By Jesuorobo A. Enobakhare, Jr
The words “Yale”, “Stanford”, “Georgetown”, and if you live in Texas – “Texas” mentioned on a resume will get you an interview and more than likely a job if it is accompanied by a race that is not one of the “people of color” varieties. These schools and many others like them are hailed in many fortune 500 circles as the cream of the crop when it comes to recruitment. And with the exception of “Texas” these schools come with an air of accomplishment when one mentions they are alumni.
But the problem with rich entitled children is that sometimes they don’t work as hard as the unentitled ones, or for this article, the regular children. Regular children have to study hard, keep up their grades, and compete for positioning in order to get accepted into these so-called “Exceptional” schools and hope and pray that they receive a scholarship that will pay the exorbitant tuition costs. Rich privileged parents, based on William Rick Singer words, are given another option to get into these “Exceptional” schools through a “side door” as mentioned in this article from NBC News:
Approximately $25 million was paid by around 750 families in order to get their rich entitled children into schools that they were neither academically nor athletically qualified to attend just so they could get the “college experience” as if they were buying tickets to visit a college themed amusement park before they begin an adulthood of living off of their parents’ riches. They either cheated on the SAT via someone else taking the test, getting diagnosed with a fake learning disability in order to get extra time while taking the SAT, or if their grades and test scores were really low, they were given an athlete’s spot. Besides an SAT workshop regular parents would not dare do such; never mind the fact most regular parents don’t have the extra money lying around to invest in such illegal activities to advance their kids future opportunities. And regular children aren’t looking for a theme park experience; they are hoping that their educational investment will provide a return of a promising career and comfortable life.
In light of this development, I cannot call it “new” because white privilege seems to always find a way to circumvent the law in most normal circumstances, whether it is in education, business, politics, or the criminal justice system. But it is past time that we remove the corruption and cronyism from all of our institutions and level the playing field so that everyone truly receives equal opportunity to success in life no matter the size of their parents’ back accounts or net worth.
The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Jesuorobo A. Enobakhare, Jr. Contact him by email at jesuorobo@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter @Jesuorobo and Instagram @jesuorobo_enobakhare
Jesuorobo's Thoughts 