College scandal fits well with broader government populist moment

Bizarre, hilarious and disturbing, the college-admissions scandal is a perfect fit for our political moment.

A central claim of today’s populists, on both sides, is that we have a ruling class that wields power in its own interests and justifies that power with the pretense that it has earned its position through merit.

The elites, for their part, do not always recognize themselves as such. They consider themselves part of a meritocracy, with merit defined largely in terms of educational credentials. The legitimacy of the process by which institutions select students is thus tied to the legitimacy of their own privilege.

Standardized tests and gradepoint averages work for our meritocrats the way the Sorting Hat does in the Harry Potter novels, opening up a world of magical possibilities by recognizing innate talent. Populism’s liberal opponents have frequently borrowed the imagery of Hogwarts for themselves, with President Donald Trump as Voldemort and the Resistance in the place of Dumbledore’s Army. It is a series of books that ends in a battle for control of a school.

The reality of the admissions process is disenchanting. The rich daughters of Hollywood can hobnob with university board members and have their parents buy their way in.

For that matter, isn’t recruiting athletes a departure from a rigorous standard of academic merit? Isn’t it an even bigger one to give preferential treatment to the children of alumni?

And doesn’t the desperation of actress Lori Loughlin’s race to win admission for her daughter — a “social media influencer” whose resume includes a YouTube video where she says, “I don’t really care about school” — highlight how little many prospective students and their families view “higher learning” as the purpose of college?

There may be answers but they are uncomfortable questions for the universities.

There manifestly is a separate system for the wealthy that is beyond any prosecutor’s power. The prosecutions are in reality about acts of fraud committed against the universities.

Trump’s version of populism is a little different from previous ones. Past populists have inveighed against a ruling class they considered to have too much power. Trump portrays elites and the institutions they run as incompetent, weak, frivolous and dishonest.

It is an overdrawn case, and the universities are not, in truth, as bad as this scandal makes them look. But the damage will last. Political, financial, religious and journalistic elites have done quite a lot to seed the ground for populist challenges by acting in a way that discredits them. Add academic elites to the list.