I've discovered some troubling news. It appears that Mitt Romney has used affirmative action repeatedly when it comes to his college experiences at Harvard. Since this is such a hot topic in Boston at the moment, I thought I should write a diary about it.
For those who don't know, Mitt Romney attended Stanford University for one year in 1965. After receiving a religious deferment, Romney was excused from going to Vietnam and went to France for 2 1/2 years to do missionary work for the Mormon Church. When he came back to America, Romney finished his undergrad work at Brigham Young University, a private Mormon college in Provo, Utah, where he received a Bachelor's Degree in 1971.
BYU is not exactly a top 10 school, and back in 1971 it was even less so. Like Liberty University, BYU is a faith specific school and extremely conservative, so conservative in fact that the school's president enlisted students "to spy on professors deemed to be liberals" (The Real Romney, p.90). It is unclear whether Romney spied on his professors or not.
Although Romney did well at BYU, earning a degree in English, so did tens of thousands of other students across the country, many from much tougher schools with better reputations and a more rigorous curriculum. So how did Romney get accepted into Harvard?
Simple answer, his father. George Romney, the former Governor of Michigan and a big wheel in the Nixon administration at the time, was a well-known figure who had a lot of clout. Mitt benefited from his family background, his "privileged pedigree was common knowledge to many of his classmates" (p.91). It appears that Romney may have gotten accepted to Harvard because of his birthright and because of his family name. Romney seems to have moved ahead of everyone else through affirmative action, the worst kind of affirmative action, the kind that rewards the sons of the wealthy and well-connected over everyone else.
But it doesn't stop there. Out of the 1350 students admitted to the Harvard Business and Law Schools, Romney was 1 of 15 who were selected to take part in the newly created joint MBA/JD program. Wow, did he hit the jackpot, or what? The joint program is an accelerated program that allowed Romney to get his two degrees one year earlier than otherwise. It's unclear whether Romney had to pay two full tuitions or not, but it bears investigating.
Romney must have really impressed Harvard at his interview, or more likely, his father made a phone call or two. It sure smells like affirmative action to me, and it probably smells the same way to the other 1335 students who were snubbed.
Because of his fortuitous selection to the joint degree program, Romney was highly recruited when he graduated.
Consulting firms and investment banks were always in the hunt for future employees among Harvard's best and brightest, and the select group enrolled in the university's competitive dual-degree program seemed an obvious place to start. They were the elite of the the elite." p.97And so it goes. Mitt Romney got a helping hand, a huge helping hand, a booster rocket helping hand that allowed him to shoot ahead of everyone else. It appears that he was the beneficiary of affirmative action in the most negative sense. Is it fair, does Romney regret the special help and assistance that pushed him ahead? I doubt he sees anything wrong with it at all.
Mitt Romney needs to come clean. He needs to say whether he received special consideration in getting accepted to Harvard. He needs to say whether he deserved to be selected to the joint degree program. Romney needs to release his student applications and records so that the world can see whether or not he received preferential treatment. Harvard needs to release their selection criteria and any records they might have as well.
If it turns out that there were more qualified applicants, students with better scores and interviews who did not receive the same favorable treatment, Mitt Romney needs to step up and answer why he thinks his kind of affirmative action is acceptable.
Make sure to visit Barack's Backers and follow us on Twitter @BaracksBackers Quoted material comes from the book, The Real Romney, by Michael Kranish and Scott Helman, 2012.