Harvard Law School professor Lani Guinier has a new book titled The Tyranny of the Meritocracy: Democratizing Higher Education in America. The author has two major beefs with standardized testing. First, she argues that it’s biased in favor of “privileged” students. Second, she says that our culture now equates test scores with an individual’s worth as a human being.
Therefore, instead of basing admissions decisions on “testocratic merit,” Guinier says, colleges should focus on “democratic merit,” a term that she only vaguely defines as being based on “Giving good service, such as working for the benefit of community rather than simply for personal advantage….”
Qualities such as leadership, resiliency, and willingness to learn, she contends, should be given greater weight than SAT scores. Her point is that by moving away from such tests, colleges will attract students more likely to “contribute” to our society.
My colleague George Leef reviews Guinier’s book in this week’s Pope Center Clarion Call and concludes that her argument “falls flat on its face.” “Higher education will work better for all Americans if academic theorists like Lani Guinier would stop using it for social engineering and just let each individual search for the education that best suits his abilities and circumstances,” he writes.
Read the full review here.
