The Fast and the Furious
I have, in recent years been excited about the NBA draft, especially considering how important the draft has been to the Bulls since the championship years for which we should not be unduly nostalgiac. But since I've never seen or heard of half the players who will be selected in the first round and I can't even pronounce many of their names, I know better than to think this event will hold my interest. After LeBron, Carmello, and Donnie Darko who knows and who cares? But I wonder if the Bulls strategy will change since Jay Williams Bobby Hurley-ed himself into a tree. He probably would have been spending the evening waiting for the call from his agent informing him that he's been traded, but instead he'll be lying in a hospital bed reading his copy of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Accident Victim Repair.
On Monday the Supreme Court upheld Michigan University Law School's admissions practices while striking down the undergraduate procedure, which I think was probably the right decision. But the fact that this particular lawsuit was brought raises an interesting question. People tend to maintain the view that the selection process for an elite university is an objective one. Considering that students spend their efforts pursuing empirical standards like gpa's and test scores, it's easy to see how such a myth could be perpetuated. But if a school takes any other factor besides that kind of empirical academic data into consideration in its admissions policy, it brings a substantial quantity of subjectivity into the process. When a qualified student is rejected by a school, there could be 100 admittants to point to that were accepted instead for 100 different subjective reasons; and the difference between them is not the difference between a qualified student and an unqualified student, it's the difference between a qualified student and another qualified student. Michigan's admissions policy gave just as much weight to being a scholarship athlete as to being a minority. What looks more like a quota than reserving spaces for athletes? Is it unfair when a white student is rejected and a minority accepted instead, but it's entirely acceptable for a student to be rejected because coach needs a quarterback? Or because the marching band needs a tuba player, or the school wants some students from southern states? All these issues can be factors in admissions. It's not an objective process.
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