California.
The first thing I noticed was how tall everyone seemed. Either they had grown, or I had shrunk. The second thing I noticed was the heat. The hall’s fans struggled against the triple-digit weather, and I thought back to the days when I could run mile after mile in that kind of heat without complaint. What really set the scene was the smell of alcohol from the bar and carne asada from the Mexican taco grill. And everywhere, glossy group photos are being snapped and printed, sealing us in an image of cheerful survival.
But survival was only half the story. About two-thirds of the way through the night, I walked to the memorial table near the stage. Fifty photographs — one in ten of our class — already gone. Cancer, heart disease, alcohol, and drugs. Mortality had been merciless. Looking at those faces felt like staring into a mirror of the future, as if my turn might already be framed and waiting.
Yet the greatest loss was not of bodies. It was of promise. The poor but talented kids who should have risen on merit were instead shoved aside by affirmative action.
I know because I was one of them. The last week of my senior year, the high school counselor revealed that I had the highest SAT scores in the class. I was chosen for Boys State, picked for track captain, and invited to give speeches. I applied to only two colleges — Occidental and Harvard.
(Ironically, studies show that people who apply to Harvard, even if rejected, do better in life than those who never try.)
Occidental gave me a full ride, plus scholarships that sent me to England and even covered expenses when I couldn’t work enough summers to pay tuition. I should be grateful. But I also know this: Oxy would never have hired me later, not because of merit, but because of my race and sex.
I had already quit the clarinet and marching band in high school. I set three school records my senior year in the 880, mile, and mile relay.
What stayed with me were words. I wrote a column for the local paper, slipping in classmates’ names to boost readership, using it once to try to get out of a traffic ticket. I decorated my writing with metaphors just learned in English class. It worked. Classmates still remember seeing themselves in print.
I taught myself to give speeches, practicing gestures in the mirror until the words aligned with them. My graduation speech is still remembered half a century later. That’s what presidential scholars call a “first youthful success” — an early sign of leadership.
Then came the betrayal. At Cornell, I earned a Ph.D. in government. I complained when I noticed that the best job interviews went to the underperforming Black students. I threatened to run my own job search. The threat shook loose an opportunity to interview at Williams College. My dissertation later won a national award as the best in my field. Yet the same year I was honored, Williams College stripped me from the tenure track for the “low quality” of that very thesis. It had nothing to do with merit. I was the wrong race, the wrong sex, the wrong faith.
Walking the reunion floor, the apolitical atmosphere was oppressive. Only one old mile relay teammate, now a cop, shared a laugh with me. He insisted Obama was born in Africa; I countered that he was more likely the son of Communist Frank Marshall Davis.
Much to my surprise, it turns out that young John Drew was somewhat of a famous, beloved character. As if talking about someone not in the room, I learned that John had been a kind and compassionate person. I found he had given the best graduation speech ever. I heard how classmates still maintained control of old Hart Happenings articles that included stories about them. I was, according to one person, the only one he was really looking forward to seeing at the reunion.
Looking back, I now suspect that the affection and praise I heard that night about my 18-year-old ghost was probably just a preview of how nicely my classmates will speak of me when I join the other fifty already lost.
All in all, the class of 1975 reminded me of the Dakota after the war of 1862 — some resisted, some collaborated, but all ended up on the same reservation. Affirmative action broke us in half, yet bound us together in the same injustice. The irony is that our Hart High mascot was once an Indian chief. Like us, he has been erased.
The Class of 1975 lost too many lives to time and too many dreams to ideology. Trump and the Court have begun to restore merit, but too late for us. Affirmative action was not compassion. It was injustice. It robbed poor but talented kids of the ladder to success.
Our history page is written now. If America wants another, it must return to merit — the only path that ever made this nation great.
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