The Meritocracy Myth
A Dollars and Sense interview with Lani Guinier
Lani Guinier became a
household name in 1993 when Bill Clinton appointed her
to head the Civil Rights Division of the Justice
Department and then, under pressure from conservatives,
withdrew her nomination without a confirmation hearing.
Guinier is currently the Bennett Boskey Professor of Law
at Harvard University where, in 1998, she became the
first black woman to be tenured at the law school.
Guinier has authored and co-authored numerous books
including, most recently,
The Miner's Canary:
Enlisting Race, Resisting Power, Transforming Democracy
(2002, with Gerald Torres); and
Who's Qualified?: A
New Democracy Forum on Creating Equal Opportunity in
School and Jobs (2001).
Tyranny of the Majority: Fundamental Fairness in a
Guinier's latest book, Meritocracy Inc.: How Wealth
Became Merit, Class Became Race, and College Education
Became a Gift from the Poor to the Rich, will be
published in 2007. This past summer, she offered a
glimpse of her upcoming book in this interview with D&S
intern Rebecca Parrish.
* * *
Rebecca Parrish: What is meritocracy? What is the
difference between the conventional understanding and
the way you are using the term in Meritocracy, Inc.?
Lani Guinier: The conventional understanding
of meritocracy is that it is a system for
awarding or allocating scarce resources to those who
most deserve them. The idea behind meritocracy is
that people should achieve status or realize the promise
of upward mobility based on their individual talent or
individual effort. It is conceived as a repudiation of
systems like aristocracy where individuals inherit their
I am arguing that many of the criteria we associate with
individual talent and effort do not measure the
individual in isolation but rather parallel the
phenomena associated with aristocracy; what we're
calling individual talent is actually a function of that
individual's social position or opportunities gained by
virtue of family and ancestry. So, although the system
we call "meritocracy" is presumed to be more
democratic and egalitarian than aristocracy, it
is in fact reproducing that which it was intended to
Michael Young, a British sociologist, created the term
in 1958 when he wrote a science fiction novel called
The Rise of Meritocracy. The book was a satire in
which he depicted a society where people in power could
legitimate their status using "merit" as the
justificatory terminology and in which others could be
determined not simply to have been poor or left out but
to be deservingly disenfranchised.
Rebecca Parrish: How did you become interested in
studying meritocracy in the first place?
Lani Guinier: I became interested in the 1990s as
a result of looking at the performance of women in law
school. A student and I became interested in the
disparity between the grades that men and women at an
Ivy League law school were receiving. Working with
Michelle Fein and Jean Belan, we found that male and
female students were coming in with basically the same
credentials. The minor difference was that the women
tended to have entered with slightly higher
undergraduate grades and the men with higher LSATs.
The assumption at that time was that incoming
credentials predicted how you would perform. Relying on
things like the LSAT allowed law school officials to say
they were determining admission based on merit. So
several colleagues told me to look at the LSAT scores
because they were confident that I might find something
to explain the significant differences in performance.
But we found that, surprisingly, the LSAT was
actually a very poor predictor of performance for both
men and women, that this "objective" marker which
determined who could even gain access was actually not
accomplishing its ostensible mandate.
I then became interested in studying meritocracy because
of the attacks poor and working class whites were waging
against Affirmative Action. People were arguing that
they were rejected from positions because less qualified
people of color were taking their spots.
I began to question what determines
who is qualified. Then, the more research I did, the
more I discovered that these so-called markers of merit
did not actually correlate with future performance in
college but rather correlated more with an applicant's
parents' and even grandparents' wealth. Schools were
substituting markers of wealth for merit.
Rebecca Parrish: As a theorist of democracy,
how do you approach issues of educational equity and
achievement differently from other scholars? Are current
educational institutions democratic?
Lani Guinier: My approach builds on and borrows
from work of many other scholars. It perhaps expands on
it or shifts emphasis. For example, many people defend
Affirmative Action on grounds that there are multiple
measures of merit and that bringing diverse students to
the school would benefit the learning environment.
The problem with this argument is
that it pits diversity as a counterpoint to merit.
And, the argument is not strong enough to counter the
belief in "merit" as an egalitarian and democratic way
to allocate scarce resources.
I am arguing that there are
fundamental flaws in the over-reliance on these
supposedly objective indicators of merit. This approach
positions poor people and people of color as the problem
rather than problematizing the ways we measure merit in
the first place.
Rebecca Parrish: Can you talk about the Harvard
and Michigan studies?
