As Diversity Debate Roils Higher Education, Universities Need To Come Clean About the Real Meaning of ‘Meritocracy’

Among the demands being made by the Trump administration against Harvard is that it reject Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and accept meritocratic admission and hiring criteria.

Most Americans believe in meritocracy as described by the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream of a day when all people are judged not “by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

Meritocracy, though, has several possible meanings. It can mean a current performance evaluation, without regard to the past or future. Pilots, surgeons, athletes, stock pickers, and others in similar positions are generally judged by their current ability to do the job best.

We do not really care whether our surgeon commendably overcame hardships to become a good surgeon. If there is a “better” surgeon — with a higher rate of success and a lower rate of failures — who overcame no hardships, a rational patient would select him or her.

So would a rational airplane owner choosing a pilot, a rational investor selecting a stock picker, a rational orchestra leader deciding on a first violinist, or a rational coach drafting a fast-ball pitcher.

Perhaps, in an extreme case, a decision-maker might bypass the empirically best candidate because that candidate was so morally compromised that the decision maker is willing to sacrifice the best outcome on the altar of a higher morality. That is a choice only some would make about some outcomes.

The second definition of merit takes a longer view. It looks at each candidate’s likely trajectory. How far into the future one looks depends on the task at hand. Selecting applicants for university admissions requires a prediction of success over a relatively short period of time. For faculty members, pilots, or orchestra members, a bit longer. Yet these judgements are also primarily empirical, not moral.

The third definition is largely moral. It requires an assessment of deservingness that goes back to the past. The candidate is judged not only based on his or her current or future performance level, but also on the distance traveled and the barriers overcome.

A Black applicant from a dysfunctional family or a white candidate from an Appalachian family affected by fentanyl would get an advantage over an equally, or even more, qualified person. This could have an empirical component, if decision makers conclude that overcoming past disadvantages is relevant to predicting future success. Yet the moral component obviously plays an important role, in rewarding past indicia of “character” without regard to the future trajectory.

These factors may overlap in particular situations. Yet race alone is never relevant to any decision based on any definition of meritocracy.

A wealthy Black applicant whose mother is a federal judge, whose father owns a hedge fund, and who attended elite private schools should never be given any advantage over a more qualified white applicant from a poor family. If the Black applicant experienced discrimination on account of his or her race, that experience may count for something — not much — but the same would be true for a privileged Asian or Jewish student who experienced discrimination.

A fourth possible category of moral preference includes group reparations for collective past discrimination. Yet that does not fit into any definition of meritocracy. Judging someone on the basis of group affiliation is in clear violation of King’s dream. It rewards underserving individuals based on accidental group affiliation.

Institutions should be given discretion in defining meritocracy, but once they decide on, and make public, their definition and criteria, they shouldn’t be allowed to cheat, fudge, or lie about what they are doing. That is exactly what universities are doing today.

They are cheating because their object is not to achieve any kind of meritocracy. Nor is to achieve diversity. Their only goal is to fill a quota of Black students between 13 percent and 17 percent — regardless of other considerations. That goal is, of course, illegal, unconstitutional, and immoral.

Other institutions have different goals. NBA teams, which are predominantly Black, do not care about diversity. They draft and trade players solely on the basis of performance qualifications: They want to win this season and next.

I pick doctors solely on the basis of their current skills. Good music directors select performers from behind a screen: They want to hear, not see the musicians. So let’s begin an honest discussion of what “meritocracy” should mean.