Trump's College Admissions Crusade.....

[Laxman]

and his son-in-law's experience set side by side makes for quite a tale. My, what a glimpse into what making America great again really means. Yesterday, the NY Times reported that:

The Trump administration is preparing to redirect resources of the Justice Department’s civil rights division toward investigating and suing universities over affirmative action admissions policies deemed to discriminate against white applicants, according to a document obtained by The New York Times.

The document, an internal announcement to the civil rights division, seeks current lawyers interested in working for a new project on “investigations and possible litigation related to intentional race-based discrimination in college and university admissions.”

The announcement suggests that the project will be run out of the division’s front office, where the Trump administration’s political appointees work, rather than its Educational Opportunities Section, which is run by career civil servants and normally handles work involving schools and universities. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/01/us/politics/trump-affirmative-action-universities.html

and a recent article in Vox reminds us about Jared's adventures in getting into Harvard:

Of course few will be surprised that Kushner’s father, Charles Kushner, a wealthy and connected developer and political donor, helped him get in. But the details of just how that happened, described in Daniel Golden’s thoroughly reported 2007 book The Price of Admission, remain remarkable to this day.

What Golden found, essentially, was that Jared’s father handed Harvard (a school he did not attend) a big pile of money just as Jared was starting to apply to colleges. Around the same time, Jared’s dad got his US senator to contact another US senator to arrange a chat with Harvard’s dean of admissions.

Happily for the Kushner family, Jared was then admitted. But several officials at Jared’s high school outright told Golden that they found the choice puzzling, since his grades and academic record really didn’t seem to merit it.... https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/8/2/16084226/jared-kushner-harvard-affirmative-action

I guess you can't really beat Trump's reality show for warped story lines. I just wish we weren't all living in it. Let's make sure that America remains in the hands of those who really deserve it! The folks who earned their wealth the old-fashioned way-by inheriting it. MAGA!

[FSogol]

1. K & R. n/t

[Johnny2X2X]

2. Trump couldn't have gotten into any major university

Daddy got him into Wharton where he probably paid people to do his school work for him.

The Meritocracy doesn't apply to the super rich, they can't lose and they don't have to do anything much to succeed.

I went to college with a kid whose family was one of the richest in Michigan. This kid literally couldn't tie his shoes and tripped over his laces all the time. He had every expense paid for and was given a $4000 spending allowance each month to blow on beer and weed. His frat did a lot of his school work for him and he still took 6 years to get a BA in communications. Same idiot now is an exec at one his grand dad's companies, probably pulls down 7 figures a year and vacations 6 months at a time. He literally couldn't lose.

Trump's life has been so rigged for him that I wouldn't be surprised if he really does have trouble reading.

[smirkymonkey]

3. This!

I know a lot of privileged people who got into the schools they did because of their family's money and influence. Some of them deserved to be there because of their intelligence and hard work, but many of them never would have made it without the wealth and power of their families.

[Laxman]

4. This Makes His Efforts...

to undo affirmative action all the more insidious, doesn't it? These elite institutions are for the rich and powerful and don't you forget it. (to quote Quickdraw McGraw)

[Johnny2X2X]

5. Bad for business

And this type of stuff is bad for the country. You end up with dimwits running companies not because they are at all capable of doing so, but because of who their parents are. Very seldom does a child take over running a successful company from their parent and do anything other than ruin it.