Lani Guinier: Harvard University did a study
based on thirty Harvard graduates over a thirty-year
period. They wanted to know which students were most
likely to exemplify the things that Harvard values most:
doing well financially, having a satisfying career and
contributing to society (especially in the form of
donating to Harvard). The two variables that most
predicted which students would achieve these criteria
were low SAT scores and a blue-collar background.
That study was followed by one at the University of
Michigan Law School that found that those most likely to
do well financially, maintain a satisfying career, and
contribute to society, were black and Latino students
who were admitted pursuant to Affirmative Action.
Conversely, those with the highest LSAT scores were the
least likely to mentor younger attorneys, do pro-bono
work, sit on community boards, etc.
So, the use of these so called "measures of merit" like
standardized tests is backfiring on our institutions of
higher learning and blocking the road to a more
Rebecca Parrish: You refer to college
education as a gift from poor to rich.
Lani Guinier: Anthony Carnevaly made that
statement when he was the vice president of the
Educational Testing Service. He did a study of 146 of
the most selective colleges and universities and found
that 74% of students came from the top 25% of the
socio-economic spectrum. Only 3% came from the lowest
quartile and 10% (which is 3% plus 7%) came from the
bottom half. So that means that 50% of people in the
country are providing substantial state and federal
taxes to both public and private institutions even
though they are among those least well off and are being
excluded from the opportunity.
Rebecca Parrish: In Meritocracy Inc.,
you'll be exploring the relationship between class
and race in structuring US society. What insights
can you offer into their relationship? How can we think
about class and race in our efforts to democratize
Lani Guinier: The argument I'm making is that in
many ways race is being used as a stand in for class.
I am not saying that race and class are coterminous but
that people look at race and see race because it is
highly visible but they don't see class.
Rebecca Parrish: Can you give some examples?
Lani Guinier: In Arkansas in 1957 whites
rioted as Central High School in Little Rock was
desegregated by nine carefully-chosen middle-class black
students. The rage and hate on people's faces was
broadcast on national television and President
Eisenhower had to send in the National Guard to ensure
that blacks could get an education. What most people
don't know is that at same time as the leaders of city
of Little Rock planned the desegregation of Central
High, they built and opened a new high school located in
area where the sons and daughters of the doctors and
Blacks were coming in at the same time that upper class
whites were exiting and this was part of what provoked
the intense backlash; there was the sense among the
working class whites who remained that their chances
for upward mobility were lost because they could no
longer fraternize with the middle and upper class.
Previously, there were only two high schools in Little
Rock, one white and one black. So Central High was
segregated by race and integrated by class. Now Central
was integrated by race and segregated by class.
Beth Roy did interviews with white graduates of Central
High thirty years later [for her book Bitters in the
Honey] and determined that many of them still blame
blacks for the failure of themselves and their children
to gain a secure toehold in a middle class lifestyle.
They think that the American Dream owed them individual
opportunity through its promise that if you work hard
and play by the rules you will succeed. The problem with
the American Dream is that it offers no explanation for
failure other than that you deserve your lot in life and
that if you fail there must be something wrong with you.
Many people are perfectly willing to
believe that success is individual but don't want to
think about failure as individual and no one wants to
believe that they deserve to fail. So they find a
scapegoat and blacks were an easy scapegoat in this
case. Even thirty years later, the white graduates of
Central High claimed that blacks stole the American
While the integration of Central was hyper-visible, the
building of Hall High was kept under wraps—most people
still don't know about it. Wealthier whites were able to
get away with building Hall High because blacks were
used as a scapegoat.
Rebecca Parrish: You and Gerald Torres wrote
about the Texas Ten Percent Plan in The
Miner's Canary. How does that relate to this?
Lani Guinier: Sheryl Hopwood was a white
working-class woman who applied to the University of
Texas Law School and was denied admission. In 1996, she
sued the university for racial discrimination, arguing
that less qualified blacks and Latinos had taken her
Thirty-nine years after Central, she
sued in the district court and then in the Fifth Circuit
and won, but the problem with the court's analysis was
that they did not look behind the school's claim that
all slots, except for those bestowed through Affirmative
Action, were distributed based on merit.
It actually turns out that the school's own formula for
determining merit disadvantaged Sheryl Hopwood. She went
to a community college and the University of Texas Law
weighted her LSAT scores with those of other applicants
from her school and graduating year. Because her
community college drew from a working class population,
Hopwood's own LSAT score was negatively weighted. So
Hopwood's chance of attending the
University of Texas was diminished because of class
status not because of her race.
