Objective Stuff Won’t Tell All? We Know That

Judy Rosener and many others like her are running scared (“Standards of Meritocracy Don’t Add Up,” Feb. 2). They are scared because no longer will nebulous sex-based, race-based preferences be used to guarantee that they may handpick the future for applicants to jobs, schools and other opportunities. Instead, when applicants are compared, the person who has shown the most dedication, worked the hardest and achieved the most will have the opportunity to succeed.

Her ridiculously simplistic argument is essentially that objective criteria alone are not sufficient to determine who will perform the best in a given situation. Of course they are not. However, with all other things being equal, if two students have both developed good “communication skills” and other “difficult to quantify qualities,” the one that has shown the most desire to master the prerequisite subjects and learn should be given the opportunity to succeed. That’s life.

RICHARD B. WILLIAMS

Agoura