

Education

U.S. Math Olympiad Teams

100% Period N/J White Asian Jewish 1970s 56% 0% 44% 80 1980s 54% 9% 37% 60

1990s 45% 27% 28% 40 2000s 43% 53% 3% 20 2010s 28% 72% 0% 0 1970-74 1975-79 1980-84 1985-89 1990-94 1995-99 2000-04 2005-09 2010-12 College Putnam Math Winners

Period N/J White Asian Jewish 100% 1938–49 59% 0% 41% N/J White 80 1950s 66% 3% 31% Asians 1960s 76% 2% 22% 60 Jewish 1970s 69% 0% 31% 40 1980s 75% 2% 24%

1990s 44% 24% 31% 20 2000s 52% 37% 12% 2010s 50% 50% 0% 0 1938-42 1950-54 1960-64 1970-74 1980-84 1990-94 2000-04 2010-12

U.S. Physics Olympiad Winners

100% Period N/J White Asian Jewish 80 1980s 49% 23% 28% 60 1990s 55% 25% 20% 2000s 46% 46% 9% 40 2010s 14% 81% 5% 20 0 1986-89 1990-94 1995-99 2000-04 2005-09 2010-12

Science Olympiad Winners

100% Competition N/J White Asian Jewish Computing, 1992–2012 62% 27% 11% 80 Biology, 2003–2012 25% 68% 8% Chemistry, 2011–2012 10% 90% 0% 60

Siemens Science AP Winners 40

Period N/J White Asian Jewish 20 2002–2011 31% 61% 8%

0 Computing, Biology, Chemistry, 1992-2012 2003-2012 2011-2012 Science Talent Search Finalists

Period N/J White Asian Jewish 100% 1940s 83% 0% 17% 80 1950s 78% 1% 22% 1960s 76% 1% 23% 60 1970s 70% 8% 22% 1980s 55% 22% 23% 40 1990s 54% 29% 17% 20 2000s 49% 36% 15%

2010s 29% 64% 7% 0 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s

30 THE AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE DECEMBER 2012 Recent NMS Semifinalists for Available States

State/Years Total (2011) N/J White Asian Jewish Alabama/2008, 2010 208 83% 14% 2% 26.5% Arizona/2013 342 68% 26% 5% California/2010, 2012 1,999 37% 58% 4% National Colorado/2012, 2013 256 78% 14% 7% Non-Jewish White Average Florida/2008-13 867 74% 13% 8% Asian 6% Illinois/2011-2013 693 71% 21% 8% Jewish Indiana/2010, 2012-13 327 75% 18% 5% 66.5% Iowa/2011 191 80% 15% 4% Eight Largest States, Kansas/2011 159 87% 9% 4% by Percentage Louisiana/2013 190 76% 19% 5% 80% Maryland/2010 327 57% 32% 11% Michigan/2012, 2013 570 68% 30% 2% Minnesota/2010, 2011 318 81% 13% 6% Missouri/2011 344 87% 11% 2% 60 Nevada/2010, 2011 85 67% 20% 9% New Mexico/2011 99 76% 11% 6% New York/2011, 2012 957 45% 34% 21% Ohio/2012, 2013 642 76% 20% 4% Oklahoma/2008 187 83% 14% 3% 40 Pennsylvania/2012 700 72% 20% 9% Tennessee/2010 279 80% 17% 2% Texas/2010 1,344 68% 28% 3% Virginia/2009 411 74% 19% 6% 20 Washington/2013 344 64% 31% 5% Wisconsin/2012 324 87% 11% 3% Eight Largest States 7,772 60% 33% 7% 25 State Aggregate 12,163 65% 28% 6% 0 CA FL IL MI NY OH PA TX National (estimated) 16,317 65-70% 25-30% 6%

Elite University Undergraduate Enrollments, 2007-2011

University Non-Jewish Asian Unknown Jewish Non-Jewish White White Race Asian Harvard 18% 16% 12% 26% Unknown Race Yale 20% 14% 11% 26% Jewish Princeton 37% 16% 5% 13% Harvard Yale Princeton All Ivy Caltech Brown 22% 15% 12% 24% Columbia 15% 16% 10% 25% Cornell 24% 16% 14% 23% Dartmouth 42% 14% 6% 11% Penn 17% 18% 13% 27% All Ivy League 23% 16% 11% 23% Caltech 33% 39% 2% 6% MIT 27% 25% 6% 9% Stanford 28% 21% 4% 10% UC Berkeley 21% 40% 7% 10% UCLA 24% 37% 4% 9%

Source: Appendices C-F

DECEMBER 2012 THE AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE 31 Education

Needless to say, these proportions are considerably period certainly saw a very rapid rise in the number different from what we actually find among the ad- of Asian, Hispanic, and foreign students, as well as mitted students at Harvard and its elite peers, which some increase in blacks. But it seems rather odd that today serve as a direct funnel to the commanding all of these other gains would have come at the ex- heights of American academics, law, business, and pense of whites of Christian background, and none finance. Based on reported statistics, Jews approxi- at the expense of Jews. mately match or even outnumber non-Jewish whites Furthermore, the Harvard enrollment changes at Harvard and most of the other Ivy League schools, over the last decade have been even more unusual which seems wildly disproportionate. Indeed, the of- when we compare them to changes in the underlying ficial statistics indicate that non-Jewish whites at Har- demographics. Between 2000 and 2011, the relative vard are America’s most under-represented popula- percentage of college-age blacks enrolled at Harvard tion group, enrolled at a much lower fraction of their dropped by 18 percent, along with declines of 13 per- national population than blacks or Hispanics, despite cent for Asians and 11 percent for Hispanics, while having far higher academic test scores. only whites increased, expanding their relative enroll- ment by 16 percent. However, this is merely an opti- hen examining statistical evidence, the proper cal illusion: in fact, the figure for non-Jewish whites Waggregation of data is critical. Consider the slightly declined, while the relative enrollment of Jews ratio of the recent 2007–2011 enrollment of Asian increased by over 35 percent, probably reaching the students at Harvard relative to their estimated share highest level in Harvard’s entire history. Thus, the of America’s recent NMS semifinalists, a reasonable relative presence of Jews rose sharply while that of all proxy for the high-ability college-age population, and other groups declined, and this occurred during ex- compare this result to the corresponding figure for actly the period when the once-remarkable academic whites. The Asian ratio is 63 percent, slightly above performance of Jewish high school students seemed the white ratio of 61 percent, with both these figures to suddenly collapse. being considerably below parity due to the substan- Most of the other Ivy League schools appear to tial presence of under-represented racial minorities follow a fairly similar trajectory. Between 1980 and such as blacks and Hispanics, foreign students, and 2011, the official figures indicate that non-Jewish students of unreported race. Thus, there appears to white enrollment dropped by 63 percent at Yale, 44 be no evidence for racial bias against Asians, even percent at Princeton, 52 percent at Dartmouth, 69 excluding the race-neutral impact of athletic recruit- percent at Columbia, 62 percent at Cornell, 66 per- ment, legacy admissions, and geographical diversity. cent at Penn, and 64 percent at Brown. If we confine However, if we separate out the Jewish students, their our attention to the last decade or so, the relative pro- ratio turns out to be 435 percent, while the residual ra- portion of college-age non-Jewish whites enrolled at tio for non-Jewish whites drops to just 28 percent, less Yale has dropped 23 percent since 2000, with drops than half of even the Asian figure. As a consequence, of 28 percent at Princeton, 18 percent at Dartmouth, Asians appear under-represented relative to Jews by 19 percent at Columbia and Penn, 24 percent at Cor- a factor of seven, while non-Jewish whites are by far nell, and 23 percent at Brown. For most of these uni- the most under-represented group of all, despite any versities, non-white groups have followed a mixed benefits they might receive from athletic, legacy, or pattern, mostly increasing but with some substantial geographical distribution factors. The rest of the Ivy drops. I have only located yearly Jewish enrollment League tends to follow a similar pattern, with the over- percentages back to 2006, but during the six years all Jewish ratio being 381 percent, the Asian figure at since then, there is a uniform pattern of often sub- 62 percent, and the ratio for non-Jewish whites a low stantial rises: increases of roughly 25 percent at Yale, 35 percent, all relative to their number of high-ability 45 percent at Columbia, 10 percent at Cornell, 15 college-age students. percent at Brown, and no declines anywhere. Just as striking as these wildly disproportionate Fourteen years ago I published a widely-discussed current numbers have been the longer enrollment column in the Wall Street Journal highlighting some trends. In the three decades since I graduated Har- of the absurdities of our affirmative action system vard, the presence of white Gentiles has dropped by in higher education.72 In particular, I pointed out as much as 70 percent, despite no remotely compa- that although Jews and Asians then totaled merely 5 rable decline in the relative size or academic perfor- percent of the American population, they occupied mance of that population; meanwhile, the percent- nearly 50 percent of the slots at Harvard and most of age of Jewish students has actually increased. This the other elite Ivies, while non-Jewish whites were left

32 THE AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE DECEMBER 2012 1,500% Jewish Enrollment at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, 1900–2012 Yale 1,200

Harvard 900

cent of Parity 600 Per Princeton 300 Parity

0 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2012

Jewish Jewish Asian Elite University Enrollment Asian Elite University Enrollment N/J White

Hispanic Ratios 2007–11 N/J White Ratios 2007–2011 Black Relative to Total Age 18–21 Population NJW+A Relative to High Ability Students Age 18–21

Harvard

Yale

Princeton

Columbia

Dartmouth

Cornell

Brown

Penn

Stanford

MIT

Caltech

Berkeley

UCLA

0% 300% 600% 900% 1,200% 0% 100% 200% 300% 400%

Note that the ethnic enrollment ratios for Berkeley and UCLA are based on the national demographics, but their students are primarily drawn from within California, whose racial distribution is very different: the white student population is half the national average, while Asians and Hispanics are more numerous by a factor of two, implying different parity ratios. The underlying data for these charts is drawn from Appendix H.

DECEMBER 2012 THE AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE 33 Education

as the most under-represented student population, completely opaque, subjective, and discretionary Ivy with relative numbers below those of blacks or His- League system so effectively described by Karabel, panics.Since then Jewish academic achievement has Golden, and others. seemingly collapsed but relative Jewish enrollment in One obvious explanatory factor is that the Ivy League the Ivies has generally risen, while the exact opposite is located in the Northeast, a region of the country in combination has occurred for both Asians and non- which the Jewish fraction of the population is more Jewish whites. I find this a strange and unexpected than twice the national average. However, these schools development. also constitute America’s leading national universi- ties, so their geographical intake is quite broad, with t is important to recognize that all of these enroll- Harvard drawing less than 40 percent of its American Iment statistics are far less precise than we might students from its own region, and the others similarly ideally desire. As mentioned earlier, over the last tending to have a nationally distributed enrollment. So couple of decades widespread perceptions of racial this factor would probably explain only a small portion bias in admissions have led a significant number of of the discrepancy. Furthermore, MIT utilizes a con- students to refuse to reveal their race, which the of- siderably more meritocratic and objective admissions ficial statistics classify as “race unknown.” This group system than Harvard, and although located just a few almost certainly consists of Asians and whites, but it miles away has a ratio of Jewish to non-Jewish whites is impossible for us to determine the relative propor- which differs by nearly a factor of four in favor of the tions, and without this information our above esti- latter compared to its crosstown rival. mates can only be approximate. By the late 1960s Jewish students had become a sub- Similarly, nearly all our figures on Jewish enroll- stantial fraction of most Ivy League schools and today ment were ultimately drawn from the estimates of some of their children may be benefiting from lega- Hillel, the national Jewish campus organization, and cies. But until about twenty-five years ago, white Gen- these are obviously approximate. However, the Hil- tiles outnumbered their Jewish classmates perhaps as lel data is the best we possess for recent decades, and much as 3-to-1, so if anything we might expect the is regularly used by the New York Times and other admissions impact of legacies to still favor the former prominent media outlets, while also serving as the ba- group. Anyway, the research of Espenshade and his sis for much of Karabel’s award-winning scholarship. colleagues have shown that being a legacy provides an Furthermore, so long as any latent bias in the data admissions advantage in the range of 19–26 percent,73 remained relatively constant, we could still correctly while we are attempting to explain enrollment differ- analyze changes over time. ences of roughly 1000 percent. For these sorts of reasons, any of the individual fig- American Jews are certainly more affluent than ures provided above should be treated with great cau- most other groups, but all Ivy League universities tion, but the overall pattern of enrollments—statistics admit their American students on a “need-blind” ba- compiled over years and decades and across numer- sis, so perceptions of ability to pay cannot be a fac- ous different universities—seems likely to provide an tor, even if any evidence existed that Jewish applicants accurate description of reality. were actually wealthier than their non-Jewish coun- terparts. Many Jewish alumni are very generous to their alma maters, but so are non-Jews, and indeed Elite Colleges Look Neither Like nine of the ten largest university donations in history America Nor Like America’s have come from non-Jewish individuals, nearly all in Highest-Ability Students the last fifteen years;74 thus, mercenary hopes of large future bequests would probably not be influencing We are therefore faced with the clear conundrum that these skewed admissions. Jewish students seem to constitute roughly 6 percent Perhaps Jews simply apply to these schools in far of America’s highest-ability high school graduates and greater relative numbers, with successful, educational- non-Jewish whites around 65–70 percent, but these ly-ambitious Jewish families being much more likely to relative ratios differ by perhaps 1000 percent from encourage their bright children to aim at the Ivies than the enrollments we actually find at Harvard and the the parents of equally bright non-Jews. However, since other academic institutions which select America’s these elite schools release no information regarding future elites. Meanwhile, an ethnic distribution much the ethnic or racial skew of their applications, we have closer to this apparent ability-ratio is found at Caltech, no evidence for this hypothesis. And why would high- whose admissions are purely meritocratic, unlike the ability non-Jews be 600 percent or 800 percent more

34 THE AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE DECEMBER 2012 likely to apply to Caltech and MIT than to those other academic achievement combined with a sharp rise elite schools, which tend to have a far higher national in Jewish Harvard admissions, which together might profile? easily help to explain Harvard’s strange decline in this Anyway, the numbers alone render this explanation important measure of highest student quality. implausible. Each year, the Ivy League colleges enroll Harvard could obviously fill its entire class with almost 10,000 American whites and Asians, of whom high-scoring valedictorians or National Merit Schol- over 3000 are Jewish. Meanwhile, each year the NMS ars but chooses not to do so. In 2003, Harvard re- Corporation selects and publicly names America’s jected well over half of all applicants with perfect highest-ability 16,000 graduating seniors; of these, SAT scores, up from rejecting a quarter a few years fewer than 1000 are Jewish, while almost 15,000 are earlier, and in 2010 Princeton acknowledged it also non-Jewish whites and Asians. Even if every single one admitted only about half.75 According to Harvard’s of these high-ability Jewish students applied to and en- dean of admissions, “With the SAT, small differences rolled at the Ivy League—with none going to any of of 50 or 100 points or more have no significant effect America’s other 3000 colleges—Ivy League admissions on admissions decisions.”76 In fact, a former Senior officers are obviously still dipping rather deep into Admissions Officer at Harvard has claimed that by the lower reaches of the Jewish ability-pool, instead the mid-2000s as few as 5 percent of the students at of easily drawing from some 15,000 other publicly highly selective universities such as his own were ad- identified candidates of far greater ability but differ- mitted purely based on academic merit.77 ent ethnicity. Why would these universities not sim- It is important to note that these current rejection ply send out inexpensive mailings to these 15,000 top rates of top scoring applicants are vastly higher than students, encouraging them to apply, especially since during the 1950s or 1960s, when Harvard admitted their geographical, ethnic, and cultural backgrounds six of every seven such students and Princeton ad- might help to considerably “diversify” undergraduate opted a 1959 policy in which no high scoring appli- enrollments, while greatly raising the average student cant could be refused admission without a detailed test scores by which these universities supposedly live review by a faculty committee.78 An obvious indica- or die in the competitive college-rankings. tion of Karabel’s obtuseness is that he describes and The situation becomes even stranger when we fo- condemns the anti-meritocratic policies of the past cus on Harvard, which this year accepted fewer than without apparently noticing that they have actually 6 percent of over 34,000 applicants and whose offers become far worse today. An admissions framework of admission are seldom refused. Each Harvard class in which academic merit is not the prime consider- includes roughly 400 Jews and 800 Asians and non- ation may be directly related to the mystery of why Jewish whites; this total represents over 40 percent of Harvard’s ethnic skew differs in such extreme fashion America’s highest-ability Jewish students, but merely from that of America’s brightest graduating seniors. 5 percent of their equally high-ability non-Jewish In fact, Harvard’s apparent preference for academi- peers. It is quite possible that a larger percentage of cally weak Jewish applicants seems to be reflected in these top Jewish students apply and decide to attend their performance once they arrive on campus. 79 than similar members from these other groups, but it seems wildly implausible that such causes could ac- aving considered and largely eliminated these count for roughly an eight-fold difference in appar- Hseveral possible explanatory factors, we can ent admissions outcome. Harvard’s stated “holistic” only speculate as to the true causes of such seemingly admissions policy explicitly takes into account nu- anomalous enrollment statistics at our Ivy League merous personal characteristics other than straight universities. However, we cannot completely exclude academic ability, including sports and musical talent. the possible explanation that these other top students But it seems very unlikely that any remotely neutral are simply not wanted at such elite institutions, per- application of these principles could produce admis- haps because their entrance in large numbers might sions results whose ethnic skew differs so widely from drastically transform the current ethnic and cultural the underlying meritocratic ratios. mix. After all, Karabel devoted hundreds of pages of One datapoint strengthening this suspicion of ad- his text to documenting exactly this pattern of Ivy missions bias has been the plunge in the number of League admissions behavior during the 1920s and Harvard’s entering National Merit Scholars, a particu- 1930s, so why should we be surprised if it continues larly select ability group, which dropped by almost today, at least at an unconscious level, but simply with 40 percent between 2002 and 2011, falling from 396 the polarities reversed? to 248. This exact period saw a collapse in Jewish It would be unreasonable to ignore the salient fact

