Critics snort as MSNBC’s Joy Reid credit affirmative motion for getting her into Harvard

MSNBC host Joy Reid took a ribbing on social media after declaring that affirmative motion was the one purpose she was admitted to Harvard.

Her revelation got here in response to the Supreme Court’s choices successfully invalidating affirmative motion in faculty admissions by discovering that racial preferences violate Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution.

“I got into Harvard only because of affirmative action,” mentioned Ms. Reid in a Sunday op-ed.

Conservative commentators profiting from the opening included former Georgia state Rep. Vernon Jones, who tweeted, “Joy Reid is living proof @Harvard isn’t for everyone!”

The Twitchy Team chimed in: “Joy Ann Reid confirms the least surprising revelation ever.”

“Imagine ADMITTING to something so embarrassing,” mentioned PragerU character CJ Pearson. “Unlike Joy, I applaud the SCOTUS for its decision to stop treating my blackness like a disability.”

Joy Reid admits she solely received into Harvard due to affirmative motion, only for anybody who didn’t already know pic.twitter.com/9EzlwJChS7

— Jack Poso 🇺🇸 (@JackPosobiec) July 2, 2023

The Supreme Court’s six-member conservative majority dominated Thursday towards affirmative-action insurance policies at Harvard and the University of North Carolina in circumstances filed by Students for Fair Admissions on behalf of Asian-American college students.

While Ms. Reid mentioned that she benefited from affirmative motion, she additionally misrepresented such insurance policies by arguing that she was certified to attend Harvard primarily based on her grades and take a look at scores.

“I went to a school no one had ever heard of in Denver, Colorado, in a small suburb,” she mentioned. “I didn’t go to a prestigious high school like Exeter or Andover. I didn’t have college test prep. I just happened to be really nerdy and smart and have really good grades and good SAT scores.”

She continued: “But someone came to Denver to look for me. A Harvard recruiter flew in, met me at a restaurant, and did a pre-interview to pull me into Harvard. I was pulled in — affirmatively.”

“This was not the recruiter saying, ‘We’re going to take an unqualified person and put them in Harvard,’” she mentioned. “Rather, they were saying, ‘We’re going to take a very qualified person who we would never know existed and put them in Harvard.’”

Affirmative motion in admissions refers to holding candidates to totally different requirements primarily based on their race, not recruiting certified candidates who attend unheralded public colleges.

A Students for Fair Admissions evaluation discovered that “an Asian American in the fourth-lowest decile has virtually no chance of being admitted to Harvard (0.9%); but an African American in that decile has a higher chance at admission (12.8%) than an Asian American in the top decile (12.7%).”

Ms. Reid additionally mentioned that Black college students at Harvard have been seen as gaining admission primarily based on their race, which contributed to creating her really feel “completely out of place” her first yr.

“I had never had my academic credentials questioned. I had never had anyone question whether I was intelligent — until I got to Harvard,” she mentioned. “And it was a defining point of my experience there. It was one of the many reasons I was miserable during my freshman year. I felt completely out of place. People kept telling me, ‘You shouldn’t be here.’”

Critics of affirmative motion, together with Justice Clarence Thomas, argue that racial preferences have stigmatized Black graduates of prime universities, main others to conclude that they have been admitted due to their race and never their benefit.

Ms. Reid’s op-ed was revealed after she made comparable feedback in an look shortly after the court docket’s choice on MSNBC’s “All in with Chris Hayes.”