I was recently featured alongside several other members of the community in the now-infamous BusinessWeek article relating President Marx's vision of increased access to Amherst College. I participated in the piece because I thought it might provide us with an opportunity to engage the issue. However, the article gives short shrift to dialogue, in favor of typecasting and yellow journalism.
Author William Symonds falsely portrays President Marx as a "revolutionary" acting unilaterally, while diminishing the collective voice of Amherst students of all stripes. Of those students quoted in the piece, all those with whom I have spoken feel misrepresented by Mr. Symonds. The sentence attributed to me in the slide show happens to be the least meaningful thing I said in over two hours of conversation with him. (Believe it or not, I've got more to say on this topic than a mention of my high school's preference for American muscle cars.) It puzzles me how one can effectively write an article about low-income students at Amherst with such a limited focus on their concerns and larger role within this institution. Symonds eschews nuance in favor of pigeonholing Amherst students into neat little categories: wealthy and flourishing, or poor and faltering. The Amherst I know is not so readily dichotomized.
Current discourse focuses on admitting hypothetical low-income students, and the pitfalls and perils we may encounter. Unfortunately for the alarmists on campus, I've got some bad news: We're already here. Yes, you heard me. There are actual, real-live low-income students on campus right now. We go to class with you, sit next to you in Val and apparently enjoy all the rights and privileges bestowed upon typical College students. (If you're not careful, we might start using your water fountains.) What's even crazier, if you can believe it, is that some of us got in without "lowering standards" and are fully capable of "properly articulating" our viewpoints. Thus it comes as a bit of surprise to hear Sidman contend that "outstanding scholar" and "low-income" are mutually exclusive concepts.
Regardless, fears of "lowered standards" predate 2006. They tend to arise during periods of significant social change. Jerome Karabel chronicles this in his book "The Chosen." In the early 20th century, the SAT was created to serve as a uniform "measuring stick" in discerning aptitude. When high-scoring Jewish Americans threatened the status quo with their disproportionate admission into elite colleges, these schools de-emphasized pure intellect in favor of ambiguously defined "character" traits, qualities conveniently found in abundance among the Northeastern WASP elite. Since then, we've seen resistance to co-education and affirmative action, executed by reactionary groups such as Concerned Alumni of Princeton (of which Justice Samuel Alito was a member). Though the target of animosity changes over time, the message is the same: "Admitting members of this group will reduce academic rigor and diminish institutional prestige." The naysayers inevitably find themselves on the wrong side of history.
From an historical perspective, "merit" is an amorphous concept defined by the elite so as to deny "undesirables" entry into elite institutions. The SAT serves this purpose quite well. To those in education, it's a given that the SAT does a better job of predicting family income than measuring what innate ability one may have. It's unfortunate that we obsess over the SAT, a test that seems slightly less arbitrary than the Sorting Hat in Harry Potter.
Beyond the SAT, is Amherst a true meritocracy? For centuries, only those with the requisite schooling in Latin (i.e. those groomed by prep schools) were admitted to elite colleges. Much in the same way, our current grading system is questionable. As a liberal arts college, Amherst values conversation in the "marketplace of ideas." However, class participation rarely counts for more than 10 percent of one's grade. Instead, students' formal papers are disproportionately weighted. This system rewards those with literary prowess of the sort one acquires at wealthy private schools. Indeed, not all students arrive at Amherst with the cultural capital of Exeter or St. Paul's. This is and will continue to be an issue for Amherst to confront. Yet it is an affront to low-income students, "articulate" or otherwise, to assume that we as a bloc tarnish the Fairest College with our mere presence. This condescension is only reinforced when those in power define merit in ways that are advantageous to the elite.
The voices of low-income students have been stifled, in part by tripe such as Sidman's opinion article. Those most outspoken often have a tenuous grasp on reality. Low-income Amherst students sit out while the rest of the College speaks in epithets founded in ignorance. It is no surprise that many low-income students struggle to embrace the Amherst experience; sometimes it's all too clear that they do not belong.
Sidman, Symonds and the Amherst community would do well to take a closer look at what it means to be a low-income student at an elite college. Talk to those of us who have already brought diversity of the socio-economic variety to the Fairest College. That might be the simplest and best way to confront these issues of power.
Zeiser can be reached at
tpzeiser@amherst.edu