I magine what it must feel like to have your acceptance to Harvard rescinded as recently happened to ten young men and women admitted to the Harvard Class of 2021. It is safe to assume that admission to Harvard — acceptance rate five percent — was the attainment of the goal for which they had been striving most of their lives. And if so the rescission of that admission represents the nadir of their still young lives.
But it gets worse. Not only will they not attend Harvard it is highly unlikely they will end up studying at any of the other prestigious schools to which they were almost certainly accepted. Even Podunk U. is not a sure bet. They have been permanently marked as creeps.
I have little doubt that the offensive memes (whatever those are) that the ten posted on a small Facebook subgroup of entering Harvard freshman were truly cringeworthy. (The Harvard Crimson reports the students denigrated minority groups and made fun of the Holocaust.) And yet I am not without a shred of sympathy for those who lost their places. My guess is that most of them are better people than their posts would lead one to believe. No doubt their extracurricular resumes including charity work are impressive.
Some of the posts may have just been a form of pushing back against oppressive political correctness. Others just immature teenage rituals of proving oneself: “I can match your gross comment and up you one.”