DECEMBER 2012 THE AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE 35 that this massive apparent bias in favor of far less- these colleges. As mentioned, three of Caltech’s last six qualified Jewish applicants coincides with an equally presidents have been of Jewish origins, but the objec- massive ethnic skew at the topmost administrative tive admissions system has produced no sign of ethnic ranks of the universities in question, a situation which favoritism, and largely meritocratic MIT also seems once again exactly parallels Karabel’s account from the unaffected by having had two Jewish presidents of 1920s. Indeed, Karabel points out that by 1993 Har- the last five.85 But when machinery already exists for vard, Yale, and Princeton all had presidents of Jewish admitting or rejecting whomever a university wishes, ancestry,80 and the same is true for the current presi- on any grounds whatsoever, that machinery may be dents of Yale, Penn, Cornell, and possibly Columbia, unconsciously steered in a particular direction by the as well as Princeton’s president throughout during the shared group biases of the individuals controlling it. 1990s and Yale’s new incoming president, while all three of Harvard’s most recent presidents have either had Jewish origins or a Jewish spouse.81 The Disturbing Reality of the At most universities, a provost is the second-rank- Elite College Admission System ing official, being responsible for day-to-day academic operations. Although Princeton’s current president is Perhaps the most detailed statistical research into the not Jewish, all seven of the most recent Princeton pro- actual admissions practices of American universities vosts stretching back to 1977 have had such ancestry, has been conducted by Princeton sociology professor with several of the other Ivies not being far behind.82 A Thomas J. Espenshade and his colleagues, whose re- similar degree of massive overrepresentation is found sults were summarized in his 2009 book No Longer throughout the other top administrative ranks of the Separate, Not Yet Equal, co-authored with Alexandria rest of the Ivy League, and across American leading Walton Radford. Their findings provide an empirical educational institutions in general, and these are the look at the individual factors that dramatically raise institutions which select our future national elites. or lower the likelihood of acceptance into the leading I have not the slightest reason to doubt that the over- American universities which select the next genera- whelming majority of these individuals are honest and tion of our national elites. sincere, and attempt to do their best for their institutions The research certainly supports the widespread and their students. But as our liberal intellectual elites perception that non-academic factors play a ma- regularly emphasize, unconscious biases or shared as- jor role in the process, including athletic ability and sumptions can become a huge but unnoticed problem “legacy” status. But as we saw earlier, even more sig- when decision-making occurs within a very narrow nificant are racial factors, with black ancestry being circle, whose extreme “non-diversity” may lead to lack worth the equivalent of 310 points, Hispanics gain- of introspection, and what else can be said when for the ing 130 points, and Asian students being penalized by last two decades almost all of the leaders of our most elite 140 points, all relative to white applicants on the 1600 universities have been drawn from an ethnic commu- point Math and Reading SAT scale. 86 nity constituting just 2 percent of America’s population? Universities always emphasize the importance of As a perfect example of such a situation, consider non-academic (and subjective) “leadership traits” as a an amusing incident from the mid-1980s, when Asian central reason why they do not rely upon grades and groups first noticed a sharp decline in Asian admis- academic test scores to select at least their white stu- sions rates to Harvard and accused the university of dents, arguing that evidence of such personal initia- having begun a quiet effort to restrict Asian numbers, tive and leadership should often outweigh somewhat criticism which was vigorously resisted by senior Har- lower academic performance in predicting future suc- vard officials. During this period, Henry Rosovsky, cess and value to our society. And on the face of it, Harvard’s Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences these claims may seem plausible. (and later Acting President), referred to Asian Ameri- But the difficulty comes from the fact that such can students as “no doubt the most over-represented subjective factors must necessarily be assessed subjec- group in the university.”83 At that point, Harvard’s tively, by the particular individuals sitting in the Yale Asian students were enrolled at 300 percent of parity, or Columbia admissions offices, and their cultural or while those of Rosovsky’s own ethnicity were prob- ideological background may heavily taint their deci- ably at 900 percent or more of parity.84 sion-making. One of Ephansade’s most striking find- Unconscious biases may become especially serious ings was that excelling in certain types of completely when combined with an admissions system based on mainstream high school activities actually reduced a the extreme flexibility and subjectivity that exists at student’s admission chances by 60–65 percent, appar-

36 THE AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE DECEMBER 2012 ently because teenagers with such interests were re- near and dear to his own heart. Somehow I suspect garded with considerable disfavor by the sort of people that a student who boasted of leadership in pro-death employed in admissions; these were ROTC, 4-H Clubs, penalty activism among his extracurriculars might Future Farmers of America, and various similar orga- have fared rather worse in this process. And presum- nizations.87 Consider that these reported activities were ably for similar reasons, Tiffany was also rejected by all totally mainstream, innocuous, and non-ideological, her other prestigious college choices, including Yale, yet might easily get an applicant rejected, presumably Penn, Duke, and Wellsley, an outcome which greatly for being cultural markers. When we recognize the surprised and disappointed her immigrant father.88 overwhelmingly liberal orientation of nearly all our There was also the case of half-Brazilian Julianna elite universities and the large communities of academ- Bentes, with slight black ancestry, who came from a ics and administrators they employ, we can easily imag- middle-class family and attended on a partial scholar- ine what might become of any applicants who proudly ship one of America’s most elite prep schools, whose proclaimed their successful leadership roles in an ac- annual tuition now tops $30,000; her SAT scores were tivity associated with conservative Christianity or righ- somewhat higher than Tiffany’s, and she was an excel- twing politics as their extracurricular claim to fame. lent dancer. The combination of her academic ability, Our imagination is given substance by The Gate- dancing talent, and “multiracial” background ranked keepers, a fascinating and very disturbing inside look her as one of America’s top college recruitment pros- at the admissions system of Wesleyan, an elite lib- pects, gaining her admission and generous financial eral arts college in Middleton, Conn. The author was packages from Harvard, Yale, Stanford and every Jacques Steinberg, a veteran National Education Cor- other elite university to which she applied, including respondent at the New York Times, and now its edi- the University of Chicago’s most prestigious academic tor focusing on college admissions issues. Although scholarship award and a personal opportunity to meet Wesleyan definitely ranks a notch or so be- low the Ivies in selectivity, Steinberg strongly suggests that the admissions decision-mak- Excelling in certain types of mainstream ing process is very similar, and while his high school activities, such as ROTC and 2002 book described the selection of the Fall 2000 entering class, his afterword to the 2012 4-H Clubs, actually reduced a student’s edition states that the overall process has re- admission chances by 60–65 percent. mained largely unchanged down to the pres- ent day. Whether or not Steinberg himself recognizes it, the most striking fact—which would surely shock students almost anywhere else in Chelsea Clinton while visiting Stanford, which she the Developed World—is the enormous focus on ide- did, before ultimately selecting Yale.89 ology and ethnic background compared to academic Finally, there was the case of Becca Jannol, a girl achievement or evidence of intellectual ability, as well from a very affluent Jewish family near Beverly Hills, as the powerful role of “connections” and clout. who attended the same elite prep school as Julianna, Consider the case of Tiffany Wang, a Chinese immi- but with her parents paying the full annual tuition. De- grant student raised in the Silicon Valley area, where spite her every possible advantage, including test-prep her father worked as an engineer. Although Eng- courses and retaking the exam, her SAT scores were lish was not her first language, her SAT scores were some 240 points lower on the 1600 point scale, plac- over 100 points above the Wesleyan average, and she ing her toward the bottom of the Wesleyan range, while ranked as a National Merit Scholarship semifinalist, her application essay focused on the philosophical putting her in the top 0.5 percent of high school stu- challenges she encountered when she was suspended dents (not the top 2 percent as Steinberg mistakenly for illegal drug use. But she was a great favorite of her claims). Nevertheless, the admissions officer rated her prep school counselor, who was an old college friend of just so-so in academics, and seemed far more posi- the Wesleyan admissions officer, and using his discre- tively impressed by her ethnic activism in the local tion, he stamped her “Admit.” Her dismal academic re- school’s Asian-American club. Ultimately, he stamped cord then caused this initial decision to be overturned her with a “Reject,” but later admitted to Steinberg that by a unanimous vote of the other members of the full she might have been admitted if he had been aware admissions committee, but he refused to give up, and of the enormous time and effort she had spent cam- moved heaven and earth to gain her a spot, even offer- paigning against the death penalty, a political cause ing to rescind the admissions of one or more already

DECEMBER 2012 THE AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE 37 Education

selected applicants to create a place for her. Eventually Wesleyan’s admissions practices was glowingly favor- he got her shifted from the Reject category to wait-list able, it may have been more than pure coincidence that status, after which he secretly moved her folder to the the particular admissions officer who was the focus of very top of the large waiting list pile.90 his reporting decided to seek employment elsewhere In the end “connections” triumphed, and she re- just before the book was scheduled to appear in print.97 ceived admission to Wesleyan, although she turned it Steinberg’s narrative is engagingly written and he down in favor of an offer from more prestigious Cor- makes no effort to conceal his own ideological ori- nell, which she had obtained through similar means. entation, but some of his major lapses are troubling. But at Cornell, she found herself “miserable,” hating For example, he accepts without question the notion the classes and saying she “didn’t see the usefulness of that Asian-American applicants receive an racial “di- [her] being there.” However, her poor academic abil- versity” boost in elite admissions, though it has been ity proved no hindrance, since the same administra- obvious for decades that the exact opposite is true. tor who had arranged her admission also wrangled And in his introduction, he describes the disturbingly her a quick entrance into a special “honors program” exclusionary world of the past, explaining that until he personally ran, containing just 40 of the 3500 stu- the late 1950s Jews “need not have bothered trying” to dents in her year. This exempted her from all aca- enroll at Harvard or the other Ivies.98 Yet in fact, Jews demic graduation requirements, apparently including were heavily, often massively over-represented in the classes or tests, thereby allowing her to spend her four Ivy League throughout the entire Twentieth Century, college years mostly traveling around the world while and by 1952 constituted 25 percent of Harvard under- working on a so-called “special project.” After gradua- graduates, a rate some 700 percent higher than their tion, she eventually took a job at her father’s successful share of the general population.99 law firm, thereby realizing her obvious potential as a Steinberg is an award-winning journalist who has member of America’s ruling Ivy League elite, or in her spent most of the last 15 years covering education for own words, as being one of “the best of the best.”91 the New York Times, and surely ranks near the very Steinberg’s description of the remaining handful of top of his profession; his book was widely reviewed Wesleyan applicants seems to fall into a very similar and almost universally praised. For such huge factual pattern, indicating that our elite admissions process errors to pass unnoticed is a very disturbing indica- operates under the principle of “Ideology and Diversi- tion of the knowledge and assumptions of the individ- ty tempered by Corruption.” Certainly the majority of uals who shape our public perceptions on the realities the decisions made seem to demonstrate that although of higher education in our society. the Maoist doctrine of favoring “Red over Expert” was abandoned decades ago in China, it is still alive and n fact, it seems likely that some of these obvious well in America’s elite university admissions process, Iadmissions biases we have noticed may be related though sometimes mitigated by factors of wealth to the poor human quality and weak academic cre- and influence.92 The overwhelmingly liberal orienta- dentials of many of the university employees making tion of the elite university community, the apparent these momentous decisions. As mentioned above, willingness of many liberals to actively discriminate the job of admissions officer is poorly paid, requires against non-liberals, and the fact that American Jews no professional training, and offers few opportuni- remain perhaps the most liberal ethnic community ties for career advancement; thus, it is often filled by may together help explain a significant portion of our individuals with haphazard employment records. As skewed enrollment statistics.93 one of the “Little Ivies,” Wesleyan is among Ameri- We should also note that although admissions of- ca’s most prestigious liberal arts colleges, and Stein- ficers are poorly paid, earning less than public school berg’s description of the career paths of its handful teachers,94 they nevertheless control a very valuable of admissions officers is eye-opening: the interim resource. According to Steinberg’s account, when in- Director of Admissions had most recently screened dividual officers are particularly forceful in their advo- food-stamp recipients and run a psychiatric half-way cacy for an obviously under-qualified applicant, their house; another had worked as an animal control of- colleagues regularly ask them, perhaps jokingly, “how ficer and managed a camera store; a third unsuc- much are they paying you to get that student admit- cessfully sought a job as a United Airlines flight at- ted?”95 Indeed, Golden states that admissions officers tendant; others were recent college graduates, whose at top universities are constantly being offered explicit main college interests had been sports or ethnic stud- bribes, sometimes even including promises of houses ies.100 The vast majority seem to possess minimal aca- or cruises.96 And although Steinberg’s presentation of demic expertise and few intellectual interests, raising

38 THE AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE DECEMBER 2012 serious questions about their ability to reasonably setts law school dean with a major interest in ethnic dis- evaluate their higher-quality applicants. crimination issues devoted two hours of his televised As additional evidence, we can consider What It public affairs program to a detailed discussion of the Really Takes to Get into the Ivy League, a 2003 advice topic with the author, but at the end let slip that he be- book written by Chuck Hughes, who spent five years lieved California’s population was 50 percent Asian, an as a Senior Admissions Officer at Harvard, after hav- utter absurdity.107 So perhaps many college administra- ing himself graduated from that university. Although tors may have little idea about which ethnic groups are he strongly emphasizes his own college participation in already enrolled above parity and which are below, in- varsity sports, he never says a word about any personal stead taking their marching orders from an amorphous academic interests, and near the end of his book on elite academic narrative which valorizes “racial diversity.” college admissions, he appears to describe Duke, North- Meanwhile, any hint of “anti-Semitism” in admis- western, and Rice as being members of the Ivy League.101 sions is regarded as an absolutely mortal sin, and any A more explicit statement of this exact problem is significant reduction in Jewish enrollment may often found in A for Admission, a very candid 1997 descrip- be denounced as such by the hair-trigger media. For tion of the admissions process at elite private universi- example, in 1999 Princeton discovered that its Jewish ties written by Michele A. Hernandez, who had spent enrollment had declined to just 500 percent of parity, four years as Dartmouth’s Assistant Director of Admis- down from more than 700 percent in the mid-1980s, sions. Near the beginning of her book, Hernandez ex- and far below the comparable figures for Harvard or plains that over half of Ivy League admissions officers Yale. This quickly resulted in four front-page stories are individuals who had not attended such academi- in the Daily Princetonian, a major article in the New cally challenging universities, nor probably had the York Observer, and extensive national coverage in intellectual capability to do so, and were sometimes both the New York Times and the Chronicle of Higher confused about the relative ranking of SAT scores and Education.108 These articles included denunciations of other basic academic credentials. She also cautions Princeton’s long historical legacy of anti-Semitism and students to avoid any subtlety in their essays, lest their quickly led to official apologies, followed by an imme- words be misunderstood by their readers in the admis- diate 30 percent rebound in Jewish numbers. During sions office, whose degrees are more likely to have been these same years, non-Jewish white enrollment across in education than in any serious academic discipline.102 the entire Ivy League had dropped by roughly 50 per- It seems quite possible that poorly-paid liberal arts cent, reducing those numbers to far below parity, but or ethnic-studies majors, probably with few quantita- this was met with media silence or even occasional tive skills and a vaguely “progressive” ideological fo- congratulations on the further “multicultural” progress cus, could implement highly unfair admissions deci- of America’s elite education system. sions without even realizing their actions. According I suspect that the combined effect of these separate to Steinberg, admissions officers seem to assume that pressures, rather than any planned or intentional bias, an important part of their duty is maximizing non- is the primary cause of the striking enrollment statis- white enrollment, and this is especially true if they tics that we have examined above. In effect, somewhat themselves are non-white, while there is no indica- dim and over-worked admissions officers, generally tion that they are actually aware of America’s overall possessing weak quantitative skills, have been tasked population distribution.103 by their academic superiors and media monitors with The last point is not a trivial one, since although our the twin ideological goals of enrolling Jews and en- country is only about 13 percent black, according to rolling non-whites, with any major failures risking a 2001 Gallup survey most people thought the figure harsh charges of either “anti-Semitism” or “racism.” was 33 percent, with the average non-white putting But by inescapable logic maximizing the number of it at 40 percent.104 This was roughly confirmed by the Jews and non-whites implies minimizing the number GSS respondents in 2000, who also believed that nearly of non-Jewish whites. 18 percent of Americans were Jewish, a figure more than eight times too large.105 A very recent 2012 survey found that Americans believe Protestants outnumber Problems with Pure Diversity Jews in this country by only 2.5 to 1, when the actual ratio is ten times greater.106 and Pure Meritocracy Such shocking demographic ignorance is hardly In recent decades, elite college admissions policy has confined solely to the uneducated. For example, soon frequently become an ideological battlefield between after Karabel’s book appeared, a prominent Massachu- liberals and conservatives, but I would argue that both

DECEMBER 2012 THE AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE 39 Education

these warring camps have been missing the actual re- One obvious approach would be to wave a magic ality of the situation. wand and make the existing system “work better” by Conservatives have denounced “affirmative action” replacing many thousands of college admissions of- policies which emphasize race over academic merit, ficers by individuals more competent and less venal, and thereby lead to the enrollment of lesser qualified guardians of the common good who would properly blacks and Hispanics over their more qualified white balance objective academic merit against other in- and Asian competitors; they argue that our elite insti- trinsic student qualities, while avoiding any lapse tutions should be color-blind and race-neutral. Mean- into rank favoritism. But this same simple solution while, liberals have countered that the student body of could always be proposed for any other obviously these institutions should “look like America,” at least failing system, including Soviet-style Communism. approximately, and that ethnic and racial diversity in- A more fundamental change might be to directly trinsically provide important educational benefits, at adopt the implicit logic of America’s “academic di- least if all admitted students are reasonably qualified versity” movement—whose leadership has been and able to do the work. overwhelmingly Jewish109—and require our elite universities to bring their student bodies into rough conformity with the overall college-age population, ethnicity by ethnicity, in which It appears that both the values of case the Jewish presence at Harvard and the meritocracy and diversity have gradually rest of the Ivy League would drop to between been overwhelmed and replaced by the 1.5 and 2 percent.110 However, even leaving aside the rights and influence of corruption and ethnic favoritism. wrongs of such a proposal, it would be ex- tremely difficult to implement in practice. The pattern of American ethnic origins is com- plex and interwoven, with high intermarriage My own position has always been strongly in the rates, leading to categories being fluid and ambiguous. former camp, supporting meritocracy over diversity Furthermore, such an approach would foster clear in elite admissions. But based on the detailed evidence absurdities, with wealthy Anglo-Saxons from Green- I have discussed above, it appears that both these ide- wich, Conn. being propelled into Yale because they fill ological values have gradually been overwhelmed and the “quota” created on the backs of the impoverished replaced by the influence of corruption and ethnic Anglo-Saxons of Appalachia or Mississippi. favoritism, thereby selecting future American elites An opposite approach would be to rely on strictest which are not meritocratic nor diverse, neither being objective meritocracy, with elite universities auto- drawn from our most able students nor reasonably re- matically selecting their students in academic rank- flecting the general American population. order, based on high school grades and performance The overwhelming evidence is that the system on standardized exams such as the SAT. This ap- currently employed by most of our leading univer- proach would be similar to that used in many other sities admits applicants whose ability may be unre- developed countries around the world, but would markable but who are beneficiaries of underhanded produce severe social problems of its own. manipulation and favoritism. Nations which put Consider the notorious examples of the single- their future national leadership in the hands of such minded academic focus and testing-frenzy which individuals are likely to encounter enormous eco- are already sometimes found at many predominantly nomic and social problems, exactly the sort of prob- Asian immigrant high schools, involving endless lems which our own country seems to have increas- cram-courses and massive psychological pressure. ingly experienced over the last couple of decades. This seems very similar to the stories of extreme edu- And unless the absurdly skewed enrollments of our cational effort found in countries such as Japan, South elite academic institutions are corrected, the com- Korea, and China, where educational success is an position of these feeder institutions will ensure that overriding social value and elite admissions are fully such national problems only continue to grow worse determined by rank-order academic performance. as time passes. We should therefore consider various At present, these severe educational pressures on means of correcting the severe flaws in our academic American teenagers have been largely confined to a admissions system, which functions as the primary portion of our small Asian-American population and intake valve of our future national elites. perhaps some of their non-Asian schoolmates, but if

