Point well made, though given the program’s success, perhaps the time is over for race-based preferences (that still leaves economic preferences, which might be a more appropriate ‘correction’).

So, given your views, which many would support – why doesn’t the president release his transcripts?

On the campaign trail, the president called for transparency, something the press corp has noted sourly he has not delivered. Perhaps its the hypocrisy of what the transparent, post-ideology, post-identity president does versus what he says.

Your article assumes that ‘outing’ the president re:
affirmative action is the only possible basis for the requests for full
disclosure by the president.

Isn’t it just possible that some folks, I don’t speak for Donald Trump, are curious what he actually wrote? Afterall, we know and debated what the current Supreme Court Chief Justice wrote in his High School papers. As to George W., his grades were known, his Yale admission was broadly recognized as ‘legacy’, and the common media view was that he got out of Viet Nam and didn’t serve in the Guard. As the son of a wealthy past president – his silver spoon was prominent.

Isn’t there a ‘right to know’? How come the press has not pushed for the release? Isn’t it interesting how many people are ruffled by any mention of such a right when it comes to our current president – see how fast they tar them racists. Perhaps we should have one rule, equally applied for all those seeking public offices – just a thought.

ElectronicMuse – don’t doubt there are racists or bigots out there, but getting beyond labels and looking at the principles, ‘right to know’ / full disclosure for political office seems important. I’d think academics should support that notion as empirical research depends on access to facts.

The only true way to be ‘post ideology’ is for all parties to drop the ad hominems and willful indirection to focus on the merits of underlying issues. Our right, as citizens, to critique our government depends on transparency. We should judge ALL administrations by their devotion to that principle.

I agree with Open2ideas that there should be one rule concerning disclosure of personal information such as transcripts (although I myself don’t feel a need to see them). I am not sure that how well one has done in school correlates directly to how qualified one is to run for office or how potentially well one would serve in office. I’d hate for instance to see a congress of straight-A students.

In the case of Trump’s call for disclosure, however, the matter is not a question of whether President Obama was smart enough to become president (most Americans I suspect know that he was and is) but a question of whether black leaders who were affected by affirmative action policies are bonafide professionals. On the surface, this seems an unnecessary, ridiculous, and, yes, racist investigation, yet possibly lurking beneath the question is impassioned doubt that affirmative action policies were or are just or legitimate. Despite then, Obama’s rise, despite his successes, by certain Americans he himself will always wear a badge of illegitimacy, a scarlet letter if you will, and no amount of disclosures will satisfy what is essentially a deep seated distrust of race-based policies, on the one hand, and I think an abiding suspicion, on the other hand, that the American economic system (despite a touting of ideals to the contrary) cannot and does not provide equal opportunity for all. In this way, Obama and other black professionals are scapegoated for the system’s real shortcomings, and what could evolve into a fundamental critique of our economy instead stymies itself around race. That critique of affirmative action limits itself in this way is of course unfortunate. Donald Trump knows as well as other Americans our legacy of racism, our warring sentiments and discourses, which is to say he knew before he started his campaign against Obama just the chord that his allusions to affirmative action would strike with certain audiences. I view his campaign, as well as the movements that he is patronizing, as ultimately larger than a discrediting of our first black president although it certainly is too that. In what is arguably one of if not the most critical junctures in America’s economic history, Trump is inciting the masses to stake a claim to a dream they still hope is theirs.

One could I think put together a credible argument that some (though certainly not all) rejection of affirmative action policies is based in an imaginary nativism working in concert with racism. America and its bounty are for those who are legitimate Americans, and legitimate Americans achieve their place in society by their own efforts. The obvious problem with this perspective is that it discounts the legacy of racism–its lasting effects–to say nothing of ongoing racism. This view is ahistorical. And this brings me to why class-based affirmative action policies are not enough, but rather than repeat an argument that has been made many times and which ultimately failed as a defense of racial considerations I would instead agree with Sjdkey who writes, “‘regular’ admissions processes are grossly flawed.” I would go a step further to say that education itself is grossly flawed and grossly unequal. Affirmative action tried to achieve not fundamental change but procedural justice.

The nation fought its legacy of racism on an institutional level, and there were some wins and some losses. We also attempted to fight the legacy on moral and ethical levels though these strategies perhaps did not take into account the capitalist machine’s ability to turn deep critique into catch phrases, e.g. “judge people not by race but by the content of their character,” postage stamps, and holidays. Would that these strategies for addressing America’s legacy of racism had been matched by honest, thorough investigations into our nation’s troubled past, into its lasting effects, and by engagement of the reality of our various social inequities. In short, we need a more honest approach to education beginning at the elementary level. We need to introduce the young, as emerging democratic citizens, to a critical rather than a simply romantic view of America. I do realize that this would be a radically different kind of education, one that would nurture critical citizens not accepting of oversimplifications, not so easily accepting of systems as they find them, and not naive enough to rely too confidently on procedure. Until we can offer such an education, there will be an ongoing need for class and racial diversity of America’s college campuses, not one or the other but both.

While I do not agree with Mr. Kahlenberg’s belief that race-based affirmative action should be replaced with class-based policy, I do heed to his suggestion that the usual defenders of affirmative action should, in light of President Obama’s many successes, be all the more convinced of the policy’s efficacy rather than denying its influence. As a believer in the good of affirmative action, I would only add that it should be a measure not just for creating paths to upward mobility and participation but a mechanism as well by which we create a democratic forum of diverse perspectives.

If we had “one rule,” it would not include release of transcripts. Can you identify other political candidates or office holders who have done so? Or even been asked to do so?

If someone’s finger is going to be on the big red button, there is no information about that person that we should not be able to ask for and receive.

Exactly what would full disclosure of Obama’s transcript (or that of Bush, Reagan, Carter, et al) reveal? Donald Trump has no “underlying issues” at all. Jackass is as jackass does!

It could be argued that it illustrates the success of affirmative action; or, affirmative action might have knocked out an even more successful individual.

It does not matter what skin color the man possesses, it is his honesty in question. Many that attended and graduated during the time he claimed to have attended and lectured have not seen or heard of him until he came into public office. No records no pictures no lectures. He came out of thin air. While you may dislike Trump, he has remained in public view. What is questioned is honesty from a seemingly dishonest person.