Black People and Institutional Status Games
This week, the Supreme Court of the United States in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard ruled race-conscious college admissions to be unconstitutional, as it allegedly contravenes the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause. As a result of this decision, race can no longer be a factor in college admissions. While there is much consternation about this ruling, its importance for black people in 2023 is overrated, as black people in America should not be playing institutional status games.
At the end of the day, this Supreme Court ruling is not going to stop a distinctly average Spencer C.J.W. Wadsworth from fulfilling his dream of being a sixth-generation Harvard man, despite his lackluster grades and utterly uncompetitive profile. His parents can afford to staple a gargantuan check to his college application (much like Jared Kushner) and nobody will bat an eyelid. What turns the world upside down, however, is when a Jamal Jackson gets admitted to Harvard University. It is only the Jamals of the world who are “taking the spots” of the “academically deserving.” This is why every failure whose ego is irreparably damaged by getting rejected from all the schools that their tutors told them they were destined for never mention the legacy admits to elite schools. They focus their pathetic ire on the black youngsters who get a chance at elite universities, despite black students still making up minuscule numbers at these predominantly white institutions.
Categorically, black people in the Western world should not be playing institutional status games, as such games are set up for blacks to play and lose. In an important 2015 Social Forces study, Gaddis found that black people with elite academic credentials only perform as well on employer call backs as whites with credentials from non-elite institutions. Also, when these blacks do get call backs, they tend to be for jobs with uncompetitive salaries compared to their white counterparts. As stated in a previous essay, one can respond to this knowledge in two ways: (1) argue that this information shows why it is absolutely essential for black people to only go to elite institutions, or (2) argue that it is silly for black people to even bother playing institutional status games in a system that will never recognize them as serious players. The latter makes infinitely more sense.
There will never come a time when racists will suddenly respect the academic achievements of black people. For them, people of African descent will always be mercifully awarded their credentials and qualifications, while other people earn the same credentials. Affirmative action no longer being the law of the land will do nothing to change this mindset, which is why it will always be pointless for black people to play institutional status games where they will never be recognized as legitimate players. Institutional status games only make sense for people whose associations with brand-name institutions confer immediate respect, even when wholly unmerited. This has never been the case for black people in America.
One just needs to look at the treatment of all three black people who have been chosen to sit on the Supreme Court of the United States. Most recently, the patently qualified Ketanji Brown Jackson was chosen by President Biden to replace the retiring Stephen Breyer—the Supreme Court justice that she once clerked for. Despite graduating from Harvard, magna cum laude, with an undergraduate degree in government, and cum laude, with a Harvard Law degree, she was famously deemed a “lesser black woman” when her name began making the rounds in the media.
Similarly, Justice Clarence Thomas’ intelligence has been questioned by liberals for decades. They relentlessly talk about his silence indicating his “inferior intellect,” and how he is undeserving of being on the Supreme Court. That he is a Yale Law graduate and has produced coherent legal opinions for decades does nothing to allow his detractors to give him the benefit of the doubt. Such people cannot simply disagree with Clarence Thomas. For them to sleep soundly at night, they have to believe he is a black buffoon unjustifiably occupying space on the nation’s highest court.
Lastly, Thurgood Marshall, a HBCU graduate, did not attend any elite universities, but he is unquestionably the most accomplished black Supreme Court justice (and consequential black jurist) in history, whose peerless legal brilliance was inarguably critical to black civil rights victories. With that said, even he was also deemed unintelligent by his peers on the Supreme Court and in the legal profession, with many accusing him of not being intellectually impressive, not being knowledgeable, needing law clerks as a crutch, and lacking attention to detail (see the Thurgood Marshall section of People’s Lawyers: Crusaders for Justice in American History by Diana Klebanon, Franklin L. Jonas, and Diana Klebanow). Nevertheless, these hateful narratives did not stop Justice Marshall from getting his work done. From Harvard to HBCUs, you will always find someone who will attack the intelligence and qualifications of black excellence.
For black people in the West, education is a lifeline. Those who encourage black people not to pursue higher education are not interested in black progress. In this day and age, black people also need to do more than graduate from college. People of African descent in the Western world need to be seeking advanced degrees for the purpose of knowledge and skill acquisition. However, the idea that the only acceptable places to get degrees are the most elite and exclusive institutions is nonsensical. What matters more than being associated with a name-brand institution is the acquisition of deep knowledge and the application of that knowledge to produce excellence. Chasing institutional status is a fool’s errand—especially when you are black and that status was never meant for you. When you have the intellectual goods like Justice Marshall, it does not matter where you went to school, and you create your own authentic status.