40 THE AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE DECEMBER 2012 Harvard and its peers all selected their students based Richard Kahlenberg prominently advocated in his on such criteria, a huge fraction of American students 1996 book The Remedy, and various other writings. would be forced to adopt similar work-habits or lose Although this approach has always seemed reason- any hope of gaining admission. Do we really want to ably attractive to me and the results would certainly produce an entire nation of “Asian Tiger Moms” of all provide more socio-economical balance than straight ethnicities and backgrounds, probably with horrible meritocracy, other “diversity” enhancements might be consequences for the future mental health, personal minimal. We should remember that a significant frac- creativity, and even long-term academic performance tion of our Asian immigrant population combines very of the next generation? low socio-economic status with extremely strong aca- Also, we would expect such a system to heavily demic performance and educational focus, so it seems favor those students enrolled at our finest second- likely that this small group would capture a hugely dis- ary schools, whose families could afford the best pri- proportionate share of all admissions spots influenced vate tutors and cram-courses, and with parents will- by these modifying factors, which may or may not be ing to push them to expend the last ounce of their fully realized by advocates of this approach. personal effort in endless, constant studying. These crucial factors, along with innate ability, are hardly distributed evenly among America’s highly diverse An Inner Ring and an Outer Ring population of over 300 million, whether along geo- graphical, socio-economic, or ethnic lines, and the But if selecting our future elites by purest “diversity” result would probably be an extremely unbalanced wouldn’t work, and using purest “meritocracy” would enrollment within the ranks of our top universities, seem an equally bad idea, what would be the right ap- perhaps one even more unbalanced than that of to- proach to take as a replacement for today’s complex day. Although American cultural elites may current- mixture of diversity, meritocracy, favoritism, and cor- ly pay too much lip service to “diversity” as a value, ruption? there is also such a thing as too little educational di- Perhaps an important starting point would be versity. Do we really want a system in which all of to recognize that in any normal distribution curve, America’s top 100 universities selected their students numbers widen greatly and differences become far much like Caltech does today, and therefore had a less significant below the very top. Today’s academic similar academic environment? supporters of “affirmative action” frequently claim We should also consider that under such a selec- that beneath the strongest tier of academic applicants tion system, any interest or involvement not directly to Yale or Stanford, the differences between particu- contributing to the academic transcript—including lar students become relatively small, only slightly in- activities associated with artistic talent, sports abil- dicative of how they will perform at the college if they ity, or extra-curricular leadership—would disappear are enrolled;111 and this claim is not entirely false. A from our top universities, since students who devot- large fraction of all the students applying have dem- ed any significant time to those pursuits would tend onstrated that they have the ability and commitment to lose out to those who did not. Even those highest- to adequately perform the college work in question, ability students who gained admission would tend to and although they are unlikely to graduate in the top 5 forego the benefits of encountering classmates with a percent of Princeton’s class, the same is also true of the somewhat more balanced mix of interests and abili- vast majority of their classmates. The average student ties, a group closer to the American mainstream, and at Harvard is going to be an average Harvard student, might therefore develop a very one-sided and unre- and perhaps it would be better if a large majority of alistic view of our national population. And if every the admitted students would not find this prospect a student admitted to Harvard believed, not without horrifying disappointment after their previously stel- some justification, that he had been objectively de- lar career of having always been the biggest student termined to be among the smartest and hardest fish in their smallish academic ponds. working 0.05 percent of all Americans his age, that The notion of top universities only selecting a slice of might not be the best psychological starting point their students based on purest academic merit certainly for a teenager just entering his adult life and future seems to be the standard today, and was so in the past career. as well. Karabel recounts how during the 1950s and These same problems would also manifest them- 1960s, Harvard reserved about 10 percent of its spots selves in an admissions system based on strict meri- for “top brains,” while selecting the remainder based tocracy as adjusted by socio-economic status, which on a mixture of different factors.112 In Choosing Elites,

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Robert Klitgaard indicates that roughly this same ap- that policy first came into direct conflict with the ra- proach continued into the 1980s, with only a fraction cial diversity they also favored, beginning when the of admitted students being classified and admitted as DeFunis “reverse discrimination” case reached the “first-class scholars.”113 As already mentioned, accord- U.S. Supreme Court in 1974. At that point, one of the ing to Hughes, who served five years as a Harvard Se- high court’s strongest liberal voices was Justice Wil- nior Admissions Officer at Harvard, by the mid-2000s liam O. Douglas, and he repeatedly considered the only 5 percent or less of Harvard undergraduates were possible use of random lotteries as the fairest means selected purely on academic merit, with extracurricular of allocating college admissions slots below the top activities and a wide variety of unspecified other criteria tier of most highly qualified applicants.115 being used to choose among the other 80–85 percent Let us explore the likely social implications of such of applicants who could actually handle the academic an admissions policy, focusing solely on Harvard work; and this same pattern is found at most other and following a very simple model, in which (say) highly selective universities.114 Given a widening funnel 300 slots or around 20 percent of each entering class of ability, it is absurd to base admissions decisions on are allocated based on pure academic merit (the “In- just a small difference of twenty or thirty points on the ner Ring”), with the remaining 1300 slots being ran- SAT, which merely encourages students to spend thou- domly selected from the 30,000 or so American ap- sands of hours cramming in order to gain those extra plicants considered able to reasonably perform at the crucial twenty or thirty points over their competitors. school’s required academic level and thereby benefit But if our elite colleges were to select only a portion from a Harvard education (the “Outer Ring”). of their students based on purest academic merit, how First, we must recognize that the 300 applicants should they pick the remainder, merely by flipping a admitted by straight merit would be an exception- coin? Actually, that might not be such a terrible idea, ally select group, representing just the top 2 percent at least compared with the current system, in which of America’s 16,000 NMS semifinalists. Also, almost these decisions are often seemingly based on massive any American students in this group or even reason- biases and sometimes even outright corruption. After ably close would be very well aware of that fact, and all, if we are seeking a student body which is at least more importantly, nearly all other students would re- somewhat diverse and reasonably representative of the alize they were far too distant to have any chance of American population, random selection is hardly the reaching that level, no matter how hard they studied least effective means of ensuring that outcome. And the or how many hours they crammed, thus freeing them result would be true diversity, rather than the dishonest from any terrible academic pressure. Under today’s and ridiculous pseudo-diversity of our existing system. system, the opaque and haphazard nature of the ad- The notion of using random selection to overcome missions process persuades tens of thousands of stu- the risk of unfair bias has been used for centuries, in- dents they might have a realistic shot at Harvard if cluding in our own country, and is regularly found only they would study a bit harder or participate in in matters of the greatest civic importance, especially one more resume-stuffing extracurricular,116 but that those involving life and death. Our jury system relies would no longer be the case, and they would be able on the random selection of a handful of ordinary citi- to relax a bit more during their high school years, just zens to determine the guilt or innocence of even the so long as they did well enough to qualify and try most eminent and powerful individuals, as well as to their luck as one of the “Outer Ring” of applicants. render corporate verdicts with penalties reaching into The 300 Inner Ring students would certainly be the billions. The millions of Americans ordered to quite different in all sorts of ways from the average high fight and perhaps die in our major wars were gener- school student, even aside from their greater academic ally called into the military by the process of a ran- ability and drive; they might not be “diverse” in any dom draft lottery. And today, the enormous growth of sense of the word, whether geographically, ethnically, games of chance and financial lotteries, often govern- or socio-economically. But the remaining 1300 Outer ment-run, have become an unfortunate but very pop- Ring students would represent a random cross-section ular aspect of our entire economic system. Compared of the tens of thousands of students who applied for to these situations, requiring an excellent but hardly admission and had reasonably good academic abil- spectacular student to take his chances on winning a ity, and since they would constitute 80 percent of the spot at Harvard or Yale hardly seems unreasonable. enrollment, Harvard would almost certainly become In The Big Test, journalist Nicholas Lemann traces far more diverse and representative of America’s total the history of meritocratic admissions policy, and population in almost all ways than is the case today, the philosophical conflicts which liberals faced once when 30 percent of its students come from private

42 THE AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE DECEMBER 2012 schools, often the most elite and expensive ones.117 doors open before him, but not one who graduated in Furthermore, the vast majority of Harvard gradu- the bottom half of his class. ates—and everyone who later dealt with them— This same approach of an Inner Ring and an Out- would know perfectly well that they had merely been er Ring of admissions could similarly be applied to “lucky” in gaining their admission, thereby temper- most of America’s other selective colleges, perhaps ing the sort of arrogance found among too many with some variations in the relative sizes of the two of today’s elite college graduates. And our vast and groups. It is possible that some universities such as growing parasitic infrastructure of expensive cram- Caltech, which today selects its 200 entering freshmen schools, private tutors, special academies, and college by purely meritocratic academic rank-order, might application consultants would quickly be reduced prefer to retain that system, in which case the Inner to what was merited by their real academic value, Ring would constitute the entire enrollment. Other which may actually be close to nil. A general armi- universities, which glorify the extremes of total diver- stice would have been declared in America’s endlessly sity, might choose to select almost all their students by growing elite admissions arms-race. random lot. But for most, the sort of split enrollment I Under such a system, Harvard might no longer have outlined might work reasonably well. boast of having America’s top Lacrosse player or a Since colleges would still be positioned in a hierar- Carnegie Hall violinist or a Senatorial scion. But the chy of national excellence and prestige, those students class would be filled with the sort of reasonably tal- whose academic record just missed placing them ented and reasonably serious athletes, musicians, and within the Inner Ring of a Harvard or a Yale would al- activists drawn as a cross-section from the tens of most certainly gain automatic admission to a Colum- thousands of qualified applicants, thereby providing a bia, Cornell, or Duke, and the same sort of cascading far more normal and healthier range of students. effect would be found down through all subsequent The terrible family pressure which students, espe- layers of selectivity. Thus, although America’s top cially immigrant students, often today endure in the couple of thousand students each year would not all college admissions process would be greatly reduced. be found among the 4000 entering Harvard, Yale, or Even the most ambitious parents would usually recog- Princeton, they would at least gain admission to some nize that their sons and daughters are unlikely to ever Ivy or its equivalent, in contrast to the shocking ex- outrank 99.99 percent of their fellow students academ- amples of admissions injustice recounted by Golden. ically, so their only hope of reaching a school like Har- Since essays, personal statements, lists of extra- vard would be the same as that of everyone else, via the curricular achievements and so many other uniquely admissions lottery. And losing in a random drawing complex and time-consuming elements of the Amer- can hardly be a source of major shame to any family. ican admissions process would no longer exist, stu- One of the most harmful aspects of recent Ameri- dents could easily apply to long lists of possible col- can society has been the growth of a winner-take-all leges, ranking them in order of personal preference. mentality, in which finishing even just slightly below Meanwhile, the colleges themselves could dispense the top rung at any stage of the career ladder seems with nearly their entire admissions staff, since the to amount to economic and sometimes personal fail- only remaining part of the admissions process would ure. An aspect of this is that our most elite businesses be determining the academic ranking of the tiny tend to only recruit from the top universities, assum- fraction of top applicants, which could be performed ing that these possess a near-monopoly on the bright- quickly and easily. Harvard currently receives almost est and most talented students, even though it actu- 35,000 applications, which must each be individu- ally appears that favoritism and corruption these days ally read and evaluated in a massive undertaking, are huge factors in admission. But if it were explicitly but applying a crude automatic filter of grades and known that the vast majority of Harvard students had test scores would easily winnow these down to the merely been winners in the application lottery, top 1,000 plausible candidates for those 300 Inner Ring businesses would begin to cast a much wider net in slots, allowing a careful evaluation of those highest- their employment outreach, and while the average performing students on pure academic grounds. Harvard student would probably be academically Eliminating at a stroke the enormous expense and stronger than the average graduate of a state college, complexity of our baroque admissions process might the gap would no longer be seen as so enormous, with actually raise the quality of the students attending elite individuals being judged more on their own merits colleges by drawing more applicants into the system, and actual achievements. A Harvard student who especially if, as I suggest elsewhere, tuition at our top graduated magna cum laude would surely have many private colleges were drastically reduced or even elim-

DECEMBER 2012 THE AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE 43 Education

inated (See “Paying Tuition to a Giant Hedge Fund”). Karabel, Steinberg, and Lemann, have critiqued and The late James Q. Wilson certainly ranked as one rebuked the America of the first half of the Twenti- of America’s most highly-regarded social scientists eth Century for having been governed by a narrow of the second half of the twentieth century, and WASP ascendency, which overwhelmingly dominat- when he was awarded the Gold Medal of the Nation- ed and controlled the commanding heights of busi- al Institute of Social Sciences in 2011, his remarks ness, finance, education, and politics; and some of provided some fascinating details of his own educa- their criticisms are not unreasonable. But we should tional background. Although an outstanding high bear in mind that this dominant group of White school student in Southern California, no one in Anglo-Saxon Protestants—largely descended from his family had ever previously attended college nor among the earliest American settlers and which had had he himself given it any thought, instead starting gradually absorbed and assimilated substantial ele- work in his father’s auto repair shop after graduation ments of Celtic, Dutch, German, and French back- in order to learn the trade of a car mechanic. How- ground—was generally aligned in culture, religion, ever, one of his teachers arranged his admission to a ideology, and ancestry with perhaps 60 percent of small college on a full scholarship, which launched America’s total population at the time, and therefore him on his stellar academic career.118 hardly represented an alien presence.119 By contrast, It seems likely that the vast paperwork and expense a similarly overwhelming domination by a tiny seg- of today’s admissions system, with its endless forms, ment of America’s current population, one which is intrusive questionnaires, fee-waiver-applications, and completely misaligned in all these respects, seems general bureaucracy intimidates many bright students, far less inherently stable, especially when the insti- especially those from impoverished or immigrant tutional roots of such domination have continu- backgrounds, and deters them from even consider- ally increased despite the collapse of the supposedly ing an application to our elite colleges, especially since meritocratic justification. This does not seem like a they perhaps wrongly assume that they would stand recipe for a healthy and successful society, nor one no chance of success. But filling out a few very simple which will even long survive in anything like its cur- forms and having their test scores and grades scores au- rent form. tomatically forwarded to a list of possible universities Power corrupts and an extreme concentration of would give them at least the same chance in the lottery power even more so, especially when that concentra- as any other applicant whose academic skills were ad- tion of power is endlessly praised and glorified by the equate. major media and the prominent intellectuals which

ollowing the 1991 collapse and disintegra- Ftion of the Soviet Union, some observers GDP per capita growth noted with unease that the United States was Constant international dollars adjusted for purchasing power parity left as about the only remaining large and fully- Ratios, 1980=100 functional multi-ethnic society, and the subse- 1,300 quent collapse and disintegration of ethnically 1,200

diverse Yugoslavia merely strengthened these 1,100 concerns. China is sometimes portrayed by the ignorant American media as having large and 1,000 restive minority populations, but it is 92 percent 900 China Han Chinese, and if we exclude a few outlying 800 or thinly populated provinces—the equivalents of Alaska, Hawaii, and New Mexico—closer 700 to 95 percent Han, with all its top leadership 600

drawn from that same background and there- 500 fore possessing a natural alignment of interests. Without doubt, America’s great success despite 400 its multiplicity of ethnic nationalities is almost 300 unique in modern human history. But such suc- U.S. 200 cess should not be taken for granted. Many of the Jewish writers who focus on the 100 history of elite university admissions, including ’80 ’85 ’90 ’95 ’00 ’05 ’10

44 THE AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE DECEMBER 2012 together constitute such an important element of that have been produced largely as a consequence of the power. But as time goes by and more and more Ameri- particular selection methods adopted by our top na- cans notice that they are poorer and more indebted tional universities in the late 1960s. Leaving aside the than they have ever been before, the blandishments of question of whether these methods have been fair or such propaganda machinery will eventually lose effec- have instead been based on corruption and ethnic tiveness, much as did the similar propaganda organs favoritism, the elites they have produced have clearly of the decaying Soviet state. Kahlenberg quotes Pat done a very poor job of leading our country, and Moynihan as noting that the stagnant American earn- we must change the methods used to select them. ings between 1970 and 1985 represented “the longest Conservative William F. Buckley, Jr. once famously stretch of ‘flat’ income in the history of the European quipped that he would rather entrust the govern- settlement of North America.”120 The only difference ment of the United States to the first 400 names today is that this period of economic stagnation has listed in the Boston telephone directory than to the now extended nearly three times as long, and has also faculty of Harvard. So perhaps an important step in been combined with numerous social, moral, and for- solving our national problems would be to apply a eign policy disasters. similar method to selecting the vast majority of Har- Over the last few decades America’s ruling elites vard’s students.

