If it’s been said once, it’s been said a million times. With friends like Jennifer Rubin (and Bill Kristol and the entire Bulwark crowd), who needs enemies? Tucker Carlson appropriately pointed out that establishment/Washington Republicans are usually front-and-center with liberals in tearing down conservatives and tsk-tsking them.

These Tsk-Tsk Conservatives somehow always find a way to take the heat off of progressives and paint the “icky” conservatives as racist and simple-minded.

Enter Jennifer Rubin, whose take on the college admissions scandal is, “Stop being racists, and fix this system with more government-enforced social justice!”

rather than accusing every successful nonwhite student from an elite school of getting preferential treatment, appropriate skepticism should be directed at children of the super-rich who managed to get into elite schools despite less-than-sterling-grades. https://t.co/E5QyT8YL9c

— Jennifer Rubin (@JRubinBlogger) March 13, 2019

As her tweet shows, the entire foundation of her opinion is that conservatives look at everyone through a race-based lens and have a difficult time believing that anyone who’s not white can be smart or accomplished.

“Rather than accusing every successful nonwhite student from an elite school of getting preferential treatment, appropriate skepticism should be directed at children of the super-rich who managed to get into elite schools despite less-than-sterling-grades.”

Does she truly believe conservatives “accuse” successful minority students of getting preferential treatment? Or that it hasn’t been a known fact of life for centuries that the children of the super-rich get special treatment?

But hey, white people, you better learn something from this. Don’t think about the people who, you know, actually went to obscene and laughable lengths to get their unmotivated offspring into these schools.

“The incident, one hopes, gives upper middle-class and wealthy whites a full appreciation of what ‘privilege’ and ‘rigging the system’ really mean.”

If wealthy whites didn’t know what “rigging the system” meant, this scandal wouldn’t have happened! That’s literally what they were doing, and they fully appreciated (and will appreciate even more should any be sentenced to prison time) how to take advantage of their privilege.

Rubin’s suggestions for “improvement” are frightening, especially from a so-called conservative. It wouldn’t be surprising to see Beto O’Rourke, Bernie Sanders, or Elizabeth Warren embrace them. She’d like to:

• Compel “elite” schools “to look at their egregiously disproportionate admission of the super-rich and their role in widening income inequality.”
• Have federal gov’t enforce “diversity” mandates, ensuring that low-income and “first in the family” students are recruited and favored.
• Force universities to publicize how many legacy admissions and children of donors there are.
• Have “college ranking outlets…penalize schools that take the vast majority of students from the 1 percent.”
• Rethink the role of college sports.
• Force politicians (why just politicians?) to disclose the amount of financial gifts they’ve given to schools their children attended.
• Keep the focus on “income inequality” and give low-income people more government handouts.

One sure-fire way to achieve greater transparency in college admissions and for admissions to be based on merit is to get federal money and federal “diversity” regulations out of higher education. Without guaranteed federal student loans, universities would be forced to streamline their operations costs and ensure that their graduates would see an economic benefit from their investment. Those eeeevil capitalist corporations, who need an educated, trained workforce, would have more of an incentive to partner with universities to create that workforce. Such partnerships already successfully occur at the high school and trade school level throughout the country – helping the disadvantaged students Rubin is focused on.

Rubin’s hope that we can “rethink the role of college sports” is absurd. College sports allow poor students to receive an education; many of those athletes are “first in the family.” They also play a large role in creating a campus spirit and identity that is important for attracting potential students and ensuring alumni contributions to a school’s endowment (hooray for non-government funding). Though there are definitely issues regarding the role of money in college sports, athletics is an important revenue stream for many colleges. And, as a nation we’re getting more obese and unhealthy each year. Diminishing the role of college sports doesn’t encourage people to be more active.

In the end, Rubin takes off the mask, says “screw that” to the free market, and hints that government distribution of educational opportunities is the only way to go.

“It is, however, time to put away the rising-tide-lifts-all-boats myth, recognize real and substantial inequities, understand that inequities feed anti-democratic extremism, and embrace the idea that we are losing out as a country if mediocre elites get opportunities over more talented non-elites.”

Since the beginning of time, mediocre elites have had more opportunities than talented non-elites. That’s the sad truth. But, it’s also true that since the beginning of time “more talented non-elites” have used that talent (coupled with a lot of hard work) to create their own opportunities.

Our wonderful country was founded by non-elites who didn’t ask the crown for opportunity. They seized it.