After the ruling in Hopwood's favor, a group of
legislators and concerned citizens determined that the
University of Texas would not return to its
segregationist roots. They started investigating the
population of the University of Texas graduate school
and found that 75% students admitted according to
"merit" were coming from only 10% of high schools in the
state. These schools tended to be suburban, white,
and middle or upper class. Their logic was that if the
University of Texas is supposed to be a flagship school
and a place from which the state's leaders would be
drawn, then 10% of students from each high school in the
state should be automatically eligible for access. So
the Texas Ten Percent Plan was passed by the legislature
and Governor Bush signed it into law.
It all started with concern about racial diversity but
it was discovered that class was also at the core. The
law ultimately passed because a conservative republican
legislator voted for the law when he learned that not
one of his constituents, who were white and poor or
working class, had been admitted in the previous cycle.
So, "meritocratic" standards were
keeping out poor and working class whites, especially
the rural poor. Many people worried that if SAT scores
were eliminated as marker, then grades would go down.
However, those who've come in based on the Ten Percent
plan have had higher freshman year grades.
Rebecca Parrish: You've said before that race is
being used as a decoy.
Lani Guinier: Race was being used as a decoy for
class, leading working-class and poor whites to
challenge Affirmative Action, and to challenge the
integration of Central High School. In fact,
meritocratic standards, which favor the wealthy,
have kept them out. Too often, poor and working class
whites are willing to throw their lot in with upper
class and middle class whites because class is obscured
while race is quite visible. People think that if anyone
can succeed, if these other whites can succeed, then
they can too because merit claims to be about the
individual operating without regard to background
Rebecca Parrish: So what are the background
conditions of students of color attending elite
Lani Guinier: Many students admitted through
Affirmative Action are not that different from those
admitted through conventional standards of merit because
schools are so committed to the annual issue of US
News and World Report that ranks educational
institutions according to the their students'
standardized test scores.
In Ivy League schools, a large percentage of Latinos and
blacks are foreign-born and don't identify with
communities of color who are born in the United States.
I'm not arguing that international students should not
have access to US institutions. It is significant,
however, that while in the '70s and '80s, blacks and
Latinos entering through Affirmative Action were coming
in from poor U.S. communities and were passionate about
returning to those communities and lifting as they
Currently, schools are more concerned about admitting
people who have high SAT scores who will boost their
status than recruiting leaders. Education is changing
from an opportunity for students to explore and grow to
institutions that are consumed with rankings. Education
is becoming about providing credentials to obtain
high-paying jobs rather than training people for a
Rebecca Parrish was a Dollars & Sense intern in
the summer of 2005.
Dollars and Sense. Issue # 263, January/February
posted 10 March 2006
Time to Repair the Constitution's Flaws
The Liberal Republicanism of Gordon Wood
Which U.S. Presidents Owned Slaves?
Obama Women and Racist Exceptionalism
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* * * *
What Orwell Didn't Know
Propaganda and the New Face of American Politics
By Andras Szanto
Propaganda. Manipulation. Spin. Control. It has ever been thus—or has it? On the eve of the 60th anniversary of George Orwell's classic essay on propaganda (
), writers have been invited to explore what Orwell didn't—or couldn't—know. Their responses, framed in pithy, focused essays, range far and wide: from the effect of television and computing, to the vast expansion of knowledge about how our brains respond to symbolic messages, to the merger of journalism and entertainment, to lessons learned during and after a half-century of totalitarianism. Together, they paint a portrait of a political culture in which propaganda and mind control are alive and well (albeit in forms and places that would have surprised Orwell). The pieces in this anthology sound alarm bells about the manipulation and misinformation in today's politics, and offer guideposts for a journalism attuned to Orwellian tendencies in the 21st century.
Politics and the English Language
* * *
The Gardens of Democracy: A New American Story
of Citizenship, the Economy, and the Role of Government
By Eric Liu and Nick Hanauer
American democracy is informed by the 18th century’s most cutting edge thinking on society, economics, and government. We’ve learned some things in the intervening 230 years about self interest, social behaviors, and how the world works. Now, authors Eric Liu and Nick Hanauer argue that some fundamental assumptions about citizenship, society, economics, and government need updating. For many years the dominant metaphor for understanding markets and government has been the machine. Liu and Hanauer view democracy not as a machine, but as a garden. A successful garden functions according to the inexorable tendencies of nature, but it also requires goals, regular tending, and an understanding of connected ecosystems. The latest ideas from science, social science, and economics—the cutting-edge ideas of today—generate these simple but revolutionary ideas: (The economy is not an efficient machine. It’s an effective garden that need tending. Freedom is responsibility. Government should be about the big what and the little how. True self interest is mutual interest.
Time to Repair the Constitution's Flaws
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(Books, DVDs, Music, and more)
11 May 2012