Appendices to this article can be found at www.theamericanconservative.com/meritocracy-appendices

Paying Tuition to a Giant Hedge Fund rom its 1636 foundation Harvard had always even twenty times that figure, rendering net tuition ranked as America’s oldest and most presti- from those thousands of students a mere financial gious college, even as it gradually grew in size bagatelle, having almost no impact on the university’s and academic quality during the first three cash-flow or balance-sheet position. If all the students Fcenturies of its existence. The widespread destruction disappeared tomorrow—or were forced to pay double brought about by the Second World War laid low its their current tuition—the impact would be negligible traditional European rivals, and not long after cele- compared to the crucial fluctuations in the mortgage- brating its third centennial, Harvard had become the derivatives market or the international cost-of-funds world’s greatest university. index. Harvard only improved its standing during the A very similar conclusion may be drawn by ex- successful American postwar decades, and by its amining the expense side of the university’s fi- 350th anniversary in 1986 was almost universally nancial statement. Harvard’s Division of Arts and recognized as the leader of the world’s academic com- Sciences—the central core of academic activity— munity. But over the decade or two which followed, contains approximately 450 full professors, whose it quietly embarked upon a late-life career change, annual salaries tend to average the highest at any transforming itself into one of the world’s largest university in America. Each year, these hundreds of hedge funds, with some sort of school or college or great scholars and teachers receive aggregate total something attached off to one side for tax reasons. pay of around $85 million. But in fiscal 2004, just The numbers tell the story. Each September, Har- the five top managers of the Harvard endowment vard’s 6,600 undergraduates begin their classes at the fund shared total compensation of $78 million, an Ivy-covered walls of its traditional Cambridge cam- amount which was also roughly 100 times the sala- pus owing annual tuition of around $37,000 for the ry of Harvard’s own president. These figures clearly privilege, up from just $13,000 in 1990. Thus, over demonstrate the relative importance accorded to the the last two decades, total tuition income (in current financial and academic sides of Harvard’s activities. dollars) has increased from about $150 million to al- Unlike universities, the business model of large most $250 million, with a substantial fraction of this and aggressive hedge funds is notoriously volatile, list-price amount being discounted in the form of the and during the 2008 Financial Crisis, Harvard lost university’s own financial aid to the families of its less $11 billion on its net holdings, teetering on the verge wealthy students. of bankruptcy as its highly illiquid assets could Meanwhile, during most of these years, Harvard’s not easily be redeployed to cover hundreds of mil- own endowment has annually grown by five or ten or lions of dollars in ongoing capital commitments to

DECEMBER 2012 THE AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE 45 Education

various private equity funds. The desperate hedge plicant who is reasonably competitive and $10 mil- fund—ahem, academic institution—was forced to lion for one who is not. Daniel Golden’s The Price of borrow $2.5 billion from the credit markets, lay off Admission provides a specific example which tends to hundreds of university employees, and completely generally confirm this disturbing belief. halt construction work on a huge expansion project, But if such claims are true, then Harvard is fol- ultimately surviving and later recovering in much lowing an absurd policy, selling off its good name the same way as did Goldman Sachs or Citibank. and reputation for just pennies on the dollar, not During all these untoward events, the dollars be- least because the sums involved represent merely a ing paid in by physics majors and being paid out to day or two of its regular endowment income. Har- professors of medieval French literature were of no vard surely ranks as the grandest academic name in significance whatsoever, and if institutional investors the world, carrying a weight of prestige that could be had balked at the massive bond sales, both groups leveraged to extract far greater revenue at far lower might have arrived at the classroom one morning cost of academic dignity. only to see a “Closed for Bankruptcy” notice, while Suppose, for example, that instead of such sur- Cerberus Capital Management and the Blackstone reptitious and penny-ante wheeling and dealing, Group began furiously bidding for the liquidated Harvard simply auctioned off a single admissions real estate properties and private equity holdings of slot each year to the highest blind bidder on the in- what had once been America’s most storied center of ternational markets. I suspect that the same sorts of learning. Meanwhile, Bill Gates might have swooped individuals who currently pay $50 million or $100 in and acquired the unimportant educational prop- million for a splotchy painting they can hang on erties themselves for a song, afterward renaming the their walls would surely be willing to spend a simi- campus itself Microsoft U.-East. lar amount to have their son or daughter embossed It is commendable that so many former students with the Harvard stamp of approval. The key fac- feel gratitude to their academic alma mater, but per- tor is that such prestige goods are almost entirely sonal loyalty to a wealthy hedge fund is somewhat positional in value, with most of the benefit derived less warranted, and if Harvard’s residual and de from the satisfaction of having outbid your rival In- minimis educational activities provide it with enor- ternet billionaires, oil sheikhs, or Russian oligarchs, mous tax advantages, perhaps those activities should so the higher the price goes, the more valuable the be brought into greater alignment with benefit to our commodity becomes. And since the goal would society. The typical private foundation is legally re- be to extract as much money as possible from the quired to spend 5 percent of its assets on charitable wealthy bidders, a non-refundable bidding deposit activities, and with Harvard’s endowment now back of 2 percent or 5 percent, win or lose, might double over $30 billion, that sum would come to around $1.5 or triple the total dollars raised. billion annually. This is many times the total amount Thus, instead of extracting steep net tuition from of undergraduate tuition, which should obviously be thousands of undergraduates (and perhaps quietly eliminated, thereby removing a substantial financial selling a handful of spots each year for a few million barrier to enrollment or even application. dollars each), Harvard could probably raise just as One of the major supposed reasons Harvard dis- much revenue by enrolling a single under-qualified proportionately admits the children of the wealthy or student in a process which would publicly establish those of its alumni is the desperate need to maintain the gigantic financial value contained in a Harvard its educational quality by soliciting donations, and the diploma. It’s even quite likely that a useful side-ben- endless irritations of fund-raising drives are an inevita- efit of the publicity would be a large rise in Harvard’s ble accompaniment to the reunion process. But the all- total applicants, including those of highest quality, as time record for a total alumni class contribution was set families all across the country and the world sought earlier this year by the Class of 1977 at just $68.7 mil- to obtain at zero cost the exact same product which a lion, or about 0.2 percent of the existing endowment; billionaire had just bought for $70 million. and even the aggregate amount of annual alumni do- If Harvard wishes to retain its primary existence nations to support the college is quite trivial compared as a gigantic profit-maximizing hedge fund, that is to the overall income and expenditure statement. well and good, but meanwhile perhaps it should be There is also the Internet gossip of an explicit required to provide a free top quality college educa- “Harvard Price,” a specific donation dollar amount tion to a few thousand deserving students as a minor which would get your son or daughter admitted. The community service. figure is said to be $5 million these days for an ap- —Ron Unz

46 THE AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE DECEMBER 2012 PRIMARY BIBLIOGRAPHY

The Shape of the River (1998) William G. Bowen and Choosing Elites (1985) Robert Klitgaard Derek Bok The Big Test (1999) Nicholas Lemann Equity and Excellence in American Higher Education (2005) William G. Bowen, Martin A. Kurzweil, and The Chosen People: A Study of Jewish Intelligence and Eugene M. Tobin Achievement (2011) Richard Lynn

Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother (2011) Amy Chua How to Be a High School Superstar (2010) Cal Newport

No Longer Separate, Not Yet Equal (2009) Thomas J. Joining the Club: A History of Jews and Yale (1985) Espenshade and Alexandria Walton Radford Dan A. Oren

The Price of Admission (2006) Daniel Golden How They Got Into Harvard (2005) The Harvard Crimson Twilight of the Elites (2012) Christopher Hayes The Gatekeepers (2002/2012) Jacques Steinberg A Is For Admission (1997) Michele A. Hernandez The Half-Opened Door (1979/2010) Marcia Graham Liquidated: An Ethnography of Wall Street (2009) Synnott Karen Ho The Retreat from Race (1992/1998) Dana Y. Takagi Asian Americans in Higher Education and at Work (1988) Jayjia Hsia The Abilities and Achievements of Orientals in North America (1982) Philip E. Vernon What It Really Takes to Get into the Ivy League (2003) Chuck Hughes The Creative Elite in America (1966) Nathaniel Weyl

The Chosen (2005) Jerome Karabel The Geography of American Achievement (1989) Nathaniel Weyl

ENDNOTES

1 “Harvard Says 125 Students May Have Cheated on a Final and probably do not capture the dramatic recent changes in the Exam,” Richard Perez-Pena and Jess Bidgood, The New York American economy and Wall Street practices since that time. Times, August 30, 2012: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/31/ See David Leonhardt, “Revisiting the Value of Elite Colleges,” education/harvard-says-125-students-may-have-cheated-on- The New York Times, February 21, 2011: http://economix.blogs. exam.html nytimes.com/2011/02/21/revisiting-the-value-of-elite-colleges/. 2 By 2010, the top 1% of Americans possessed 35.4% of the 4 Ezra Klein, “Wall Street Steps In When Ivy League Fails,” national net wealth, while the bottom 95% held 36.9%. See Ed- Washington Post, February 16, 2012: http://www.washington- ward N. Wolff, “The Asset Price Meltdown and the Wealth of post.com/business/economy/wall-street-steps-in-when-ivy- the Middle Class,” New York University, August 26, 2012: http:// league-fails/2012/02/16/gIQAX2weIR_story.html appam.confex.com/appam/2012/webprogram/Paper2134.html. 5 Austin Bramwell, “Top of the Class,” The American Conserva- 3 See Ho (2009) pp. 11, 13, 40-69 passim, 256 for an extensive tive, March 13, 2012: http://www.theamericanconservative. discussion of the college background and recruitment choices com/articles/top-of-the-class/ made by Wall Street firms in recent years. According to her 6 As an example of these extreme efforts, see “NYC’s Kindergar- “ethnography” of Wall Street, major financial firms recruit ten Wars,” The New York Post/PageSix Magazine, October 5, very heavily from Harvard and Princeton, somewhat less at 2008: http://www.nypost.com/pagesixmag/issues/20081005/ the remaining Ivy League schools and a few others such as NYCs+Kindergarten+Wars Stanford and MIT, and rarely anywhere else, partly because 7 Jenny Anderson and Peter Applebome, “Exam Cheating on they believe admission to elite universities provide evidence of Long Island Hardly a Secret,” The New York Times, December “smartness,” which Wall Street values above all else (p. 38). 1, 2011: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/02/education/on- The claim that attendance at an Ivy League or other elite long-island-sat-cheating-was-hardly-a-secret.html university provides a substantial advantage over similarly 8 Golden (2006) pp. 44-48. talented individuals has been disputed by the recent research 9 Ssu-yu Teng, “Chinese Influence on the Western Examination Sys- of Stacy Dale and Alan B. Krueger, but their findings are based tem,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, Sept. 1943, pp. 267-312. on students who graduated college almost two decades ago, 10 Karabel (2005) pp. 89-109.

DECEMBER 2012 THE AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE 47 Education

11 Oren (1985) p. 62. difficulty is quite insignificant. First, mixed-race Asians are only 12 Karabel (2005) p. 126. about 15% of the total Asian population, and are excluded from 13 Karabel (2005) pp. 387-391. our Asian statistics for college enrollments. Meanwhile, until 14 Karabel (2005) p. 364 quite recently, the overwhelming majority of marriages between 15 Karabel (2005) pp. 93, 194-195, 486-499. Asians and non-Asians involved an Asian wife, hence the last 16 Karabel (2005) pp. 524-525. names of any children would tend not to be Asian and would be 17 Admittedly, surveys show that the vast majority of Asian- excluded from our list analysis. Thus, both our college enroll- Americans do not believe their racial background hurts their ment figures and our academic performance estimates tend to chances of college admission, but such factors would obviously exclude part-Asians and should be fully consistent. apply primarily only at the elite, highly selective universities, 30 The 2000 Census lists 310,125 Nguyens, or about 1 in 3.6 of the which only a small fraction of Asians seek to attend. See “The total Vietnamese population of 1,122,528. Meanwhile, there were Rise of Asian Americans,” Pew Research Center, June 19, 2012: 194,067 Kims, representing 1 in 5.5 of the 1,076,872 Koreans. http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2012/06/19/the-rise-of-asian- 31 Weyl (1987) pp. 26-27. americans/. 32 Stephan and Abigail Thernstrom, America in Black and White 18 Jesse Washington, “Some Asians’ College Strategy: Don’t Check (1997) pp. 398-400 provides some racial statistics on the past ‘Asian,’” The Associated Press, December 3, 1011: distribution of top SAT scores which would strongly support http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/education/ this conclusion. In 1981, Asians were just 2% of the college-age story/2011-12-03/asian-students-college- population but accounted for over 4% of students with Verbal applications/51620236/1. See also Jon Marcus, “Competitive scores of 700 or above and 11% of those with Math scores of 750 Disadvantage,” The Boston Globe, April 17, 2011: http://www. or above. By 1995, college-age Asians were still just 3% of the boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2011/04/17/ total, but produced over 14% of those high Verbal scores and a high_achieving_asian_americans_are_being_shut_out_of_ remarkable 28% of the high Math scores. Since Asian-Amer- top_schools/ and Scott Jaschik, “Is It Bias? Is It Legal?,” Inside icans have now increased to roughly 5% of students of college Higher Ed, February 3, 2012: http://www.insidehighered.com/ age and have also become much more affluent, we would expect news/2012/02/03/federal-probe-raises-new-questions-discrimi- such figures to be far higher today. nation-against-asian-american-applicants. 33 Although the primary measure of human “fluid intelli- 19 Espanshade (2009) p. 92-93. gence”—so-called “g”—is measured consistently across dif- 20 Golden (2006) p. 200. ferent groups, for reasons not entirely clear the three principal 21 The elite university enrollment statistics for Asians and other subcomponents of Verbal, Mathematical, and Visuospatial racial and ethnic groups derived from the NCES data are abilities sometimes vary substantially across racial or ethnic provided in Appendix C. All the Asian figures provided by the lines.. For example, East Asians tend to be especially strong NCES exclude “mixed race” individuals, who were previously in Visuospatial ability but much less so in Verbal ability, Jews included in the “Race Unknown” category but since 2009 have are extremely strong in Verbal but mediocre in Visuospatial been provided separately. skills, while most white Europeans tend to be intermediate in 22 Hsia (1988) pp. 93-148, Takagi (1992/1998). both these different categories. See Vernon (1982) pp. 20-21, 23 For example, see Oren (1985) pp. 320-322 and Synnott 160-163, 178-180, 272-277. (1979/2010) pp. 112,195. 34 Suein Hwang, “The New White Flight,” The Wall Street 24 A portion of this decline in relative Asian enrollment may be ap- Journal, November 19, 2005: http://online.wsj.com/article/ parent rather than real. As noted earlier, some Asian applicants, SB113236377590902105-search.html. especially those of mixed parentage and without an identifying 35 At his 1992 Milwaukee trial, Jeffrey Dahmer freely admitted Asian name, may attempt to conceal their non-white ancestry torturing, killing, and cannibalizing 17 young men, but vigor- in hopes of enhancing their likelihood of admission. But such ously denied he had selected his mostly black victims out of any a situation can hardly be used to justify Ivy League policy, and racial bias. In a more typical case, after black Connecticut truck since the numbers are unknown, we must generally confine our driver Omar Thornton massacred five of his white co-workers, analysis to the officially reported statistics. the media focused considerable attention on whether they had 25 It should be noted that some former Ivy League admissions been innocent victims or “racists” as Thornton had alleged. officers strongly deny such charges of anti-Asian bias. For ex- 36 In recent years, the Reading and Writing SAT scores for enter- ample, Chuck Hughes, who spent five years as a Harvard Senior ing freshmen at all four universities have been almost identical, Admissions Officer, claims in his 2003 book that Asian American while the Math SAT scores at Caltech have been significantly applicants—just like blacks, Hispanics, American Indians, and higher, as have been the percentages of National Merit Scholars. other non-whites—actually receive a beneficial “tip” in evaluating See the NCES website: http://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/ and their application packages. It should also be noted that Hughes Steve Hsu, “Elite Universities and Human Capital Mongering,” strongly emphasizes his own enthusiastic participation in varsity October 10, 2010: http://infoproc.blogspot.com/2010/10/elite- sports as a Harvard undergraduate, while avoiding mention of any universities-and-human-capital.html. academic interests. See Hughes (2003) pp. 86, 145. 37 Indeed, the 1988 official register of Harvard, intended for 26 Hsia (1988) pp. 98-99; Karabel (2005) p. 500. prospective applicants, actually described the Harvard admis- 27 Indeed, Dean L. Fred Jewett of Harvard suggested in 1985 that sions process as “complex, subjective, and sometimes difficult among Asians “family pressure makes more marginal students to comprehend.” See Takagi (1992/1998) p. 63. apply” but provided no evidence for this claim, which seems 38 As Asian applications to the University of California system contradicted by the objective evidence. See Hsia (1988) p. 97. grew rapidly during the 1980s, there were major efforts to 28 College Confidential, September 16, 2011: replace a simple and objective meritocratic admissions system http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/13210307-post724.html. with a “holistic” and opaque system, closer to that of the 29 One apparent difficulty in such Asian surname analysis might Ivies, which had the initial effect of sharply reducing Asian be the case of mixed-race individuals with Asian names, but this admissions. See Hsia (1988) pp. 106-119, Takagi (1992/1998).

48 THE AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE DECEMBER 2012 However, political resistance by Asian groups in California tures/2011/12/winklevosses-201112. and especially the subsequent passage of Proposition 209 48 For decades, comparing and contrasting Asian-Americans eventually overcame these policies. with Jews has been a commonplace in public policy analysis, 39 Earlier this month, a lengthy New York Times article on given that both groups are small but high-performing minori- Asian admissions issues written by the newspaper’s former ties in American society. See, for example, “The Triumph of Education Editor argued that the use of objective admissions Asian-Americans” and “Asians and Jews,” David A. Bell, The standards had caused the Berkeley and UCLA campuses to New Republic, July 15-22, 1985 and Michael Barone, The New become more than half Asian, and suggested that this had led Americans (2001) pp. 193-274. Indeed, one-third of Barone’s to adverse social and educational consequences. However, this book consists of the section entitled “Jews and Asians.” Most claim contains serious factual errors, given that the 2011 Asian recently, the entire front page of the Wall Street Journal Weekly undergraduate enrollments were just 37% and 34% respec- Review section was devoted to exactly this topic; see Lee Siegel, tively, and had never come close to half at any point in history. “Rise of the Tiger Nation,” Wall Street Journal, October 27-28, See Ethan Bronner, “Asian-Americans in the Argument,” The 2012: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405297020407620 New York Times, November 4, 2012: http://www.nytimes. 4578076613986930932.html. com/2012/11/04/education/edlife/affirmative-action-a-compli- 49 Jewish enrollment estimates for elite universities are summa- cated-issue-for-asian-americans.html. rized in Appendix D. 40 Asians are currently 72% of the students at Stuyvesant and 63% 50 Karabel (2005) p. 536. at Bronx Science, while the latter school was just 20% Asian in 51 Since the overwhelming majority of Harvard’s foreign students 1986. See Kyle Spencer, “For Asians, School Tests Are Vital Step- are drawn from non-white countries or countries with negligible pingstones,” The New York Times, October 28, 2012: Jewish populations, it is likely that nearly all the Jewish students http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/27/education/a-grueling-ad- reported by Hillel are American. However, 6.2% of Harvard missions-test-highlights-a-racial-divide.html and Deborah An- undergraduates refused to report their race in 2011, and many derluh, “High School for Gifted Kids May Open in L.A.,” The of these, possibly a majority, may actually be white. This “Race Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, September 28, 1986: http://www. Unknown” category has typically ranged between 5% and 15% ronunz.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/HeraldExaminer- of Harvard undergraduates over the last couple of decades, with 1986-SAS1.jpg. roughly similar numbers at most other Ivy League schools. 41 In the mid-1980s, charges that anti-Asian discrimination in 52 For all these Jewish demographic estimates, see Appendix B. the UC system were similar to the old “Jewish quotas” of the 53 The combined undergraduate enrollment of the eight Ivy Ivy League quickly provoked television network coverage. See League universities includes roughly 12,000 Jews, 9,000 Takagi (1992/1998) pp. 50-51. Asians, and 13,000 non-Jewish whites, as well as 5,000 students 42 Media coverage played a huge role in influencing the growth whose racial background is unknown. The population of and outcome of the battle over the admissions of Asians to the college-age Americans consists of roughly 10 million whites, UC system. See Takagi (1992/1998) pp.49-51, 74-77, 100-103. including 300,000 Jews, and 800,000 Asians. 43 Asian-Americans had 2010 median annual household income of 54 Steve Sailer, “National Merit Semifinalists by School $66,000, about 22% higher than the white figure and were almost and Name,” September 18, 2010: http://isteve.blogspot. 60% more likely to have graduated from college, in each case com/2010/09/national-merit-semifinalists-by-school.html; ranking the highest of any racial group. See “The Rise of Asian “The Far East Rises in the West,” Takimag.com, February 29, Americans,” Pew Research Center, June 19, 2012: http://www. 2012: http://takimag.com/article/the_far_east_rises_in_the_ pewsocialtrends.org/2012/06/19/the-rise-of-asian-americans/. west_steve_sailer/print; “More Views on California Surnames 44 In defending Harvard against 1980s accusations of anti-Asian of Semifinalists,” February 29, 2012: http://isteve.blogspot. discrimination in admissions, Dean Fred Jewett made exactly com/2012/02/more-views-on-california-sunrnames-of.html. this point regarding the impact of Asian geographical concen- Obviously such a Jewish surname analysis would miss the chil- tration. See Takagi (1992/1998) p. 69. dren of intermarried families in which the husband was non- 45 These were exactly the arguments made by a relatively recent Jewish, hence only count half the half-Jews. However, any such Harvard graduate who had served as Editor-in-Chief of the errors introduced are probably small relative to the broader Harvard Independent and also reported on admissions prac- uncertainty in defining and estimating total Jewish numbers, tices. See Matthew Yglesias, “Harvard and Princeton Clearly the ambiguity in identifying Jewish names, and the likely esti- Discriminate Against Asian Applicants; the Question Is mation errors in the Jewish college enrollment statistics. Whether It’s Illegal,” Slate.com, February 14, 2012: http://www. 55 Fernanda Santos, “To Be Black at Stuyvesant High,” The slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2012/02/14/harvard_and_prince- New York Times, February 25, 2012: http://www.nytimes. ton_clearly_discriminate_against_asian_appliants_the_ques- com/2012/02/26/education/black-at-stuyvesant-high-one- tion_is_whether_it_s_illegal.html. girls-experience.html. In 2012, Asians were 72.5% of Stuyves- 46 Daniel Golden, “Harvard Targeted in U.S. Asian-American Dis- ant students, with all whites at just 24%, of whom an unspeci- crimination Probe, Bloomberg News, February 2, 2012: http:// fied fraction were Jewish. Charles Murray has noted that in www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-02/harvard-targeted-in-u- 1954, Jewish children comprised 24/28 or 85% of the highest- s-asian-american-discrimination-probe.html; Daniel E. Slotnik, scoring students in NYC on a citywide IQ test, although at that “Do Asian-Americans Face Bias in Admissions at Elite Col- point Jews were probably a little less than 30% of the city’s total leges?,” The New York Times, February 8, 2012: http://thechoice. white population, so a similar degree of over-representation at blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/08/do-asian-americans-face- the local elite academic schools seems plausible. See Charles bias-in-admissions-at-elite-colleges/; Editorial, “A Ludicrous Murray, “Jewish Genius,” Commentary, April 2007. Lawsuit,” The Harvard Crimson, February 8, 2012: http://www. 56 Weyl (1989) p. 26-27. thecrimson.com/article/2012/2/8/lawsuit-admissions-fair/. 57 Vernon (1982) 160-162, 178-179, 273; Richard Lynn, “The 47 Dana Vachon, “The Code of the Winklevii,” Vanity Fair, Intelligence of American Jews,” Personality and Individual December 2011: http://www.vanityfair.com/business/fea- Differences, January 2004; Margaret E. Backman, “Patterns of

