Alli Myatt is the Co-founder of The Equity Practice, and a Public Voices Fellow through The OpEd Project. She holds a bachelor’s degree from Cornell University, and an MBA from the Wharton School of Business.
The recent U.S. Supreme Court decision declaring affirmative action programs that use race- conscious rating systems unconstitutional is like a game of chess.
It offers an opportunity to completely overhaul admissions to be more liberatory and serve the students and society better.
Growing up, my brother tried to teach me how to play chess by revealing the basics a little at a time. After I would move a piece, he would reveal another rule that would allow him to capture one of my pieces and take him one step closer to beating me at the game. He clearly designed the conditions for play so he could win. I quickly declared the game over because he was making the rules to advantage himself.
Similarly, it is necessary to declare "game over" for the current approach to elite university admissions. The SCOTUS decision inspired outrage and condemnation.
But it is crucial to not return to what was. The current admissions process was rigged from its inception to advantage rich, white people and the current model does not even predict success in school.
Audre Lorde wrote, “For the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house. They may allow us temporarily to beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change.” It's time to redesign these processes with new tools.
The original intention still affects Harvard. Its legacy admission policies benefit the wealthiest in our nation.
This is not just about Harvard; other elite institutions such as Princeton, Yale, and Duke universities as well as Massachusetts Institute of Technology have similar legacies. A 2017 study by economist Raj Chetty showed there were more students from families in the top 1 percent of income earners than students from the bottom 50 percent at elite colleges.
Lest someone argue admissions should focus on class and not race, it is important to note that the top 1 percent of income earners are over 90 percent white. As SCOTUS Justice Ketanji Jackson Brown stated in her dissent in the Affirmative Action Case, “Deeming race irrelevant… does not make it so in life.”
It is devastating to see the level of dismay of students of color, realizing the highest court in the land deemed them unwelcome at elite colleges and that they may buy into the lie that the only reason they could get into these schools is because of their race.
As a Black former student who attended two Ivy League colleges during my academic career, I know what it's like to have your accomplishments diminished and discounted due to your race despite evidence of your qualifications.
I also worked in admissions and have been in the rooms when these decisions are being made. I can confirm unequivocally that students of color who are admitted are extraordinary, accomplished and 100 percent deserve to be there.
As Toni Morrison once said, “The very serious function of racism is distraction. It keeps you from doing your work. It keeps you explaining, over and over again, your reason for being… None of this is necessary. There will always be one more thing.”
Students deserve an admissions process that does not distract them from their brilliance and results in the equitable outcomes our society desperately needs.
Administrators, faculty, funders, policy makers and all stakeholders need to support colleges and universities to educate all future leaders. Society benefits when leaders reflect the entire community.
To be sure, some may name the alleged harm that happens to Asian students as a result of Affirmative Action, though several Asian leaders have refuted these claims. This SCOTUS case was bought by a white man, and no Asian student testified on his behalf.
These tactics pitting one group against another are attempts to separate people of color from each other and keep them from acting in solidarity to create admissions practices where all students can shine.
Higher education institutions need to be anti-racist. This is possible by identifying what qualities contribute to student learning and the many ways that students might demonstrate those qualities in a holistic way.
It is urgent to abolish the measures that advantage the privileged and wealthy. Society will be more just if enrollment efforts are not a rigged game and administrators find ways to see brilliance in more places and bring those students together to learn from each other.
That is a win-win.
A golden tray sits on the Resolute Desk as President Donald Trump speaks during an announcement on American nuclear innovation in the Oval Office at the White House on July 24, 2026, in Washington, D.C. Trump is signing multiple executive orders targeting the nuclear energy sector and easing rules for new reactors and nuclear fuel supply chains.
Trump’s hubris rivals the fallen heroes of ancient Greek mythology
In January, the New York Times asked President Donald Trump if there were any limits on his global powers.
“Yeah,” the president responded, “there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”
That was eight months ago, but fortunately Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster adaptation of “The Odyssey” has made ancient Greek literature newly relevant. Before that window closes, I’d like to talk about hubris.
Today, the term mostly means excessive pride or arrogance. That’s part of what the Greeks meant by it too, but the meaning was a bit richer and more specific. Hubris was an insolent or outrageous act that offended the gods, often because the transgressor was claiming abilities or authorities that solely belonged to supreme beings.
Nolan renamed and slightly modified the concept of xenia for the film, calling it “Zeus’ law.” In the director’s telling, mortals should follow the rules laid out by the gods, specifically the requirement to treat strangers with respect lest they be gods in disguise.
In a sense, hubris is the opposite, or at least the rejection, of xenia. The hubris of the suitors, and at times Odysseus himself, invites punishment by the gods and their mortal instruments.
Which brings me back to Donald Trump. His claim that there are no constraints on his personal power to dictate events on the global stage was one of the greatest expressions of hubris ever uttered by a political leader.
Trump’s claim was obviously false when he made it.
He vowed that he could end the Russia-Ukraine war in 24 hours. He’s proved powerless to make that happen. If he had divine powers to work his will, why would he have balked at implementing his tariffs so often that Wall Street adopted the “TACO trade” term for his deals? “TACO” stands for “Trump always chickens out.”
And why would Trump have made so many embarrassing concessions to China — from rescinding tariffs on Chinese goods to allowing them to buy crucial and incredibly valuable computer chips?
But Trump saw his success at capturing Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro as proof of his ability to launch missiles to the same effect as Zeus’ lightning bolts. Trump believed he was the most powerful man who ever lived.
This is no exaggeration. In March, when the Iran invasion seemed successful, Trump gave a document penned by“Presidential Historian David King” to New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan purporting to prove that Trump was “the most powerful person to have EVER walked this planet.” King was, in fact, a businessman and occasional caddy for legendary golfer Gary Player.
King compared Trump favorably to many of history’s most powerful, and often heinous, figures: Alexander the Great, Attila the Hun, William the Conqueror, Napoleon Bonaparte, Joseph Stalin, Genghis Khan, Mao Tse Tung, Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Lenin. Many of these men thought they were the most powerful person in the world, too. And many were defeated precisely because they believed it.
At least Napoleon and Hitler had a string of truly impressive victories before they learned the folly of hubris. The limits on Trump’s power have been exposed by far less august forces than the combined might of the allies in World War II or the fearsome Russian winter.
Iran is a comparatively middling power. But the regime’s ability to absorb punishment while imposing its will on the Strait of Hormuz has proved to be a greater constraint on Trump’s power than his morality or mind. We should note that, at least rhetorically, his morality has not proved much of a constraint. He has repeatedly promised to destroy Iranian “civilization” if the regime refuses to capitulate.
But they haven’t — and won’t anytime soon — because the regime’s tolerance for pain far outstrips Trump’s. The combined fear of skyrocketing oil prices, outrage of Gulf state potentates, diminishing weapon supplies and domestic unpopularity is doing the work that international law, congressional oversight and the collective opinion of foreign policy experts can’t or won’t do.
If I considered Trump more heroic than reason and facts could allow, I would say his Sisyphean predicament has the whiff of Greek tragedy to it. Trump is vexed by the fact that the Iranians won’t honor deals or ratify his countless premature claims of victory — giving new meaning to his vow that his presidency would make people tired of winning. It’s almost like they’re out-Trumping Trump.
Things might have gone better if he’d heeded that great Greek tragedian Sophocles: “For Zeus utterly abhors the boasts of a proud tongue.”
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Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.