https://www.lewrockwell.com/2019/04/lew-rockwell/free-lori-loughlin-and-the-other-political-prisoners/

By Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.

Everybody knows that college admissions aren’t made only on academic merit and haven’t been for a long time. If you want your son or daughter to be admitted to college and you have enough money, all you have to do is donate a lot of money to the university and your child will have no trouble getting in.

Here are a few examples: In 2015, Stewart Cohen gave $5 million to the USC School for Cinematic Arts. The gift came right after the very competitive school admitted Cohen’s twin daughters. In another well-known case, the New York real estate tycoon Charles Kushner pledged $2.5 million to Harvard in 1998 shortly before his son Jared was admitted. Jared Kushner’s grades would not have gotten him into the highly selective school without the donation.

Admitting students with poor qualifications takes place far wider than this. Because athletic teams make big money for the university, athletes get admitted under special programs. In our current politically correct climate, black students who score below the norm on the SAT and other admissions tests are not only admitted but actively sought out. Admitting them has been assiduously promoted by the federal government.

Is it a good or bad thing that college admissions aren’t made only on academic merit? I have an opinion on this issue, and I’m sure you do as well. But our opinions shouldn’t be forced on others. In a free society, the government shouldn’t force universities to follow affirmative action programs, but otherwise it should be up to the universities to decide whom they are going to admit, and on what basis. That’s what the free market is all about.

Given this record, why should parents who try to get their kids into college be investigated by the FBI, charged with major crimes, and be subjected to a campaign of defamation in the media? Yet this is exactly what has happened… Read the rest of this entry »