DECEMBER 2012 THE AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE 49 Education

Mental Abilities: Ethnic, Socioeconomic, and Sex Differences,” generous-college-donations-of-all-time/. American Educational Research Journal, Winter 1972. 75 Hughes (2003) p. 31. In 2003, roughly 450 students with perfect 58 Evidence that these low Jewish enrollments are due to meri- SAT scores of 1600 applied to Harvard, and fewer than 200 tocratic admissions factors rather than merely lack of possible were accepted. For the 2000 rates, see Steinberg (2002) p. 220, applicants may be seen if we compare different UC campuses. and for the case of Princeton, see Kim Clark, “Do Elite Private Berkeley and UCLA are the most selective, and at those Jew- Colleges Discriminate Against Asian Students?,” US News & ish enrollment averages about 9.5% or about one-quarter the World Report, October 7, 2009: http://www.usnews.com/edu- Asian total; meanwhile, Santa Cruz and Santa Barbara are cation/articles/2009/10/07/do-elite-private-colleges-discrimi- much less selective, and the Jewish percentages are nearly nate-against-asian-students. twice as high and also close to the local Asian figures. Jewish 76 William R. Fitzsimmons, “Guidance Office: Answers From enrollments are also very substantial at the lower-tier Califor- Harvard’s Dean, Part 2,” The New York Times, September nia State University system, with numbers being much higher 11, 2009: http://thechoice.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/11/ both at CS Northridge than nearby UCLA and at San Diego harvarddean-part2/ State compared to UCSD. Large numbers of Jewish students 77 Hughes (2003) 49, 57-58. also attend the schools in the lowest-tier community college 78 Karabel (2005) pp. 292, 311. system as well, such as Pierce College in the San Fernando 79 Privacy considerations prevent the public release of informa- Valley. If these Jewish students had had higher academic per- tion on honors degrees awarded to graduates, but the top formance, most would almost certainly have selected the much 10% of each Harvard class is inducted into Phi Beta Kappa, more prestigious University of California campuses. the national honors society, and the university’s PBK rosters 59 Kimball A. Milton and Jagdish Mehra, Climbing the Mountain: of the last fifty years are available on the Internet: http:// The Scientific Biography of Julian Schwinger, 2003, p. 218. isites.harvard.edu/icb/icb.do?keyword=k19082&pageid=icb. 60 Weyl (1989) p. 26-27 estimates Jews as having a “performance page189954. Thirty or forty years ago, Jewish names were coefficient” of 339 on the 1987 NMS semifinalist list. Since very common on the PBK lists, but more recently they have Jews were then approximately 2.4% of the American popula- dropped to fairly low levels. It appears that Harvard’s non- tion, they would have been roughly 8.1% of the 1987 NMS Jewish whites are now perhaps five times as likely as their semifinalists. Jewish classmates to achieve such high academic performance, 61 David W. Murray, “The War Against Testing,” Commentary, with Asian students doing nearly as well. See Appendix G. September 1998. In recent years, Jewish conservatives have often been in 62 California contains a large fraction of America’s mainland the forefront of accusations that ethnic favoritism leads elite Japanese-Americans, who represent approximately 1.1% of the academic institutions to unfairly admit large numbers of state’s population, while roughly 0.8% of the state’s NMS semi- blacks and Hispanics, who subsequently underperform once finalists have Japanese surnames. However, the older mean on campus. But perhaps such critics should consider looking age of this group implies that it probably represents a relatively into a mirror. reduced fraction of the high school population. 80 Karabel (2005) p. 667n95. 63 Weyl (1966) pp. 53-54, 83-84. 81 Harvard’s most recent presidents have been Neil Rudenstine 64 Most recently, Judge Richard Posner, one of America’s most (1991-2001), Larry Summers (2001-2006), and Drew Faust highly regarded jurists, made such a claim that Jews have a (2007-present); the first two were of Jewish ancestry, while mean IQ of 115 on his blog, together with an even more absurd the last has been married to Charles E. Rosenberg since 1980. claim that the same was also true for Asian-Americans. See Richard Levin has served as president of Yale since 1993, as “Rating Teachers,” The Becker-Posner Blog, September 23, did Harold Shapiro at Princeton (1988-2001), while the current 2012, http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/2012/09/rating- presidents of Penn and Cornell are Amy Gutmann (2004-pres- teachersposner.html. ent), and David Skorton (2006-present) respectively, all of Jew- 65 Lynn (2011) pp. 274-278. ish origins, as is Yale’s newly named incoming president Peter 66 Ron Unz, “Race, IQ, and Wealth,” The American Conserva- Salovey. In addition, former NYC Mayor Ed Koch identified tive, August 2012: http://www.theamericanconservative.com/ Columbia President Lee Bollinger (2002-present) as being of articles/race-iq-and-wealth/. Jewish ancestry in an angry column regarding Iran, but I have 67 For example, the GSS indicates that just 3% of Jews live in been unable to independently verify that claim. See Ed Koch, rural areas, a tenth of the overall white rate, while Jews are “Columbia Prez Should Have Stood Up for America, Too,” Jew- over twice as likely to live in major cities or suburbs than the ish World Review, September 26, 2007. general white population. 82 Princeton’s last seven provosts have been Neil Rudenstine 68 Helmuth Nyborg, “The Intelligence-Religiosity Nexus: A Rep- (1977-1987), Paul Benacerraf (1988-1991), Hugo Sonnenschein resentative Study of White Adolescent Americans,” (1991-1993), Stephen Goldfeld (1993-1995), Jeremiah Ostriker Intelligence (2009) pp. 81-93. (1995-2001), Amy Guttmann (2001-2004), and Christopher 69 See Appendix A. Eisgruber (2004-present), and all were of Jewish ancestry. Four 70 Sam Roberts, “A Village With the Numbers, Not the Image, of the of Harvard’s last five provosts have had similar ethnicity, as Poorest Place,” The New York Times, April 20, 2011: well as three of three at Brown and two of five at Yale, includ- http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/21/nyregion/kiryas-joel-a-vil- ing in each case the current officeholder. lage-with-the-numbers-not-the-image-of-the-poorest-place.html. 83 Fox Butterfield, “Harvard’s ‘Core’ Dean Glances Back,” The 71 See Appendix G. New York Times, June 2, 1984. 72 Ron Unz, “Some Minorities Are More Minor Than Others,” The 84 See Appendix D. It is also curious that the weighty 1998 Wall Street Journal, November 16, 1998: http://www.ronunz. defense of preferential ethnic admissions policies at elite org/1998/11/16/some-minorities-are-more-minor-than-others/. institutions written by former Harvard President Derek Bok 73 Espenshade (2009) p. 113. and former Princeton President William G. Bowen contains 74 See http://www.onlinecolleges.net/2012/02/21/the-10-most- no mention whatsoever of the widespread claims of anti-Asian

50 THE AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE DECEMBER 2012 discrimination at their own institutions, and does not even in- Ben Gose, “Princeton Tries to Explain a Drop in Jewish En- clude a single reference to “Jews” in their very detailed index. rollment,” The Chronicle of Higher Education, May 14, 1999; See Bowen (1998). Caroline C. Pam, “Enrollment of Jews at Princeton Drops 85 Three of Caltech’s most recent six presidents have been Har- by 40% in 15 Years,” The New York Observer, May 31, 1999; old Brown (1969-1977), Marvin Goldberger (1978-1987), and Karen W. Arenson, “Princeton Puzzle: Where Have Jewish David Baltimore (1997-2006), all of Jewish ancestry. Two of Students Gone?,” The New York Times, June 2, 1999. It should MIT’s most recent five presidents have been Jerome Wiesner be noted that Princeton’s president at the time was Harold (1971–1980) and Leo Reif (2012–present), who have the same Shapiro, of Jewish ancestry, and just a few years earlier, the ethnic background. university had opened a $4.5 million Center for Jewish Life. 86 Espenshade (2009) pp. 92-93. See Synnott (1979/2010) p. xxvi-xxvii. 87 Espenshade (2009) p. 126. 109 See William Lind, “The Origins of Political Correctness,” 88 Steinberg (2002/2012) pp. 124-136, 219-220. February 5, 2000, Accuracy in Academia: http://www.aca- 89 Steinberg (2002/2012) pp. 27-38, 204-210, 243-252. demia.org/the-origins-of-political-correctness/. Nearly all the 90 Steinberg (2002/2012) pp. 38-47, 173-195, 256-257. figures mentioned were of Jewish origins. 91 Steinberg (2002/2012) pp. 258-261, 281-282, 298-299. 110 As discussed earlier, the recent accusations of Harvard 92 For example, Harvard President Derek Bok once denigrated racial discrimination from a rejected Asian applicant were the compensatory rational for affirmative action, instead denounced as “ludicrous” and “surreal” by the student editors praising “diversity” as “the hallmark” and the “core” of a of the Harvard Crimson, who emphasized the tremendous im- university experience. As a positive instance of such “diver- portance of affirmative action policies in maintaining student sity,” he cited the benefits of enrolling a friend of his who had ethnic “diversity” at elite colleges and pointed out that Asians served as a captain of the women’s track team, and came from were anyway already over-represented by 200% relative to a background wealthy enough that she celebrated her birthday their portion of the American population. It so happens that with a trip to Italy. See Kahlenberg (1996) p. 29. the two top names on the Crimson masthead both came from 93 See Howard Kurtz, “College Faculties A Most Liberal Lot, an ethnic group over-represented at Harvard by nearly 1300%. Study Finds,” The Washington Post, March 29, 2005: http:// 111 For example, Bowen (1998) p. 37-39 attempts to compare the www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A8427-2005Mar28. academic strength of black students admitted under affirma- html; Emily Esfahani Smith, “Survey Shocker: Liberal profs tive action policies with the bottom decile of admitted white admit they’d discriminate against conservatives in hiring, students, as a proxy for those whites rejected under affirmative advancement,” The Washington Times, August 1, 2012: http:// action, and notes that the gap is smaller than often believed. www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/aug/1/liberal-majority- The authors, former presidents of Harvard and Princeton, also on-campus-yes-were-biased/; Eric Alterman, “Think Again: emphasize that the crucial factor is to ensure that all admitted Jews Are Still Liberal,” The Center for American Progress, April are above a high academic threshold and able to reasonably 19, 2012: http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/media/ perform the work in question (p. 23). One obvious problem news/2012/04/19/11420/think-again-jews-are-still-liberal/. with this analysis is that if elite universities admit many under- 94 Steinberg (2002/2012) p. 9. qualified white students based on favoritism or corruption, 95 Steinberg (2002/2012) pp. 181-182. these would constitute the bottom decile in question, and the 96 Golden (2006) p. 60. comparison made would merely highlight this fact. 97 Steinberg (2002/2012) pp. 282-284. 112 Karabel (2005) p. 292. 98 Steinberg (2002/2012) pp. xiii, 130-131. 113 Klitgaard (1985) pp. 23-30. 99 See Appendix D. 114 Hughes (2003) pp. 15, 49, 56. Also, in 1990 Harvard officials 100 Steinberg (2002/2012) pp. 59-63, 265-266. told federal investigators that 80-90% of applicants could 101 Hughes (2003) p. 86, 202. probably do the academic work and 50-60% could do superb 102 Hernandez (1997) pp. 1-5. She suggests that the Harvard is work. See Takagi (1992/1998) p. 194. the only Ivy League university in which a majority of the 115 Lemann (1999) pp. 206-207. Admissions Officers tend to have an Ivy League background. 116 Examples of the extreme effort students take in building their 103 Steinberg (2002) p. 131, 177-178. resumes for elite college admissions purposes are discussed 104 Joseph Carroll, “Public Overestimates U.S. Black and His- throughout Newport (2010) and Harvard Crimson Editors panic Populations,” Gallup News Service, June 4, 2001. (2005). http://www.gallup.com/poll/4435/public-overestimates-us- 117 See for example Austin Bramwell, “Top of the Class,” The black-hispanic-populations.aspx American Conservative, March 13, 2012: http://www.theam- 105 Razib Khan, “How Many Minorities Are There in the USA?,” ericanconservative.com/articles/top-of-the-class/. Discover Magazine/GNXP Blog, January 7, 2012: http://blogs. 118 Quoted in Heather Higgins, “Remembering James Q. discovermagazine.com/gnxp/2012/01/how-many-minorities- Wilson,” US News and World Report, March 5, 2012: http:// are-there-in-the-usa/. www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2012/03/05/remembering- 106 Grey Matter Research Consulting, September 13, 2012 james-q-wilson. 107 Dean Lawrence R. Velvel of the Masschusetts School of Law 119 The quota provisions of the 1924 Immigration Act were based interviewing Prof. Jerome Karabel on “Books of Our Time,” a on the national origins of the existing American popula- public affairs show. The remarks described appear in the last tion and therefore required a detailed analysis of existing nine minutes of the second hour segment. Hour One: http:// ethnicities, and the totals for 1920 are presented in Madison video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8911761293819497494; Grant, Conquest of a Continent (1933) pp. 278-280. Around Hour Two:.http://video.google.com/videoplay?doc that time, well over one-third of all Americans were of British id=-4805892219974282. ancestry, 80 percent were Protestant, and 85% of whites had 108 “Sharp Drop in Jewish Enrollment at Princeton U. Stirs origins in Northwestern Europe. Concern,” The Chronicle of Higher Education, May 7, 1999; 120 Quoted in Kahlenberg (1996) p. 115.

DECEMBER 2012 THE AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE 51 Home Plate BILL KAUFFMAN I Clean My Gun and Dream of Galveston

s there a better antiwar pop song his share of schlock. He also made the Hudson River School painter Frederic than “Galveston,” which Jimmy worst acting debut in the history of cin- Church’s Persian-style redoubt, Olana, Webb wrote and Glen Camp- ema in the John Wayne version of his I had noticed—how could I not?—that bell sang in the Vietnam-hued fellow Arkansan Charles Portis’s True one member of our group was clad in Iyear of 1969? Therein, a young sol- Grit. (Portis, Campbell, Johnny Cash, leather and chains. He was strolling the dier daydreams of his Texas home by Levon Helm, Senator Fulbright—Ar- grounds with his wife and his parents. the Gulf and the girl he left behind. kansas gave America a lot more than His mom proudly wore a hoodie bear- He describes the things he misses— America ever gave Arkansas. A priapic ing his name and image: it was Tommy “seawaves crashing,” “seabirds flying president excepted, of course.) Stinson, another Replacement. When in the sun”—and confesses, “I am so In his daily life, by all accounts, an old lady asked Mrs. Stinson about afraid of dying” without seeing girl or Glen Campbell could be ungentle the silhouette on her sweatshirt, she Galveston again. and mindless. But hey, “Wichita Line- beamed. “That’s my son. He’s a musi- There is not a single note of preachi- man” is, as Creem declared, “one of the cian.” Aren’t proud moms great?) ness or abstraction in the song. Yet in most perfect pop records ever made,” Glen’s voice was rough, and despite a elevating home over foreign crusades, and Campbell cut a beautiful Christ- stage ringed with monitors he fumbled “Galveston” borders on sedition. It re- mas album which my mom played lyrics. But his fingers remembered the ally ought to be banned under the Pa- throughout all my childhood Decem- chords, and the filial cast of his band, triot Act. bers. That’s worth something; it’s worth which included two sons and a daugh- I had hoped that Glen Campbell more than something. ter (all from his fourth wife), seemed a would sing “Galveston” when I saw The mood of the milling preconcert real comfort to a man who in his most him in concert at the University of Buf- crowd was somber, even funereal. The lucid moments must see premonitions falo in the waning days of his morbidly world is fading out of focus for Glen of blackness and blankness. When his (and accurately) titled “Goodbye Tour.” Campbell, a little more each day, and daughter good-naturedly interrupted He did not disappoint—though he did there was a hint of voyeurism about the Campbell as he started to play a song forget the name of the composer, turn- whole enterprise. Dementia is seldom he’d finished playing a minute earlier, ing to his banjo-playing daughter (who a hot ticket. Surely this show would he grinned and said, “That’s why I looks like a young Laura Dern) and fall somewhere between heartwarming brought my kids up good.” asking, “Who wrote this?” and wince-inducing. After barely more than an hour, Such are the spontaneities when live Campbell was never as cool as, say, Campbell closed the concert with “A performance intersects with Alzheim- Johnny Cash or John Doe or John Fo- Better Place,” a simple and lovely song er’s disease. gerty, but nor was he a lounge lizard or he wrote for his final album. Backed by There’s been a load of compromisin’ muzak-maker. I had assumed that the his children, he sang: on the road to Glen’s horizon. It’s a audience would be a mix of hipsters long, long trail a-winding from De- and the elderly, but hipsters were vastly Some days I’m so confused, Lord light, Arkansas, to the Malibu Country outnumbered by hip replacements. My past gets in my way Club. Aside from his signature song, (Speaking of which, the title song of I need the ones I love, Lord the John Hartford-penned “Gentle on Campbell’s haunting valedictory album More and more each day My Mind,” and those achingly lone- “Ghost on the Canvas” was written by some Webb-Campbell collaborations— Paul Westerberg of the late great Min- Glen Campbell ended his last song “Wichita Lineman,” “By the Time I Get neapolis punk band The Replacements. with a promise that “A better place to Phoenix,” “Galveston” (Jimmy Webb October turned out to be Replacements awaits/You’ll see.” Then his daughter understood location, location, loca- month in our family. Two weeks ear- took him by the hand and led him tion)—Glen Campbell churned out lier, while on a tour of the 19th-century from the stage, into the darkness.

