To the Editor:
It is a regrettable fact of human nature that the most casual and sophistical minds are all too often the most outspoken. No Dartmouth student in recent memory suited himself better to this description than did Matthew Berry in his column last Monday ("Legacies, No Longer," April 24). As if Berry's tepid style and execreble essay technique were not enough, his lumpen-logic on the topic of our school's seemingly compromised "meritocracy" constitutes a serious affront to true Dartmouth intellectuals.
Berry obstinately refuses to recognize that the College's affirmative action program is in no way in conflict with meritocratic principle, not in theory nor in practice. Affirmative action is not about choosing applicants because they are black, or because they are women. It is about equal opportunity, which is requisite to any selection on the basis of merit. Individual talent cannot even begin to be recognized without the bare equality of opportunity which makes this possible: in theory, affirmative action is absolutely necessary to meritocratic estimation.
Practically, affirmative action poses no threat to the preservation of meritocratic virtue. Every student invited to our noble institution is entirely worthy and deserving of attendence, as far as that can be divined by the Admissions Office.
Yet Berry evidently fancies he has struck a blow for logic and for traditional American values when he recommends that both affirmative action and "legacy" preferment be eliminated. The reason both are retained in full accordance with a meritocratic Dartmouth is because neither forms the basis for admission (which is ever meritocratic); rather, these are only secondary considerations.
The prioritized scheme of our admissions policy promotes diversity while guaranteeing philosophical consistency. No thoughtful student of any political persuasion could disagree with the ideal of rewarding individual talent alone. Only Berry's brand of absurd oversimplification could possibly produce an objection on the grounds of preservation of merit.
WILLIAM ECKHERT '96
