Merit

Justice and the Meritocratic State

Like American politics, the academic debate over justice is polarized, with almost all theories of justice falling within one of two traditions: egalitarianism and libertarianism. This book provides an alternative to the partisan standoff by focusing …

The complicated path to equal opportunity

IN A complaint filed last week, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund charged that the admissions procedures of Stuyvesant High School and other specialised high schools in New York City are “unsound and discriminatory” because the Specialized High School Admissions Test (SHSAT)—the sole factor in admissions—has yielded striking racial imbalances in the schools’ student bodies. They are asking the federal department of education to investigate: Year after year, thousands of academically talented African-American and Latino students who take the test are denied admission to the Specialized High Schools at rates far higher than those for other racial groups… For example, of the 967 eighth-grade students offered admission to Stuyvesant for the 2012-13 school year, just 19 (2%) of the students were African American and 32 (3.

Saving the American Idea: Rejecting Fear, Envy, and the Politics of Division

The American commitment to equality of opportunity, economic liberty, and upward mobility is not tried in days of prosperity. It is tested when times are tough—when fear and envy are used to divide Americans and further the interests of politicians and their cronies. In this major address at The Heritage Foundation, Congressman Paul Ryan dissects the real class warfare—a class of governing elites, exploiting the politics of division to pick winners and losers in our economy and determine our destinies for us—and outlines a principled, pro-growth alternative to this path of debt, doubt and decline.