52 THE AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE DECEMBER 2012 Made in America Patrick j. Buchanan

DECEMBER 2012 THE AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE 13 Arts&Letters

Girls on Top by Noah Millman

The End of Men: And the Rise of Women, Hannah Rosin, Riverhead, 320 pages Miguel Davilla Miguel or me, the rise of women be- gan in my sophomore year of high school. From just a few weeks in, Fmy high-school life was dominated by tion, of slipping a pair of logical hand- understands to be both historic and a single activity: interscholastic policy cuffs on you without your noticing, permanent. The eight chapters cover debate, also known as “cross-ex” or and then calmly filleting you before the following topics: “team” debate. I had always been both the judge as you writhed, unable to a bookish and a highly verbal kid, so- defend yourself, much less strike back. • The “hook-up” sexual culture of the cial but not very socially adept, and in And she did it all with an amused little contemporary American college debate I found an activity that played half-smile. I wanted to destroy her. I (and post-collegiate) life. to all of my strengths. Competing for wanted to be her. And because there’s • The ways in which highly educated the Bronx High School of Science, I something undeniably exciting about couples are navigating the two- could even delude myself into believ- being butterflied by a woman’s wit, I career household, developing what ing that, as a debater, I was one of the wanted—well, never mind. she calls the “see-saw” marriage, in cool kids—at least in comparison to Suffice it to say that we faced them which partners take turns being the the geeks on the math team. eight times over two years, lost all primary breadwinner. Sophomore year I was promoted to eight rounds, and I’m still not really • The rise of female-headed and the varsity level, and my partner and I over it. So you can imagine my excite- -dominated households among the began to face teams with two or three ment when the opportunity presented traditional middle and working years of competition under their belts. itself for me to review her first book, classes. We won some rounds, lost others, but The End of Men. Unfortunately, I • The increasing roster of professions I don’t remember ever being awed by found the book to be thought-provok- that are turning into primarily fe- the competition, ever thinking, “Jeez, ing and engagingly written. So much male preserves—without, she ar- am I ever going to be able to measure for round 9. gues, becoming low-wage occupa- up to that?” The title is a bit of a misnomer, and tional ghettos. Until we faced Hannah Rosin. the book itself a bit of a collage—a • The striking rise in the female crime She and her debate partner, David, survey of various aspects of life in rate. were juniors from Stuyvesant High (mostly) America in the 21st century • The remaining challenges extremely School, our local rival, and they were and how power relations between high-performing women face in exceptionally sharp. Hannah in par- men and women have changed in the rising to the very top in different ticular had a way, in cross examina- past generation, in a way that Rosin professions.

54 THE AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE DECEMBER 2012 • And, in a brief foray outside the not an analyst. And as ideological fem- be big earners but are exceptional or- United States, the ongoing trans- inism becomes less and less relevant naments—great musicians or conver- formation of the highly patriarchal to American women’s daily lives—be- sationalists, or just plain lookers. And South Korean culture in the face cause some of its core assumptions some, of course, will marry up. But the of the same economic and cultural have been largely absorbed by the cul- details of these arrangements really are forces that, in her view, have inexo- ture, while others have been discarded best left to the people in question—the rably transformed the United States. without fanfare—it’s past time to ask interest of an outside observer is pretty the whether sorting the population by much limited to the prurient. The thrust of the book, as the title gender might not itself be promoting a As for the “end of men,” if there’s suggests, is that these trends are related, species of false consciousness. evidence that men are uninterested and what they portend is, on the whole, The picture Rosin paints of women in competing with women in highly very good for women but a mixed bag in the professional classes, after all, di- competitive fields, Rosin doesn’t pres- for men (and children). Her chapter on verges widely from the picture of the ent it. My high-school debate experi- the hook-up culture, for example, takes working and middle-middle classes. ence suggests that women might just as pains to argue that, far from being evi- The college women Rosin describes easily spur male competitive instincts dence of male chauvinism run amok, are highly motivated, organized, and (however futilely) as blunt them. that culture is sustained primarily by goal-directed. They seem destined to The situation among working and women. A substantial portion of col- conquer. Whether they actually will all middle-class women is very different. lege women, of course, don’t partici- conquer, of course, may be questioned. If the professional-class story is pri- pate at all, and most of those who do A female executive friend of mine, marily about the “rise” of women, the treat it as a vacation: a way of letting when I described Rosin’s off steam after a relationship goes bad argument, laughed and or after an especially grueling studying said, sure, it’s easy to find schedule that leaves no time for a rela- plenty of women who The same native talents that Rosin tionship at all. Only for a small minor- are highly organized and ity of women does the hook-up culture diligent and so forth. But thinks make it easier for women to become a lifestyle—and who are we to finding women with the succeed more readily than men at gainsay their pursuit of happiness? requisite analytical skills school may handicap them later on. Rosen’s approach is similar with the and creativity to do the decline of marriage in the working and work she needs done is (increasingly) in the middle classes. much more difficult, and As male earnings have stagnated and she usually winds up hir- long-term male unemployment has ing men. working-class story is primarily about spiked with each recession, it has been The same native talents that Rosin the “end”—or at least the fall—of men. less and less obvious that marriage thinks make it easier for women to suc- We’ve seen this movie before—in the is a financially winning proposition ceed more readily than men at school post-civil rights African-American for women who are capable—steadily may handicap them later on. A future community, in 19th-century Ireland, in more capable—of paying their own in which middle management is domi- the Jewish shtetl of the Russian Empire, way. It’s one thing to take on a man as a nated by hyper-organized women isn’t and in vast swathes of America dur- provider and protector, but why saddle quite what Rosin has in mind, but it’s at ing the Great Depression. The rise of yourself with one merely as a responsi- least as plausible an extrapolation from matriarchal family structures in each bility? The women Rosin describes in her data as a future of female domi- of these contexts was a consequence her third chapter sound exhausted. But nance from top to bottom. of economic deprivation—specifi- they don’t sound unhappy, certainly But assuming they do conquer, will cally, the scarcity of work sufficiently not when they consider the available they all be able to marry up, if the sex remunerative to sustain the male posi- alternatives. Even the crime chapter ratio among the college-educated pass- tion as an essential provider. suggests that the rise in female crimi- es 50-50 and approaches a 3-2 ratio of There’s nothing really new about nality is but the inevitable dark side of women to men? Obviously not. Some women stepping up to the challenge of empowerment. will by choice or necessity seek a domi- filling the gap. If feminism and the as- Yet while this frame is a good one nant role vis-à-vis a more nurturing, cent of the service economy have made for selling books, I’m less convinced home-centered man. Some will work it possible for today’s working-class of its analytical utility. “Is it good for out “see-saw” arrangements. Some will women to do much more effective fill- women?” is a question for an advocate, marry “peacock” men, who may not ing than had previous generations,

DECEMBER 2012 THE AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE 55 Arts&Letters that’s all to the good, but it doesn’t ments that work fine for them, but that these different trends under the same change the fact that, among the work- have proved disastrous for the working pink-fonted cover, she is imposing an- ing class, this is a narrative of decline, class. If only the elite would get out of other frame that may not be accurate. not of the “rise” of anybody. their bubbles and participate more in The “end of men” and the “rise of wom- The psychological adjustments that working-class culture, he suggests, may- en” may both be real, if limited, trends, professional-class men and women have be their stable-marriage ways would rub and are certainly worth studying. But to make are, of course, interesting in off, and the burgeoning economic and they may not be two sides of the same their own right, particularly to us folks social deprivations of the working class story. They may be two only peripher- in the professional classes. I’m in some- would be ameliorated. ally related stories, the one requiring a thing of a see-saw marriage myself, hav- Rosin similarly seems to be argu- policy response that has much more to ing ditched my Wall Street career to pur- ing that the professional classes have do with class than with gender, the latter sue my much less remunerative literary worked (or, at least, are working) out needing little more than the time and dreams, and the way this has changed new, more egalitarian arrangements freedom to let consenting adults work the dynamics in my house—mostly for that make better use of women’s talents out what arrangements suit them. the better, mind you—are endlessly fas- and abilities and will ultimately make cinating to me (and may owe something everybody—men and women—hap- Noah Millman is TAC’s theater critic. to my experience competing against pier. If only working-class men could Rosin in high school). accommodate themselves to similar ar- But the ways in which the rangements, then their own marital lives experiences of the professional classes would become more stable and happier, apply to a laid-off factory worker are and who knows, maybe even the grow- Utopia by the Slice distinctly limited. And their utility to ing economic and social deprivations of by Bruce P. Frohnen a policymaker thinking about the eco- the working class would be mitigated. nomic and social consequences of the But it’s just possible that the arrow of Living the Faith: A Life of Tom breakdown of that factory worker’s causality runs the other way: that it’s not Monaghan, James Leonard, University marriage are pretty much nugatory. that men haven’t adapted as quickly as of Michigan, 424 pages Rosin’s confidence in the durability women to the opportunities presented, of the rungs of the ladder that women but that the experience of doors clos- mericans love rags-to-riches are climbing is also subject to ques- ing—which is what men have experi- stories. Unfortunately, as told tion—not because of women’s abilities enced as first factories closed and then by James Leonard and lived by but because of trends in the economy. the housing boom busted—is very dif- ATom Monaghan, this one is neither en- Healthcare, for example, has been the ferent from the experience of doors nobling nor instructive. largest, most stable job-generating sec- opening. The difference between a suc- A biography of Monaghan, founder tor through the last three recessions, cessful see-saw professional marriage of Domino’s Pizza, could tell three dif- and from pharmacies to nursing homes and a stressed-out waitress going to ferent tales: How he made his money, to hospitals it’s a sector increasingly pharmacy school at night while trying why he felt compelled to do what it took dominated by women. But healthcare to mother her two children by herself to make that much money, and why he now absorbs an unsustainably large has more to do with trends in wages blew that money on a failed utopian fraction of the American economy, and than with trends in culture. And the experiment called “Ave Maria Univer- front and center of the national agenda economic trends that women are adapt- sity” located in “Ave Maria Town,” near is figuring out how to stretch that dollar ing to successfully may, in some cases, be Florida’s Corkscrew Swamp. farther. How will the inevitable restruc- trends that can and should be resisted. Leonard tells the first, least interest- turing of healthcare change the employ- Rosin is smart enough to be aware of ing story of how Monaghan built the ment landscape for women? this. And she’s to be applauded for try- Wal-Mart of pizza chains reasonably Rosin’s book is, in a sense, the mir- ing to look at trends and see them for well. The second, “why” story would ror image of the flawed Charles Mur- what they are, without imposing a pre- have involved a psychological por- ray book Coming Apart. Both recognize existing frame, whether socially con- trait of a rather odd man who keeps major changes in the national culture servative or evolutionary-psychologi- daily tallies of steps taken, calories and in family structure and suspect that cal—Rosin professes to be agnostic on consumed, and prayers prayed. That those changes are related. Murray sug- that “brain science” stuff, as am I—or, account became impossible when gests that the professional classes have for that matter, classically feminist, the Leonard, as he admits more than once, pulled away from the working class cul- corner from which she’s taken the most agreed to leave Monaghan’s wife and turally and come to their own arrange- flak. But merely by virtue of collecting children, and therefore the bulk of his

56 THE AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE DECEMBER 2012 private life, out of the book. The sad results are there for all to that is Ave Florida. As to the swamp tale, Leonard tells see—or rather, to find out about and The treatment of Ave faculty sparks that one in a manner so distorted by flee. This is especially so when one con- little sympathy among conservatives hostility toward religious Catholicism siders that Monaghan destroyed two because we tend to see universities, law and political conservatism that it miss- Catholic colleges (St. Mary’s at Orchard schools, and foundations as intrinsically es its subject matter’s importance as an Lake and his own Ave Maria College in left-wing and too divorced from reality object lesson on the dangers of utopia- Ypsilanti, Michigan) and dismantled a to do anything worthwhile. But edu- nism. Leonard’s version goes like this: a Catholic law school (his own Ave Maria cation’s lurch to the left is not the fault sad dreamer grows up in foster homes School of Law, or AMSOL, in Michi- of the university’s consensus model of and a harsh Catholic orphanage. Im- gan) to build this City in a Swamp. governance. Faculty and administration mature and not too bright, he makes I was among the many who left the are supposed to share decision-making a fortune through sheer will. Then his Ave enterprises—in my case, the law power; that’s what tradition, accrediting right-wing politics and reactionary school—in disgust. Why did I and agencies, and most articles of incorpo- Catholicism take over. He brings in a many others abandon AMSOL? Be- ration require. The insanity that prevails batch of con men, launches a purge of cause it was a subsidiary of Monaghan’s today is the fault of cowardly faculty employees (two tactics he also used in foundation, not a law school in any who caved in to the bullies who took building Domino’s), and sets about cre- reasonable academic sense. control of universities during the 1960s. ating his Florida utopia. Having since landed at an actual law Conservatives want to change this. The goal was to build, from scratch, school, I now enjoy the benefits of be- But certain factors are essential to a an insular Catholic community in ing an actual faculty member—tenure, university—chiefly consensual gover- which orthodox folk would live the academic freedom, and faculty gover- nance and academic freedom, both of perfect moral life, free from the temp- nance. As Ave shows, you can’t attract which are necessary to forge a shared tations of pornography and contracep- and retain competent faculty without vision rooted in tradition rather than tion. This perfect community would these essential elements. Why not? one that parrots the idiosyncratic opin- surround Ave Maria University—the Consider whether you would leave be- ions of some businessman who never world’s “best Catholic university,” com- hind a salary of over $200,000 to take a earned a college degree. plete with a Division I football team $90,000 job if it meant serving as an at- Monaghan’s “business” model of and America’s biggest church. will employee at an institution in which university governance made any The cover of Leonard’s book shows your opinion carried about as much worthwhile educational endeavor im- how it turned out: a small, elderly weight as the janitor’s. Several AMSOL possible. A university is not and cannot man in a fussy suit walks beside an faculty took that pay cut. None of them be a business. Its “products” are people empty field of grass. In the distance is would have done so to be subject to the whose minds have been opened to the a building that looks rather like a car- arbitrary whim of Tom Monaghan. pursuit of truth and to appreciation for toon rocket ship. The little old man is So there we were at AMSOL in Ann the traditions that make up our way of Monaghan. The peculiar building is Arbor, Michigan. Not my favorite spot, life. Nonprofit foundations cannot be the oratory (semi-church) designed by but a decent one for a law school seek- run as businesses, either. Their “prod- Monaghan himself. The field is part of ing to go against the liberal grain—near ucts” are good works. Knowledge, tra- Ave Town—an oversized gated com- the liberal behemoth University of dition, and good works cannot meet munity with a few hundred permanent Michigan, in a Catholic area, having just the test of efficiency and the bottom residents and hundreds if not thou- earned accreditation from the American line; if you try to make them do so, you sands of vacant lots. Bar Association. Suddenly, our major open the door to corruption. Monaghan’s tiny university has been donor announced that we must move to Leonard points out how Monaghan rocked by turmoil, with firings, re- a vacant area in a state that already had used his fully controlled Ave Maria hirings, and re-firings of prominent 11 law schools, two of them Catholic. Foundation to dole out funds to “his” personnel, accreditation issues, and Why would we undertake this expense university, law school, and other op- students ranging from the precious to and disruption to move to a worse loca- erations so as to maintain an iron grip. the abysmal. His law school remains tion for the school? Because, Monaghan Unfortunately, Leonard blames it all 30 miles away in a former rest home told us, if we didn’t then AMSOL no on “reactionaries” instead of doing his in Naples and is among the very worst longer would receive the money he had homework. For example, as shown by in the nation in terms of students and promised. As one henchman later ex- the Ave Maria Foundation’s tax records, faculty peer ratings in the annual U.S. claimed, “It’s his school! It’s his money!” several AMSOL board members re- News law-school rankings. Not even And Monaghan got his way—if by “his ceived money from Monaghan’s foun- the football team is credible. way” one means the embarrassment dation either for themselves or for their

DECEMBER 2012 THE AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE 57 Arts&Letters projects. Two were Catholic cardinals. Rice, the board’s chief and almost only many faculty and bright, dedicated But there were others. Leonard Leo of voice of sane integrity. They rejected, graduates; black eyes for Catholi- the Federalist Society joined AMSOL’s without explanation, an overwhelming cism and conservatism; and two lousy board after most of the unpleasant- faculty vote of no confidence in Dean schools in and near a ghost town. ness had been accomplished; the Fed- Bernie Dobranski—something general- In arguing that right-wing Catho- eralist Society received $100,000 from ly fatal at any real academic institution. lic brainwashing caused Monaghan Monaghan’s foundation. And whether they knew about it or not, to instigate the Ave debacle, Leonard Such influence-peddling is sadly they served while Dobranski was ran- offers credible stories of creepy be- common. But three of the worst of- sacking faculty electronic files and data- havior among the Ave folk. He also fenders on AMSOL’s board were aca- mining faculty emails in search of “dis- relates how, in announcing his Ave demics—people who knew better— loyalty.” Bradley and Alvare at least were plans, Monaghan crowed that he and who received no direct foundation there for the firing of a tenured full pro- his partners would “own all the com- funding: Princeton’s Robert George, fessor and retaliatory denial of tenure to mercial real estate” and so “be able two others. (Remember, to control what goes on,” keeping out faculty were not at-will pornography and the like. But where If institutions of higher education are employees, but holders of Leonard portrays creepiness as the defined employment con- inevitable result of attempts to avoid to do their job of improving the young, tracts.) the cultural sewage he seems to favor, the people who run them have to be At one point Leonard the real creepiness comes from the decent themselves. quotes Robert George Great Founder’s determination (since claiming he resigned from formally abandoned) to “control what the board rather than vote goes on.” Something he’d tried before. to boot Rice from it. Leon- The reductio ad absurdum of Notre Dame’s Gerard Bradley, and, ard has his story wrong because George Monaghan’s apologists is the case of now, George Mason’s Helen Alvare. I only left the board, quietly, right before neoconservative Catholic Michael No- mention the names specifically because the firing of the tenured full professor vak, who has written in typically saccha- all have made much of their Catholic Steve Safranek. While George was on rine prose of the Founder’s divine mis- bona fides, have never acknowledged the AMSOL board, with a fiduciary duty sion, then accepted a “Distinguished” their bad conduct, and continue to to protect its interests, AMSOL engaged professorship at the university. Novak is hold responsible positions and receive in activities that resulted in scandal, a happy, no doubt, that someone is willing honors, thus harming the reputation hemorrhaging of faculty, and later on to take so seriously an academic who and potentially the character of other a legal settlement restoring Safranek’s failed his Ph.D. exams twice and has conservative and Catholic institutions. tenure, granting other professors’ ten- spent the better part of his career cur- Almost everyone who came to AM- ure, and requiring AMSOL’s payment of rying favor with the rich and powerful. SOL would not have done so but for a monetary award sufficient to make the Now under new management—for our reasonable belief that it was a sepa- faculty members’ lawyer quite happy. how long we don’t know—the Ave in- rate entity from Monaghan and his Leonard has no sympathy for AM- stitutions remain bad jokes that can foundation, with a separate board that SOL faculty. He seems to dislike Saf- only harm the careers of serous people was charged with a legally-enforceable ranek in particular for being “holier- who associate with them. Conserva- fiduciary duty to act in the best inter- than-thou” in calling Monaghan and tives and Christians willing to fight ests of the organization. his cronies bad Catholics for feigning for their beliefs should not check their Did the board seek to hold Monaghan piety while ignoring Catholic social consciences at the door simply because to his financial commitments? Did it teaching and the traditions of univer- the new boss claims to be pious. If in- consider other financial arrangements? sity governance. He also repeats Do- stitutions of higher education are to do Did it look seriously at the feasibility of branski’s trash talk, calling those who their job of improving the young, the the Florida move? None of the above. opposed his bullying “dissidents,” “rev- people who run them have to be decent It paid a small fortune to two former olutionaries,” and, some of us, a “Gang themselves. That requires institutional deans who produced a study Leonard of Four.” Dobranski still enjoys a salary safeguards. It leaves no room for na- terms “bunk” to serve as a fig leaf, then of over $350,000 on account of his per- iveté or obsequious, blind faith in those continued preparations for the move. sonal contract with Monaghan’s foun- with power and prestige. But the Board did more. Monaghan’s dation, showing how unbiased and cronies (including George, Bradley, and loyal to AMSOL he was and remains. Bruce P. Frohnen is associate professor at Alvare) forced out Notre Dame’s Charles End result: tarnished careers for Ohio Northern University College of Law.

