g******4
发帖数: 6339 | 1 ......
In the 1960s, however, Princeton made a conscious decision to change,
eventually opening its admissions to urban ethnic minorities and women. That
decision has now borne fruit. Astonishingly, the last three Supreme Court
nominees — Samuel Alito, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan — are Princeton
graduates, from the Classes of 1972, ’76, and ’81, respectively. The
appointments of these three justices to replace Protestant predecessors
turned the demographic balance of the court.
Why did the Protestant elite open its institutions to all comers? The answer
can be traced in large part to the anti-aristocratic ideals of the
Constitution, which banned titles of nobility and thus encouraged success
based on merit. For many years, the Protestant elite was itself open to
rising white Protestants not from old-family backgrounds.
Money certainly granted entrée into governing circles, but education was
probably more important to the way the Protestant elite defined itself,
which is why the opening of the great American universities has had such an
epochal effect in changing the demographics of American elites. Another key
source was the ideal of fair play, imported from the ideology of the English
public schools, but practiced far more widely in the United States than in
the class-ridden mother country.
Together, these social beliefs in equality undercut the impulse toward
exclusive privilege that every successful group indulges on occasion. A
handful of exceptions for admission to societies, clubs and colleges —
trivial in and of themselves — helped break down barriers more broadly.
This was not just a case of an elite looking outside itself for rejuvenation
held ideals put into action.
Interestingly, this era of inclusion was accompanied by a corresponding
diffusion of the distinctive fashion (or rather anti-fashion) of the
Protestant elite class. The style now generically called “prep,”
originally known as “Ivy League,” was long purveyed by Jewish and
immigrant haberdashers (the “J.” in the New Haven store J. Press stands
for Jacobi) and then taken global by Ralph Lauren, né Lifshitz. But until
the Protestant-dominated Ivy League began to open up, the wearers of the
style were restricted to that elite subculture.
The spread of Ivy League style is therefore not a frivolous matter. Today
the wearing of the tweed is not anachronism or assimilation, but a mark of
respect for the distinctive ethnic group that opened its doors to all — an
accomplishment that must be remembered, acknowledged and emulated.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/28/opinion/28feldman.html?_r=0 |
|
