Without You, Nothing Will Change

On October 26, 1963, John F. Kennedy made a quick trip to break ground on the Robert Frost Library at Amherst College, where the poet had taught for over 40 years. Frost had been an early supporter of Kennedy’s presidential campaign and had delivered a poem at his inauguration.

Seemingly reminded of the poet’s advice to “be more Irish than Harvard,” Kennedy proclaimed, “Privilege is here, and with privilege goes responsibility.” At the time Kennedy spoke those words, he pointed out that the majority of private college students came from the nation’s wealthiest 10 percent, and income inequality had become extreme. “There is inherited wealth in this country,” JFK said, “and also inherited poverty.”

Kennedy drew a direct connection between this data and Frost’s life’s work. “The men who create power make an indispensable contribution to the Nation’s greatness,” he said, “but the men who question power make a contribution just as indispensable.” Kennedy then issued a challenge, which many of the students present recall as a transformative moment in their life: “Unless the graduates of this college and other colleges like it who are given a running start in life — unless they are willing to put back into our society those talents, the broad sympathy, the understanding, the compassion — into the service of the Great Republic, then obviously the presuppositions upon which our democracy are based are bound to be fallible.”

Some regarded it as the best speech of Kennedy’s career.

It was also one of the last.

***

Nearly 60 years later, the U.S. has made only limited progress in combating structural poverty and has seen inequality skyrocket. Elite colleges haven’t made any progress either — they remain the domain of the rich. Thirty-eight American colleges admit more students from the top 1 percent than the bottom 60 percent. At Harvard, more students come from families making over $500,000 per year than under $40,000. (For comparison, at The City University of New York, where I teach, 60 percent of students come from families earning less than $30,000 annually). The race data is no better. Overall, the Black population at elite colleges hasn’t significantly increased since the 1980s.

This is no accident, but rather the predictable consequence of conscious choices in admissions mechanisms, which have been laid bare by Students for Fair Admissions’ ongoing lawsuit against Harvard. At trial, SFFA’s expert witness, Richard Kahlenberg, testified to a race-neutral means by which Harvard could boost both socioeconomic and racial diversity: ending the admissions preference it gives to ALDCs — athletes and the children of alumni, donors, and faculty.

About 30 percent of Harvard students fall into this category including approximately 43 percent of white students. And ALDC tips are significant: The admit rate into Harvard’s freshman classes for 2014 through 2019 averaged merely 5.8 percent, but according to data produced in SFFA’s case, the College accepted nearly 34 percent of legacy applicants, 47 percent of faculty kids, and 86 percent of recruited athletes. Harvard’s own analysis indicates that the difference in admission rates between whites and Asians could be explained almost entirely by ALDC preferences.

Alas, Harvard said that ending ALDC tips would jeopardize important institutional interests. The U.S. District Court judge, a graduate of Middlebury College and University of Pennsylvania Law School, bought Harvard’s argument, though the University offered relatively weak evidentiary support for its claims. Harvard could have boosted diversity through other race-neutral mechanisms, such as expanding the size of its class or admitting some students on the basis of high school class rank. Instead, it doubled down on the status quo.

Now, it is overwhelmingly likely that the Supreme Court will end affirmative action. If it does, let history remember that it will be in part because of Harvard’s steadfast commitment to affirmative action for affluent whites.

***

Tempting as it may be to dwell on the data, I want to focus instead on the audience to whom Kennedy chose to deliver his message. Since the premature death of his son Patrick, JFK had traveled little beyond visits to his family compound in Cape Cod. For him to venture to Amherst, it must have seemed important to Kennedy that he deliver his message to whom he did.

It does to me too.

If you’re reading this in The Crimson, listen: Without you, nothing will change.

Universities are unlikely to change on their own. One of the most painful lessons of my book, “Poison Ivy: How Elite Colleges Divide Us,” is that college faculty and leaders tend to fall prey to the basic human tendencies to justify the system to which they belong and to believe that the world operates meritocratically.

If there is hope, it lies with you. But that hope is real.

College students have shaped the national agenda on the Vietnam War, divestment from South Africa, and criminal justice reform. Ultimately, colleges and universities are communities of students, faculty, and alumni. Change may not happen overnight, but it is possible.

So I call upon you to join in a great rethinking of college as we’ve known it. Of the 100 largest American nonprofits, twenty-six are a college, a university, or an affiliated corporation. Combined, these schools control nearly half-a-trillion dollars in assets. That’s about twice the gold bullion reserves in Fort Knox. Harvard’s endowment alone is worth about $51 billion. Whether race-based affirmative action ends or not, it’s time for you to demand that universities’ fortunes — amassed with tax breaks worth as much as $20 billion per year — be used as an instrument of class mobilization, not stratification. To fuel the American Dream rather than to thwart it.

Because, as President Kennedy asked: If not you, who? If not now, when?

Evan J. Mandery graduated from Harvard College in 1989 and Harvard Law School in 1992, and is currently a Professor in the Department of Criminal Justice at John Jay College of Criminal Justice.