58 THE AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE DECEMBER 2012 Gun Control, RIP debate in October between President struggle over them no longer is. At the Obama and Mitt Romney. beginning of the 1990s, Gallup found 78 by Brian Doherty It may be true that there is still, as percent of Americans asking for stricter Whitney writes, “hysteria that passes for gun laws. By 2009, that number was 44 Living With Guns: A Liberal’s Case discussion of the Second Amendment percent, a historic low. The Democratic for the Second Amendment, Craig R. by gun rights supporters and advocates Party has grown leery of the issue, as Whitney, PublicAffairs, 304 pages of gun control.” But that hysteria is lo- many Democrats have come to believe calized within a narrow community of that both the 1994 Republican takeover 012 was a horrific year for mass obsessives. It’s not dominating Ameri- of Congress and Al Gore’s 2000 presi- shootings. Americans were can politics or tearing us asunder as a dential loss could be blamed on backlash shocked by an April spree at a re- people. It’s not an issue that really de- against the party’s gun-control victories 2ligious school in Oakland that killed mands big rethinking right now. of the early 1990s: the Brady Bill, which seven; the brutal theater shooting in That doesn’t make what’s valuable imposed national background checks Aurora, Colorado, in July that killed in Whitney’s book less so, if you hap- before you can buy a gun, and the “as- 12; the Sikh Temple massacre in Wis- pen to be interested. He provides tight sault weapon” ban on certain types of consin in August that claimed six but informative overviews of how and semiautomatic guns and magazines. lives; and the September Minneapolis why we have a Second Amendment. Americans have seen the number sign-plant slaughter of five; among He explains how courts and American of guns in private hands continue to others. It became almost hard to call politics have dealt with it (largely by rise—and the number of states that these episodes shocking as summer ignoring the amendment for turned to fall—just another expected much of our history). He relates part of the news landscape, like politi- the history of gun-control laws No imaginable public-policy cal scandals or Middle East bombings. from colonial times to now and Seems like that should make now a navigates the reader through solution will keep the occasional propitious time to issue a book subtitled the slow shifts in the legal and deranged criminal from doing A Liberal’s Case for the Second Amend- academic understanding of evil with weapons. ment. Author Craig R. Whitney, a for- what the Second Amendment mer reporter and editor for the New York means that led to the 2008 Times, has written a volume that tells the and 2010 Supreme Court cases cultural and legal history of Americans’ Heller v. D.C. and McDonald v. Chicago. pretty much allow any law-abiding citi- attitudes toward guns, as well as of their Those decisions established, respec- zen to carry concealed weapons reach right to own and use them. tively, that the Second Amendment over 40. We have simultaneously wit- The book also pushes a set of policy does protect an individual right to pos- nessed a 41 percent decline in overall prescriptions that Whitney paints as sess weapons—at least commonly used violent crime rates over the past two the rational, intelligent middle be- ones, in one’s own home—and that the decades. The homicide rate has fallen tween untenable pro-gun attitudes (no right must be respected by states and by nearly half over that period. new laws restricting our ability to buy, localities as well as by the federal gov- The assault-weapon ban expired in carry, and store weapons) and unten- ernment. 2004, and though candidate Obama able anti-gun attitudes (no private Guns are a huge presence on the talked up reviving it, President Obama ownership of firearms). Whitney ar- American landscape, no doubt. With has let it lie. (Not even the ban’s defend- gues there’s an intractable political di- an estimated 300 million firearms pri- ers can claim it made the country any vide about guns that only his measured vately owned in America, we practi- safer.) Obama’s sanguine acceptance wisdom can bridge. cally have a weapon for every citizen. In of gun rights earned him an “F” grade But the reaction to this year’s string 2010, the last year for which the FBI has from the Brady Center after his first of prominent gun crimes under- data, 67 percent of murders in America year in office. His administration’s lack cuts Whitney’s project. That reaction were committed with guns, for a total of interest in gun laws did not change was—beyond personal and some civic of 8,775 gun murders. (Though reli- even after this year’s wave of high-pro- grief—nothing, except a bump in pri- able hard data are impossible to come file firearms crimes. Americans have vate gun buying. No effective new call by, best estimates indicate that guns in come to understand that such acts are for stronger gun regulations arose. As private hands are also used tens of thou- still quite rare. More to the point, no gun-control activists complained, guns sands of times a year to prevent crimes.) imaginable public-policy solution will and gun policy didn’t come up at all But while guns themselves are still keep the occasional deranged criminal in the domestic-policy presidential a big deal to Americans, the political from doing evil with weapons.

DECEMBER 2012 THE AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE 59 Arts&Letters

Whitney stresses the importance of Capitalist Cure program with specific “drastic” policy keeping guns out of what all reasonable proposals. He called for the “elimi- people agree are the “wrong hands,” by William Ruger nation of private monopoly in all its even as he presents the embarrassing forms” and the preservation of a com- history of colonial and early America, A Capitalism for the People: petitive order through a heavy dose in which seemingly reasonable people Recapturing the Lost Genius of of government power. This included believed blacks, Indians, Roman Catho- American Prosperity, Luigi Zingales, strict limits on corporations and even lics, and non-property-owners should Basic Books, 336 pages “direct government ownership and op- be kept from weapons. Whitney harps eration of all industries where compe- on the notion that the Second Amend- n 1934, University of Chicago tition cannot be made to function ef- ment right is supposed to come with economist Henry C. Simons pub- fectively as an agency of control.” Less civic responsibilities. Though he knows lished a seminal policy pamphlet radically and more like the Chicago that used to mean being prepared to Ititled A Positive Program for Laissez School economists who would follow fight government tyranny, he avoids say- Faire. An early leader of the so-called him, Simons also called for banking ing that might ever be necessary today, Chicago School of economics, Simons and tariff reform, as well as rules lim- and Whitney fails to convince a skepti- laid out in this short but dense work iting discretion over monetary policy. cal reader that the civic responsibility in a series of reforms aimed at rehabili- Finally, Simons—quite illiberally—ad- question should mean much more than tating a free-market liberal economic vocated restrictions on advertising and making sure no one is unjustly harmed order in the United States. the use of progressive taxation and re- by the weapons you own. Simons began by noting the grave distribution to reduce inequality. Whitney is obsessed with being more threats to liberty and democracy posed Fast forward to today, and we see stringent in using the information ac- by the challenges of the Great Depres- another Chicago economist, Luigi cessible to our existing Brady Law back- sion and the political responses to it. Zingales, confronting another eco- ground check system to ensure no one Indeed, A Positive Program was the nomic crisis and likewise trying to put labeled as psychiatrically disturbed or a product of a classical-liberal mind pet- capitalism back on the right path in drug abuser can own a gun. He ignores rified by what could happen in a world his book, A Capitalism for the People. the reality that the vast majority of peo- in which capitalism and freedom were The similarities between Simons and ple in those categories never use a gun under siege: “the future of our civiliza- Zingales do not stop there. In fact, in a criminal way and deserve to own tion hangs in balance,” Simons wrote. Zingales’s philippic against the early guns for purposes of protection or rec- He fleshed out his argument in two 21st century’s economic and political reation the same way other Americans steps. First, he diagnosed the overarch- trends—including growing income in- do. While we may agree a mass shooter ing problems afflicting America’s eco- equality—and in favor of competition is ipso facto psychiatrically disturbed, it nomic and political systems. Perhaps over monopoly frequently calls to mind is frequently the case that they have nev- surprising for a Chicago economist the older Chicago tradition that Simons er been authoritatively labeled that way who influenced Milton Friedman and represented in A Positive Program. such that a background check would George Stigler, Simons considered mo- Unlike his predecessor’s, Zingales’s matter. Gun crimes remain mostly out- nopoly to be foremost among these reform measures are far more consis- side that part of life which laws or kings afflictions: “the great enemy of democ- tent with the tenets of a free society. In can cause or cure. racy is monopoly, in all its forms,” he recognizing the danger of bigness—es- The historical information in Living argued, while the “existence of compe- pecially big business tied to big govern- With Guns is interesting and mostly tition … serves to protect the commu- ment—while hoping to meet the threat apt; the policy prescriptions are most- nity as a whole and to give an essential with greater respect for markets and ly beside the point. And the sense of flexibility to the economy.” freedom, Zingales fuses many of the mission that propels the book is mis- Simons also fingered government as best parts of the “old” and “new” Chi- directed. For all its merits, including a major part of the problem. He argued cago Schools. readability, this book is a contribution that the state failed to meet its responsi- He begins his positive program with to a policy debate about guns and gun- bilities in the area of money, harmfully a touching personal expression of what control that, for now, is over. interfered with prices, and was ineffec- motivated him to join the effort to res- tive in maintaining market competition. cue capitalism and freedom. In short, Brian Doherty is a senior editor at Reason Most radically, Simons thought govern- Zingales did not want the United States and author of Gun Control on Trial and Ron ment was not doing enough to diminish to turn into his home country—Italy— Paul’s Revolution: The Man and The inequality of power and income. with its disabling crony capitalism, Movement He Inspired. His second step was to offer a reform something he saw taking root in Ameri-

60 THE AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE DECEMBER 2012 can finance. So Zingales, a “strong be- they too can be influenced or pressured needs is in the public school system.” liever in the free-market system, who by business interests rather than serv- Sounding a lot like his fellow Chica- loves America for what it has always ing as beacons of unbiased truths. These goan, Zingales repeats Milton Fried- stood for: freedom in the pursuit of hap- things undermine citizens’ trust in both man’s argument for publically funded piness,” decided to enter the fray. the public and private sectors. school vouchers as a means to increase A Capitalism for the People is divided Is there a solution to this collectively equality of opportunity. He adds the into two sections. The first identifies suboptimal but often individually ra- twist that there should be “higher-val- and discusses our ailments, especially tional activity? Zingales thinks the ue vouchers for people who start from the “cancer of crony capitalism” and problem can be solved—and without less privileged conditions” and “match- growing inequality. The second part “massive government intervention, specific vouchers” to incentivize good lays out remedies that can fight these which would interfere with economic schools to “rescue poorer-performing problems before they metastasize. freedom and suppress growth.” His so- students at risk.” To allow individuals Zingales starts by explaining that lution relies instead on a counterintui- to take risks and invest in themselves Americans have been and remain ex- tive combination of populism (Amer- “when the consequences of failure are ceptionally positive towards capital- ican-style, and thus pro-free-market) very harsh,” Zingales also supports a ism—hence his lingering hope for turn- and the power of competition. safety net of forgiving bankruptcy laws, ing things around. That pro-market Zingales focuses on education as an unemployment insurance, and job re- attitude is partly due to our continuing antidote to the increasing inequality training. belief that rewards and responsibilities that accompanies globalization. Un- Zingales wants to reinvent antitrust, should be assigned based on merit and fortunately, as he points out, “perhaps with regulators focusing not just on the that capitalism accomplishes this to a the most destructive cronyism that economic advantages of mergers but great extent, when functioning proper- uses lobbying to extract money from the political consequences that arise ly. However, for Zingales, “the benefits the American people in exchange for from large corporate combinations. conferred by meritocratic capitalism a product that doesn’t meet their real Where the political results would likely are neither as great nor as widespread as they once were” and “this change weakens political support for the mar- ket system.” What is most destructive of pro-market sentiment, according to Joe Sobran Zingales, is when people believe the sys- Get Joseph Sobran: The National tem is “rigged.” Enter crony capitalism Review Years, a new collection of 34 and the people who thrive off it. of Joe Sobran’s articles from 1974-91. Zingales proceeds to expose the ex- Sobran writes with eloquence, grace, tent to which the American system, and penetrating insights on a wide especially its financial institutions, has range of topics including politics, become perverted by cronyism and is culture, music, books, Christianity, less and less cleansed by the forces of conservatism, feminism, the liberal competition. He details how the fi- nancial system became more concen- media, totalitarianism, morality, trated and more politically influential. the Constitution, Shakespeare, As businesses in general have grown baseball, and more. in power, the result has been a broken Perfect for Christmas gifts! system in which corporations and pol- iticians—assisted by well-connected lobbyists—collude to create a “bailout “Sobran’s voice was unique, his style readily nation” addicted to rent-seeking and identifi able, his wit irrepressible, his range as averse to real competition. wide as that of any columnist of his generation.” Of course, the increased size and scope of government spending and regulation —Patrick J. Buchanan (from the Foreword) only further incentivize businesses and 216 pages. Limited edition. $26.95 (postpaid to U.S. addresses). other organized interests to “ask for fa- Discounts when ordering two or more books. FGF Books, 713 Park St., SE, vors.” Academics are not exempt from Vienna, VA 22180 • www.fgfBooks.com • 877-726-0058. Zingales’s criticism, as he warns that

DECEMBER 2012 Sobran_AD_TAC_Nov_8.indd 1 THE AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE11/7/12 11:23 61 AM Arts&Letters be “welfare-reducing,” Zingales would at large” will be less incentive-compati- share a similar sensibility on anti-trust have the government prevent such ble. He calls on business schools to teach and monopoly. mergers or limit the lobbying those cor- and reward good behavior among their Zingales tries to recapture the high porations can engage in. As he admits, students and alumni. Where these ef- ground for capitalism by highlighting “This would be a radical departure from forts fail to contain voracious corporate competition as the best remedy for the the status quo”—indeed, one reminis- lobbying efforts, he proposes using the problems identified by the Tea Party cent of Simons’s anti-monopoly pro- proceeds from the lobbying tax to sup- and Occupy movements. He argues gram. Further steps he recommends to port, in effect, the lobbying activities of that the market—assisted by govern- revive a competitive market include bet- “diffused interests.” ment enforcement of simple rules—is ter balancing our patent and copyright A Capitalism for the People follows the best means to deliver the public regime, empowering shareholders in right in the footsteps of A Positive from the anti-competitive clutches corporate governance (even by quotas), Program. Both highlight the danger of an alliance of big government, big and enacting progressive taxation on bigness and monopoly pose to our business, big lobbyists. This argument corporate lobbying. political system, not just to economic is made more compelling by Zingales’s He supports a number of other criti- efficiency. Simons declared early in his restatement of Simons’s fear of bigness cal institutional reforms to the tax and work that “political liberty can survive in all realms and his similar concern finance system: simplifying corporate only within an effectively competitive for inequality. This will likely make his taxes, ending expiring tax provisions, system” since “If the organized eco- book better received in many quarters applying legal rules to the government nomic groups were left to exercise their that are unhappy with the rise of crony (which creates them in the first place), monopoly powers without political re- capitalism and the continuing scourge instituting a reward system for whistle- straint, the result would be a usurpa- of rent-seeking but that are usually less blowers, and increasing data transpar- tion of sovereignty by these groups— friendly to markets. ency through disclosure requirements. and, perhaps, a domination of the state A key feature of the book is Zingales’s Financial regulation, he says, should by them.” Likewise, Zingales argues, reminder that being pro-market is dif- be parceled out to three agencies, each “In a socialist economy, the political ferent from being pro-business. Un- responsible for meeting only one key system controls business; in a crony fortunately, too many Republicans and goal: price stability, protection against capitalist system of this kind, business conservatives fail to appreciate this fraud and abuse, and system stability. controls the political process. The dif- distinction, with the result that they Zingales disapproves of using the tax ference is slim: either way, competition unwittingly assist the erosion of public system for “massive” redistribution of is absent and freedom shrinks.” support for capitalism and pro-market wealth and income. Instead, he favors Both economists think intellectuals politicians. Pigouvian taxes (which “correct dis- have a special role to play in preserving What’s more, Zingales nicely ex- torted incentives”), such as levies on a liberal order. Simons notes that “The plains how some policies that are not lobbying or on potentially destabilizing precious measure of political and eco- efficient from a strict economic stand- short-term debt. nomic freedom which has been won point may nonetheless be good because With all of these reforms, Zingales through centuries may soon be lost ir- of their political consequences. For ex- desires simple rules rather than com- reparably; and it falls properly to econo- ample, measures reducing the power plex ones that invite chicanery—thus, mists, as custodians of the great liberal and concentration of large firms, es- despite the economic arguments tradition out of which their discipline pecially in finance, may not make the against separation of commercial and arose, to point the escape from the cha- most economic sense. Yet they may be investment banking, he favors such os of political and economic thought optimal for non-economic reasons. It simple designs as Glass-Steagall. which warns of what impends.” Similar- is refreshing to see an economist who Unlike many economists, Zingales ly, Zingales holds that business schools appreciates that narrow economic effi- looks beyond institutions: he also wants should be “churches of the meritocratic ciency should not be the only or most to use ethical and social norms to pro- creed” and “frown on behavior that we important criterion of public policy. mote positive economic and political recognize as detrimental to the long- Lastly, Zingales hits a winning note change—for example, to buttress the ben- term survival of the free-market system.” by stressing the role of culture, norms, eficial effects of a lobbying tax through As for solutions, both favor govern- and ideas—rather than just institu- the development of taboos against “un- ment “establishing and maintaining tional reform—in social and political acceptable” lobbying. He advocates using effectively competitive conditions in change. Although his discussion of the power of public shaming to promote all industries where competition can these factors reads a bit awkwardly and self-regulation. In this way, “opportunis- function as a regulative agency,” as Si- at times seems incomplete compared tic actions that are detrimental to society mons argued. And the two economists to his other proposals, Zingales should

