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🇺🇸 Should We Look at Legacy?

🇺🇸 Should We Look at Legacy?

Plus, the fight for dark skies…

July 19, 2023

Good morning, and happy Wednesday. This California man celebrated his 100th birthday with a tail-wagging gathering that featured 200 of his closest four-legged, furry friends.

Plus, the fight for dark skies…

Also, for decades now, one of the biggest problems that has held back the growth of solar energy has been real estate. Today’s partner has invented a pretty unique solution.

QUICK CLICKS

Trump Targeted, Microsoft Pops, Russia Retaliates

US: Special counsel informs Trump he is target in probe of efforts to overturn 2020 election (ABC News)

World: US soldier believed to be in North Korean custody after unauthorized border crossing (CBS News)

US: Biden welcomes Israel’s Herzog to White House amid strains with Netanyahu (CNN)

Business: Johnson & Johnson sues Biden administration over Medicare drug price negotiations (CNBC)

Business: Microsoft stock pops after it announces $30 per month A.I. subscription for Microsoft 365 (CNBC)

World: Russia targets Ukraine's port of Odesa and calls it payback for a strike on bridge to Crimea (ABC News)

POWERED BY THREE SIXTY SOLAR

They’re Not Making Land Anymore

For decades now, one of the biggest problems that has held back the growth of solar energy has been real estate.

We’re sure you’ve seen how most solar installations are done today. They require huge fields … and take up a massive amount of space. In cities, obviously, the kind of real estate required for enough solar panels to produce sufficient power would be too expensive to even consider.

But by using vertical towers — requiring up to 90% less land space than traditional installations — one company is radically changing the game for solar energy by allowing installations to happen virtually anywhere by maximizing the land use in both rural and urban areas.

Click here to take a look. Now’s the time to do due diligence.

EDUCATION

Should We Look at Legacy?

In the wake of the Supreme Court’s ruling against affirmative action in college admissions, a civil rights group is challenging legacy admissions at Harvard University. The civil rights complaint states the practice of prioritizing applicants who are the children of alumni discriminates against students of color, as it gives an unfair boost to the mostly white children of alumni.

Reporting from the Right: AOC ridiculed for viral take on legacy admissions following Supreme Court's affirmative action ruling Kyle Morris, Fox News

Reporting from the Left: Lawsuit alleges Harvard gives preferential treatment to legacy admissions, who are ‘overwhelmingly’ White Meron Moges-Gerbi, Athena Jones and Christina Maxouris, CNN

From The Flag: The dialogue around the fairness and merit-based principles of college admissions has found renewed interest, with Americans passionately debating legacy policies, diversity, and equal opportunities in higher education. Here’s what both sides are saying.

RIGHT-LEANING SENTIMENT

Legacy Admissions Just as Wrong as Affirmative Action

Harvard's legacy admissions discriminate against middle-class students by favoring wealthy and well-connected applicants.
Eliminating legacy preferences would be a step toward creating a more equitable and merit-based college admissions system.
There are potential merits and drawbacks to legacy admissions, and any changes could impact the broader college admissions landscape.

Harvard Discriminates Against Middle-Class Kids Allysia Finley, Wall Street Journal: “According to a statistical analysis by Harvard, so-called legacy students enjoy a slightly greater admissions advantage than blacks, nearly twice that of Hispanics and 2.5 times that of low-income students. A trio of economists found that for high-school graduates between 2010-15, a legacy or a child of a donor or faculty who ranked in the top 20% of his high-school class was four to six times as likely to be admitted as other students with similar qualifications. … Harvard claims its legacy preferences serve a ‘community-building function’ and that scrapping the practice might jeopardize alumni ‘generous financial support.’ … Harvard’s system of racial and family preferences punishes middle-class white and Asian-American kids who don’t enjoy an inside track. A white student who doesn’t belong to one of the privileged groups would see his odds increase fivefold if one of his parents had graduated from Harvard. Other elite colleges offer similarly large legs up to legacies.”

