We've been hearing a lot about Yale lately. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the Democratic nominee for vice president, has tried to denigrate his opponent J.D. Vance attending Yale while coming from a poor background. The Ivy League has done a lot to embarrass itself recently, but I respect Vance's path from the Marine Corps to Yale. Walz feels no shame yelling that he's "damn proud" of his military service while lying about seeing combat, but Vance is to be shamed for attending Yale.
I ran across this thread, and though it's a bit long, it's worth reading. Whenever I hear about Yale, I think about President Joe Biden dropping a lawsuit against the school for discriminating against white and Asian applicants in the very first month of his presidency. Then the Supreme Court handed down its ruling on affirmative action against Harvard and progressive heads exploded.
Kiyah Willis, who describes herself in her bio as an "ex-woke leftist," made the case against affirmative action.
I'm a black woman who went to MIT. Here's why I'm anti-affirmative action 🧵 https://t.co/OaWmhIsL2o
— Kiyah Willis (@kiyahwillis) August 22, 2024
1. Affirmative Action is explicit bigotry, and I'm not a bigot. If someone works hard and achieves excellent grades, extracurriculars, and test scores, they should not be discriminated against or seen as an inferior applicant based on demographic, no matter their demographic.
— Kiyah Willis (@kiyahwillis) August 22, 2024
2. When I was there, I saw kids from all demographics struggle to keep up with the workload. Many of them took more than four years to graduate. Some didn't graduate at all. I think many were likely admitted due to AA policies and were set up to struggle/fail from the start.
— Kiyah Willis (@kiyahwillis) August 22, 2024
They would have had a better college experience elsewhere, but now some have loans they probably can't quickly repay because they don't have the degree they hoped to get. Many of them struggled with anxiety and depression because they were overwhelmed with the workload.
— Kiyah Willis (@kiyahwillis) August 22, 2024
Many of the unqualified graduates went into jobs unrelated to their degrees because they weren't qualified or were burnt out. They didn't retain much of what they were taught in their classes because they put all their efforts into barely passing.
— Kiyah Willis (@kiyahwillis) August 22, 2024
3. I want the best people going into STEM industries. I don't care about the sexual orientation of the person who built the bridge; I don't want it to collapse. I don't care about the skin color of my doctor; I want the one who knows the best about medicine and can cure me.
— Kiyah Willis (@kiyahwillis) August 22, 2024
When you prevent the brightest, most talented, and most hard-working in any field from getting the best education, you prevent the most excellent people from making the most positive change in the world.
— Kiyah Willis (@kiyahwillis) August 22, 2024
4. I want people to have healthy self-esteem. I don't know whether I was an affirmative action admit. I did well and graduated in less than 8 semesters, so I doubt I was unqualified, but I will never know if it was my hard work or my skin color that ultimately got me admitted.
— Kiyah Willis (@kiyahwillis) August 22, 2024
When MIT or any of these colleges or activists focus on demographics instead of ability, qualified people question whether they are competent and deserving of what they have achieved, and ammunition is given to people who doubt the merit of their achievements.
— Kiyah Willis (@kiyahwillis) August 22, 2024
To summarize: Affirmative action benefits no one
— Kiyah Willis (@kiyahwillis) August 22, 2024
It's bad for bright students who miss opportunities because of their race, for unqualified students who struggle academically, for qualified students who doubt their abilities, and for society to miss out on its fullest potential
I remember back when Al Gore was running for president and promising that everyone would go to college. That's stupid — not everyone is cut out for college, and there are plenty of options.
I posted a supercut of Kamala Harris the other day going on with her spiel about equity. Equality is giving everyone the same thing, without acknowledging that not everyone starts out from the same place. It's true, not everyone starts out at the same place, and it's not helping anyone to admit someone just to have diversity on campus. If you lower standards for admission, you lower the standards of the education students receive or, as Willis said, leave them with anxiety and depression and burnout.
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Vance started out with nothing and attended Yale. Not everyone starts out in the right place, but not everyone has the same aptitude, either. Walz bragged that none of the 24 students in his class went to Yale, as if that was an accomplishment.
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