The College Admissions Scandal Is About Far More Than Criminal Celebrities

Despite what the Trump surrogates shout, the college admissions scandal that broke this week is not about celebrities behaving badly. Rather, it is about the insidious nature of privilege and the corruptibility of higher education in America.

Three of the indicted (Lori Loughlin, William Rick Singer, and Felicity Huffman)

When I last posted on my blog on March 4th, I wrote that I was going to take a few weeks off from blogging, “unless, of course, something really really interesting happens…”

Naturally, a week later something happened that I found to be really really interesting. So interesting that I couldn’t help but return to my blog.

On Tuesday morning, the Department of Justice charged 50 high profile people with various crimes in connection with a brazen, intricate, and unquestionably criminal scheme to manipulate the college admissions process at several top tier schools to get their children admitted.

Because 2 of the 50 charged were fairly well-known actresses (Desperate Housewives star Felicity Huffman and Full House star Lori Loughlin), the initial headlines treated it like a run-of-the-mill “celebrities behaving badly” scandal. It brought to mind Martha Stewart’s insider trading or Wesley Snipes’s tax evasion. Honestly, I can’t blame the media for focusing on the famous names. It certainly drew attention to…