meritocracy discourse should be illegal before 10 am🙄
Someone in class said affirmative action makes admissions “less meritocratic” and i swear the whole room did that thing where everyone gets quiet but in a fake casual way.
like suddenly everyone is VERY interested in their notes.
I hate this conversation because people say “merit” like it is this clean little thing floating in the air and not something built out of money, tutoring, legacy, unpaid internships, confidence, english, passports, parents who know how institutions work, and like 400 other things nobody wants to count.
I wanted to ask what merit means when some people inherit libraries and other people inherit debt.
I wanted to ask why sounding confident is treated as being smart.
I wanted to ask why “objective standards” always become objective after the room has already been arranged for certain people.
but obviously i did not say all of that because i do actually want to pass this class and not become the diversity debate girl in week 6.
So I just underlined “equal protection” like three times and pretended to be normal.
later in the bathroom this other girl from my section looked at me and went “yeah, i know.”
nothing else. just that.
and honestly that was enough.
things the room called neutral today:
legacy admissions
knowing what a clerkship is before october
unpaid internships
saying “my parents’ friend” and somehow meaning a federal judge
confidence
pretending history ended right before applications opened
Anyway, law school is fascinating because everything is made up but also the made up things have consequences which is rude.
🎧 currently: brutal - olivia rodrigo
