Tag: Meritocracy

Opinion

Smart While Black: How Systems of Bias Reproduce the Racial Status Quo

Measures of school outcomes show America’s educational system favors White and Asian children, often failing poor, Black, Latinx and Native American children long before college. Those efforts do not only result from a limited curriculum or lack of instructional rigor for children of color, particularly from poor and working-class communities, they result from concerted, targeted efforts to preserve the most coveted achievements for White children only – even when they do not deserve it.

August 23, 2019

Students

Any Person, Any Study, but at What Cost?

In an editorial titled “An Ode to the Rich and Legacies,” a current undergraduate at my alma mater connects the aftermath of the recent college admissions scandal to the idea that despite preferential treatment wealthy students receive, they are underappreciated from their lower-income peers.

March 27, 2019

Opinion

The Myth of Meritocracy

To my high school guidance counselor, I wasn’t college material. I remember flipping through the dusty pages of the massive dictionary in the school library to find the definition of the word meritocracy: “the holding of power by people selected based on their ability.” I needed to understand why she repeated that word to me and some of my classmates to limit our options.

March 13, 2019

African-American

White Supremacy: Get Out the Way

Some might describe Ludacris’s (2001) song, “Move Bitch” as an anthem of fight, strength, and resistance. Others might describe the song as bold, vulgar, and direct. I use the title to describe a recent experience I had working in higher education that forced me to resign from my position and the institution that employed me.

August 31, 2018

Opinion

We Regret to Inform You…

Rejection is all too familiar in academia. We get rejected from fellowships, grants, academic journals and tenure-track jobs. At times, we do not even receive a rejection letter or email and are left to our own thoughts in the abyss of silence.

April 8, 2018