62 THE AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE DECEMBER 2012 be praised for bringing these concepts Are You Better has since been met with a good deal on stage and encouraging us to think of protest from Catholics uncomfort- more about them. In fact, the book Off Now? able with this Panglossian—indeed ends by stressing the importance of “a unscriptural—view of our economic rediscovery and renewal of the moral by Elias Crim arrangements. foundation of capitalism. In his new book, one of Fr. Sirico’s Despite all of these commendable Defending the Free Market: The Moral themes is that of economic freedom as features, Zingales’s book is not without Case for a Free Economy, Robert Sirico, a determinant of all other freedoms. some blemishes. In particular, there are Regnery, 256 pages “Political and economic freedom,” he some rather strange policy proposals in assures us at one point, “leads to an the midst of so many well-constructed he visitor to the Acton Insti- ownership society, as opposed to a ones. For example, Zingales’s argument tute’s offices in Grand Rap- rental society…” Ronald Reagan him- that there should be a progressive tax ids may notice on one wall an self spoke about the importance of on corporate lobbying is fine and good. Ticonic framed photo. It captures Ac- ownership in 1987: That the proceeds of this tax should ton founders Fr. Robert Sirico and be redistributed “to support the argu- Kris Mauren chatting with former Thomas Jefferson dreamed of a ments of the more diffused interests” president Ronald Reagan in his Los land of small farmers, of shop is, however, hard to imagine working Angeles office, some four years or so owners and merchants. Abra- in practice. Moreover, isn’t Zingales after Reagan left the White House. ham Lincoln signed into law the asking for the wolves to pass laws that The photo of the jovial Reagan “Homestead Act” that ensured benefit the sheep? could be said to capture the afterglow that the great western prairies of Zingales’s reform program would of a time that has itself become sym- America would be the realm of certainly make the U.S. a more just and bolic—1989, the year the Berlin Wall independent, property-owning prosperous society. Yet he does not con- came down. Indeed, Acton’s found- citizens—a mightier guarantee of vincingly demonstrate that his ideas ing in 1990 caught a wave of sorts, as freedom is difficult to imagine… will put a dramatic dent in inequality. A the largely non-violent collapse of the In this century, the United meritocratic, globalized, efficient econ- USSR’s Evil Empire was optimistically States has evolved into a great in- omy is going to yield substantial returns read by some as a providential en- dustrial power. Even though they to those with high human capital while dorsement of Our Way of Life—down are now, by and large, employees, leaving behind—justly or otherwise— to the policy level, you might say. our working people still benefit those without the talents, education, If further proof were needed of our from property ownership. Most or work ethic required to succeed in exceptional status in history, Pope of our citizens own the homes in such an intensely competitive realm. If John Paul II seemed to supply it in which they reside. In the mar- Zingales is correct that Americans will 1991 with his encyclical Centesimus ketplace, they benefit from direct largely support a system that produces Annus—a document apparently most and indirect business ownership. inequality as long as they perceive that important, in Acton’s interpretation, There are currently close to 10 the economic rewards are distributed not for its call to reflection on a cen- million self-employed workers in according to merit, then his program tury of Catholic social thought but for the U.S.-nearly 9 percent of total might be enough to head off any social its tardy but welcome embrace of the civilian employment. And, mil- instability. But his program will do little free market as a matrix of human and lions more hope to own a busi- to keep those who think that the only social virtues. On this reading—one ness some day. Furthermore, over fair system is one that more vigorously hotly disputed by other interpreters 47 million individuals reap the distributes wealth from occupying Wall within the Church and without—the rewards of free enterprise through Street and trying to enforce such a sys- encyclical was a singular instance of stock ownership in the vast num- tem in the halls of power. Catholic social teachings underwrit- ber of companies listed on U. S. Those qualms aside, Zingales offers ing a specific economic philosophy, stock exchanges. a refreshing and improved program despite the Church’s historic insis- I can’t help but believe that for saving capitalism that harkens back tence that it makes no such endorse- in the future we will see in the to two older Chicago traditions. And ments. United States and throughout the hopefully it will stimulate as much dis- Acton’s anointing of American cap- western world an increasing trend cussion as they did. italism was an attempt to identify the toward the next logical step, em- victory of liberal democracy with the ployee ownership. It is a path that William Ruger is the author of Milton Friedman. victory of Catholic truth, an effort that befits a free people.

DECEMBER 2012 THE AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE 63 Arts&Letters

A reader of Fr. Sirico’s book will Culturally speaking, Fr. Sirico half, and from 1950 to 1980 it halved naturally look for his explanation of gradually became an adherent of the again. how economic outcomes since Reagan Reagan revolution, a movement that Given the scarcity of authentic so- spoke those words in 1987 could have seemed to find its vindication in 1989, cialists and convinced statists at this gone so terribly wrong in this country. only to ossify intellectually in the years point in time, it’s hard to see precisely And why should the recent history of following. Even without an Evil Em- whom the author feels a need to con- employee ownership in Germany, for pire, the Reaganites seemed only able vince by his historical overview. The example, be so different? to think in a binary fashion: capitalism real trouble with our current arrange- For Fr. Sirico, the root problem here vs. socialism (or anything else). Even ments is that free enterprise, in the is “the breakdown of trust, integrity, as supply-side economics a matter of persons of our business leaders, has and responsible freedom that contrib- Republican institutional dogma, the scarcely any tradition of virtuous prac- uted mightily to the continuing finan- historical record showed a growing tice within living memory. Otherwise, cial crisis, which began in 2008.” What government and increasing income in- why would outsourcing or predatory we have lost are “certain perennial equality. Reagan’s vision of widespread lending, for example, have gone un- truths about political, economic, and employee ownership went unfulfilled, questioned or unchecked for so long? religious freedom.” and for most members of the Ameri- In addition to the rule of law, free Those truths, it turns out, include can middle class, the unintendended markets need participants who value consequence of economi- virtues such as contract-keeping, as Fr. cally neoliberal policies Sirico points out, along with a number was a road to serfdom of other good habits. But the dynam- Even without an Evil Empire, that by 2008 felt more like ics of the market itself do not somehow the Reaganites seemed only able a superhighway. Wage constitute, pace our author, a school to think in a binary fashion: slavery, with no path to of such virtue. (It should be said that ownership, or welfare: Acton’s numerous ethics programs for capitalism vs. socialism take your pick. business executives obviously recog- (or anything else). Scarcely a shadow of nize this lack and represent a laudable this history passes over effort toward supplying it.) Fr. Sirico’s narrative, one Ethics aside, “Jobs are the world’s part of which is devoted best anti-poverty program,” Fr. Sirico such commonsense notions as “not to celebrating the beneficent effects of declares, as though wages—almost any killing the goose that lays the golden markets while criticizing various col- typical worker’s wages these days— egg; not binding down your most cre- lectivists and statists, recent and an- suffice to lift anyone out of economic ative talent in a regulatory spider’s web; cient. He observes, for example, that want for long. It was one of Hilaire Bel- and not teaching your citizens that the commandment “thou shalt not loc’s frequent complaints about British they can all live at someone’s expense.” steal” only makes sense if the Bible is trade-union members that they could How exactly these golden eggs and spi- presupposing the validity of private only think in terms of wage increases, ders’ webs apply to the case of the 2008 property. You cannot steal something, never in terms of actual shared own- recession goes unexplored. after all, if no one owns it. This com- ership, the true, historic path to self- But Fr. Sirico’s analysis is not only ment, part of what he refers to as “the sufficiency. moral: there is a method—an Austrian biblical case for private property,” may Admirable as Fr. Sirico’s emphasis one—at work here also. After a mis- be the first example of capitalistic ex- on the moral dimensions may be, his spent education in the 1970s New Left egesis I’ve ever come across, unless Austrian lenses keep him from seeing movement (where he says he consort- I’m forgetting some earlier effort of the limits of an economic ideology that ed happily for a time with Tom Hayden Michael Novak’s. is not scientific but merely scientistic. and Jane Fonda), he discovered the real At the Acton Institute, Fr. Sirico re- Thus his title for Chapter 4: “Why the truth about human choice and action ports, discussions about how to help ‘Creative Destruction’ of Capitalism in the pages of Ludwig von Mises and the poor don’t start with the question Is More Creative than Destructive.” Friedrich Hayek. And the presiden- of what causes poverty. “Instead we I wonder if Fr. Sirico is aware that tial election of 1980 saw these tenets ask, What causes wealth?” Fr. Sirico Schumpeter explicitly developed his of neoliberal thought translated into a notes that the rise of capitalism be- notion of creative destruction based on program of tax cuts and deregulation, tween 1800 and 1950 resulted in the a reading of Marx? The term referred even as the size of the federal govern- proportion of the world’s population to a process described by Marshall Ber- ment grew rather than shrinking. living in dire poverty being reduced by man as follows:

64 THE AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE DECEMBER 2012 “All that is solid”—from the clothes observer claim that has been the case? workers have other opportunities.” on our backs to the looms and mills Would any Catholic familiar with our To which the reader is tempted to re- that weave them, to the men and tradition of social justice and the dig- spond, “Or at least they used to.” women who work the machines, nity of the worker cheerfully accept the One of the consequences of the to the houses and neighborhoods outcome we see before us as just? 2008 crisis has been not only a re- the workers live in, to the firms and One of Fr. Sirico’s more remarkable evaluation of economics itself but the corporations that exploit the work- theological points here is his assertion rise of a new economics, including ers, to the towns and cities and that the process of globalization resem- a resurgence in the field of political whole regions and even nations bles Jesus’ Great Commission to make economy—the study of the process that embrace them all—all these Christianity a global religion. “This of wealth creation in societies. Two are made to be broken tomorrow, increasing ability to share our God- important strands of this new eco- smashed or shredded or pulver- given and complementary gifts with nomics are based in natural law (see ized or dissolved, so they can be one another holds out the possibility of John Mueller’s Redeeming Econom- recycled or replaced next week, enlarging the scope of our communion ics) and in a neo-distributist approach and the whole process can go on and solidarity.” Let the circle of con- (as in John Mèdaille’s Toward a Truly again and again, hopefully forever, sumption be unbroken, so to speak. Free Market), while also putting new in ever more profitable forms. The Indeed, “there is a virtuous circle at focus on cooperatives (Stefano Za- pathos of all bourgeois monuments work here. Christianity, a global reli- magni’s Cooperative Enterprises), on is that their material strength and gion, played a role in paving the way for the commons (in the work of the late solidity actually count for nothing economic globalization, and economic Nobel laureate Elinor Ostrom), and and carry no weight at all, that they globalization then played a role in on the economy of communion and are blown away like frail reeds by bringing more people in contact with gratuitousness (Luigino Bruni). It is the very forces of capitalist devel- other cultures and, with it, Christianity, noteworthy that references to many of opment that they celebrate. Even which in turn brings more people into these new approaches can be found in the most beautiful and impressive the fold of Christianity.” Pope Benedict’s 2009 encyclical Cari- bourgeois buildings and public I suppose one could argue that tas in Veritate. works are disposable, capitalized NAFTA worked to revitalize American An interest in all these hopeful de- for fast depreciation and planned Catholicism by spurring the arrival of velopments would seem very much to be obsolete, closer in their social millions of Mexican Catholic fami- within the purview of the Acton Insti- functions to tents and encamp- lies with better values than most of us tute, as they represent a welcome return ments than to “Egyptian pyramids, American-born Catholic citizens, but to the kind of personalistic economics Roman aqueducts, Gothic cathe- the economic displacement of so many Acton hopes to promote. Regrettably, drals.” Mexican farmers is surely not a conse- none of them find a reference in Fr. quence anyone would want. Sirico’s book. Caritas in Veritate earns What would buffer or slow such a At one point, Fr. Sirico speaks of a single mention, for a small point that process? The existence of labor unions? the way contracts, markets, languages, Fr. Sirico can only suggest is “worth a “In a genuinely free economy, the typi- trade, and exchange all are “forms of vigorous debate.” Thus a gulf remains cal relationship between employee and social engagement” and “hallmarks of between Acton’s ostensible commit- employer is not one of exploitation, the market economy.” He refers skep- ment toward developing personalistic, as Marx would have it, but of mutual tically to European friends who try virtue-centered economic practices benefit. Free of coercion [such as that to envision a form of capitalism that and the complacent neoliberalism into employed by unions, presumably] the would temper our individualism with which it has lapsed. two parties cooperate in the service a “social market”—a phrase the au- Taking Fr. Sirico’s book and the ca- of the customer, the employer and the thor, perhaps forgetting Wilhelm Ro- reer of the Acton Institute altogether, employee,” Fr. Sirico states. epke’s work on the social framework it’s a pity these culture warriors have On this view, the continuing decline of a free economy, finds redundant. mostly chosen to collaborate with neo- of labor unions in this country over the “What market,” he asks, “is not so- liberalism, which is not just Lord Ac- last two generations—that is, a sub- cial?”, going on to suggest that a free ton’s 19th-century liberalism but, as tracting of any coercion in labor-man- labor market, as we ostensibly have the crash of 2008 showed, something agement dealings—should have meant today in this country, “encourages altogether more pernicious. a rise in cooperation and mutual ben- employers to behave more sociably to- efit between employers and middle- ward their employees—to treat them Elias Crim is at work on a new webzine to be class employees. Would any informed better—since they know that their called Solidarity Hall.

DECEMBER 2012 THE AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE 65 Taki

Taki’s School Days

t was 1948, the great Joe Di was about all. In the middle of the series I had to wear beanies. If one broke the injured most of the season, and left New York for Lawrenceville. rules and walked on the grass, any old- old reliable Tommy Henrich was The campus of 400 acres left me er boy could order him to take a brick, at first base, Charlie Keller at right agog. After eight years of war, occupa- which the rhinie had to carry with him Ifield, with a young Yogi Berra behind tion, and then a vicious civil insurrec- at all times, again except for sports. the plate, but even with pitchers like tion, the only green I’d ever seen were Already quite confused by the lan- Allie Reynolds and Vic Raschi the military uniforms, and not particularly guage, I nevertheless discovered a way Bronx Bombers could not catch the friendly ones. The Greek army wore not to attend class but to stay in my Cleveland Indians, led by manager- khaki, the Germans gray, and the Ital- cube in Thomas House and read Mi- shortstop Lou Boudreau and three ians green. The communists wore all chael Strogoff in German. The head of future Hall of Famers on the mound, sorts of things, but had a red star on the Lower school, Mr. Heyniger, us- Bob Feller, Bob Lemon, and Early their caps. Lawrenceville’s colors were ing sign language and some German, Wynn. red and black. asked me why I had been cutting class. I write these names without looking On the very first day I was taken to I pointed at my corner, where about 20 them up. They are embedded in my meet Dr. Healy, the headmaster, a kind bricks lay. mind, as they were in the mind of any man, and Dr. Hyatt, the assistant head- The rule was soon changed, thanks 11-year-old who followed the down- master, a strict no-nonsense gentle- to Taki. Any boy who weighed less to-the-wire race. man who never cracked a smile. I was than 120 pounds could not carry more I didn’t follow baseball, in fact had assigned to Thomas House, in Lower than three bricks, if that. never heard of the game, until I landed School, and to my amazement was Before long I found myself wres- at LaGuardia airport around Septem- immediately scouted by a Hollywood tling in the junior varsity team because ber of that year. My father had pulled type. no American boy at the time was as some strings, and I was accepted at Before any of you suspect I’m on puny as me. Fortunately there was a Lawrenceville, a prep school situated LSD, there was a movie being shot 103-pound class. Winning my numer- next to Princeton University. The only on campus called “The Happy Years,” als helped me stick out a bit. Then one problem was my English was nonexis- starring Dean Stockwell as the young night at the Jigger Shop, where all the tent—having spoken Greek and Ger- rebel and Leo G. Carroll as the head- 400 boys used to go after dinner and man for the first 11 years of my life. master. The film was based on The before study hall, the captain of the One of my father’s executives thought Lawrenceville Stories, a very popular football team crossed the crowded it a good idea to start with baseball and book some 70 or 80 years ago. I was room, shook my hand, and asked if I took me out to the ballgame at Yankee picked because I had gomina on my were the son of the King of Greece. I Stadium. By the end of the game I had hair, a gel young European gentlemen nodded yes. “I thought so,” said Carl. I a pretty good idea of the national pas- wore at the time, and was wearing plus was made right there and then. time. fours, a sign of refinery in Greece but The president of the student council The Indians went on to beat the Bos- definitely the sign of a jerk in New Jer- was Temple Brown, the best sportsman ton Braves, as they were back then, in sey circa 1948. I have seen the movie was Homer Smith—he died only this the World Series, with Boudreau be- many times since, but have yet to spot year and was a general of the Army ing voted the most valuable player. I myself. and a well-known football coach—my remember a jingle even now—Spahn Lawrenceville had some very strange favorite teacher was Mr. Wagner, the and Sain and pray for rain, the Braves’ customs. New boys were called “rhi- wrestling coach, and I was the only for- having two great pitchers in Warren nies” and were not allowed to walk on eign-born student that year. My how Spahn and Johnny Sain, and that’s the grass except for sports. They also things have changed.

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What some of our alumni do: “Christendom helps sharpen analytical skills, h John Curran ’91 (Philosophy) while immersing you in an amazing Catholic Supervisory Special Agent, FBI environment unlike that at most other schools h Michele Velasco ’91 (Political Science) in the country. The goal of Christendom's Vice President, Finance, Sirius XM curriculum is the development of the entire h Frank O’Reilly ’83 (History) person. My reasoning skills were honed. My CEO, Petrine Construction ability to problem-solve and sift through dense h Emily Minick ’10 (Political Science) material to get that important information had Policy Assistant, US Senate Economic Committee greatly increased. My understanding of the bigger picture deepened, and the need to continually h Kathleen Gilbert ’07 (Classics) prioritize and order things in my life developed. I US Bureau Chief at LifeSiteNews.com left Christendom with a rich and abiding sense of h Bryan Hadro ’04 (Philosophy) moral and ethical issues.” Web Developer, ESPN Mark Rohlena ’00 h Jesse Batha ’02 (Political Science) CEO, Catholic Charities, Colorado Springs Commercial Airline Pilot, SkyWest h Adrienne Alessandro ’05 (English) Technical Writer, NASA h Phil O’Herron ’00 (Philosophy) Neuroscientist h Erin MacEgan ’07 (Theology) Registered Nurse h Sean Kay ’97 (English) Partner, PricewaterhouseCoopers

visit christendom.edu/elp Tomorrow’s Leaders. Here Today. NEW Career Development Program Front Royal, Virginia | 800.877.5456 | christendom.edu/leaders