主题：美国WASP统治的衰落？ -- 晨枫

纽约时报的读者以自由派为主，因此可以算是另一面的看法。对这个问题，我没有什么自己的观点。不过从这些评论里，我觉得美国现在自由派与保守派之间的鸿沟确实越来越深。双方都视对方为怪物，不可理喻。如果这种情况长久持续下去，不是美国之福。

评论1

Having taught at a state university, a private college, and a community college over the past 15 years, and having raised four children through the public school system in four different states, I can affirm what many others are saying in their responses to this column: the lack of white, middle class Christian students in many of our universities is due to their parents' preference for quiet, Christian colleges where their children will only be exposed to points of views similar to their own. There is not enough space in the comment section for me to tell all about students who refuse to watch certain films, read certain books, or participate in certain activities where I've taught because it's against their Christian upbringing. If the word evolution comes up in any context, I've seen adult students cover their ears, close their eyes, and shake their heads in denial. So, let's not blame the so-called elite colleges for not admitting more white, rural, Christian students into their institutions. Let's place the blame where it belongs: on the students and their parents who would never consider these schools for fear that it might interrupt or - God forbid - change their way of thinking.

评论2

Universities genuinely strive to create diverse classes and campuses because we recognize that what a student contributes to his or her community is greater than what is reflected by SAT scores. I work as a faculty member at a selective state school and I participate in admissions. I certainly can't speak for all schools, but I know that we assiduously consider a huge range of factors. We look at everything that puts a student's scores in context. I personally divide these into two categories: factors that show the student's individuality, and factors that suggest the student may have had to work harder for the same marks as someone else - meaning that those scores actually mean more about the student's aptitude and potential. I look at factors like parental education and income, whether the student had to work full time during high school, whether he or she had to support a parent or sibling, or had to overcome addiction within the family. When I see that a student had to work full time to help contribute to a single-parent family, and that he or she still maintained a strong GPA, that GPA score means much more to me than the same score achieved by a student who had nothing else to do (nothing else obligatory, at least) other than school work. In my own experience, I find this "favors" - although that misuses the term - many students from immigrant families. This is not because of a racial preference. It is because an intensely hard-working young person simply is the better candidate and the better bet for future success than the not-so-hardworking young person.

I doubt your analysis of the numbers, and I doubt that the blame for perceived exclusion has as much to do with admission to higher education as with the hysteria that frequently accompanies shifts in privilege.

What I don't doubt is that many lower to middle-income white Christians that used to have an automatic preference over racial minorities (if not over affluent white Christians) feel that the world has changed significantly now that access to privilege is more closely aligned with merit. That's right: It has changed. For everyone.

评论3

As a secular liberal homeschooling mom in Indiana, where most of the homeschoolers (and therefore most of my friends) are much, much more conservative, rural, and religious than I am, I think of myself as a liberal who knows enough about conservatives not to be afraid on a new Timothy McVeigh every time I see a farmer. Let me hasten to reassure Mr. Brooks that even should Harvard fling her doors wide to rural whites, few rural whites will care to step inside. Most of the moms I know, homeschoolers or otherwise, want their kids to go to state universities for two reasons - it is always considerably cheaper to be an in-state student, and it keeps kids close to home so they will be more likely to settle down nearby & keep up the all-important family ties. You don't understand 'working class conservatives' at ALL if you don't recognize the primary importance of family in these decisions.