Don’t stop at affirmative action: End college legacy admissions too Rikki Schlott, New York Post Opinion: “A legacy applicant with a close relative who graduated from Harvard had a 33.6% chance of acceptance… A student on the ‘dean’s interest list’ — code for someone whose family donated to the school — had a 42.2% shot. And a child of faculty or staff had a 46.7% chance of getting in. In fact, the researchers found that 43% of white students at Harvard were either legacies, children of faculty, kin of donors, or a recruited athlete. And a staggering 75% of them wouldn’t have gotten in if not for that special status. … If schools like Harvard are truly interested in creating a diverse class, they should be trying to diversify the last names of their students by dumping special legacy considerations. Undoubtedly, doing so would open the door for more first-generation graduates and underprivileged kids.”

One more opinion piece from the Right: Okay, What About Legacy Admissions? Jonah Goldberg, Dispatch

LEFT-LEANING SENTIMENT

Affirmative Action and Legacy Admissions Are Not the Same

Along with legacy admissions, colleges give an unfair advantage for elite sports and athletes, forgoing merit-based admissions.
SCOTUS overturning affirmative action policies could prompt further scrutiny of legacy preferences, as the two are interconnected.
Affirmative action policies are often misrepresented, particularly in relation to legacy admissions. The historical context of racial discrimination should be considered for more equitable admissions.

The one group with a huge advantage in college admissions Opinion by John MacIntosh: “…athletic recruitment has received very little scrutiny, which is surprising since the admission advantage for recruited athletes has historically been significantly greater than for any other group and also represents a large-scale, though indirect, form of legacy preference. As elite schools consider ways to make the admission process fairer, athletic recruitment should be first on the chopping block. … at highly selective, private institutions, athletic recruitment greatly distorts the admissions process. Although many of these schools are small — with undergraduate student bodies of just a few thousand students — they have the financial resources to field an over full complement of sports teams. For example, as of 2021, Harvard had 37 varsity teams with 1,191 athletes, compared with ‘only’ 27 teams with 886 athletes at the University of Michigan, according to data from the US Department of Education.”

How the Supreme Court's overturning of affirmative action could lead to the end of legacy admissions ‍Oren Sellstrom, Salon: “Not surprisingly, the same right-wing justices who were so outraged at race-conscious affirmative action showed little concern or similar contempt for donor and legacy admission programs… The Lawyers for Civil Rights (LCR) is now pushing back against the Supreme Court's decision to end affirmative action by filing a federal civil rights complaint against Harvard College "challenging its discriminatory practice of giving preferential treatment in the admissions process to applicants with familial ties to wealthy donors and alumni." Per the law, Harvard will have to end legacy and donor preferences if it wants to continue to receive federal monies. … The basis of the LCR's case against Harvard and how the recent Supreme Court decision(s) is part of a much larger right-wing backlash against the civil rights movement and racial progress that uses ‘original intent’ to justify partisan right-wing outcomes that are contrary to the Constitution and the facts.”

One more opinion piece from the Left: Affirmative action for white college applicants is still here Fabiola Cineas, Vox

FLAG THIS

Students Overwhelmingly Against Legacy Admissions

The results of a poll conducted among 2000 college students found 79% of respondents expressed their desire to ban legacy admissions in college admissions processes to promote a fairer and more merit-based system (Kaplan).

Similar results were found in another survey by Generation Lab, where 75% of college students and recent grads believe it's unfair for colleges to consider applicants' legacy status when making admissions decisions (Axios).

FLAG FINDS

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WATERCOOLER

Carver-Ford Collab, Deep Work, Canine Mayors

Carver at work in his laboratory.

On This Day in 1948: The agricultural chemist George Washington Carver, head of Alabama’s famed Tuskegee Institute, arrived in Dearborn, Michigan at the invitation of Henry Ford, founder of Ford Motor Company.

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Lifehacker: Use 'Deep Work' to Be More Productive

Today I learned there have been 9 dog mayors elected in small towns in California, Minnesota, Colorado, Kentucky — as well as one in San Francisco.

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