I criticized your article for using a bunch of vague buzzwords (talking about “marginalized communities,” “black bodies,” “implicit bias” and systemic racism) without backing up, with anything more than anecdotal evidence, your claims that these universities were actually doing anything to marginalize anyone. In response, you came back at me with more empty generalities. You wrote this, for instance:

“I am not surprised, given the dubious nature of the article that you posted and the concerning website it is attached to, that you essentially word-vomitted misleading facts throughout your comment.”

The article I linked you to is from a very well-respected website (which you mysteriously called “concerning”), https://www.city-journal.org/, which is known for running great, thoughtful articles that are often very data-driven. The website happens to have a more conservative/libertarian slant, but there’s a difference between idiotic conservative websites (there are many of those, of course, just as there are many idiotic liberal websites) and respectable, intelligent conservative or liberal sites. Nor is there anything “dubious” or “misleading” about the particular article I linked to or the facts drawn from it. I’m simply stating these things rather than proving them because all you’ve done is throw out these vague, sweeping characterizations without even adducing actual arguments why anyone should agree with you. You’re just throwing out labels, in other words. That’s what you did throughout your original article as well. If you want me (or anyone else) to agree with you, you need to try to convince rather than label.

Your next complaint is that my description of differences in average SAT scores may only be true of Harvard college, whereas “Harvard is broken up into Harvard College and numerous graduate schools. I am a graduate student and as a result I am not attached to any of the inaccurate facts that you unethically and lazily deployed.” First of all, I attended Harvard Law School myself, so I’m well aware of how Harvard is broken up, but your initial article was a claim about how Harvard (and other Ivy League universities), as a whole, marginalize minorities; you were not just writing about the Harvard Divinity School. Moreover, if you have any doubt that the same kinds of affirmative action policies that are at work at Harvard College admissions are also at work in admissions to Harvard graduate programs, you can easily do some googling around to see average LSAT or MCAT or GRE scores by race and confirm what you surely already know to be true. Again, while you’re throwing out broad labels — talking about “inaccurate facts that [I] unethically and lazily deployed” — I challenge you to say what fact that I presented was “inaccurate,” how I was “unethical” (I laughed when I read that one) and how I deployed such facts “lazily.” The only thing that seems “lazy” to me is how you’re just throwing out these sweeping characterizations without bothering to justify any of them. Do you know how to make an argument? Do you know how to engage in civil disagreement? Do you know how to engage in a rational discussion? If so, I’ll happily engage you on that level. But I suspect your answer is going to be more of the same kinds of lazy and dismissive rhetoric (e.g., “there’s no point engaging in a “rational discussion” with someone like you, who is [insert broad, vague adjectives and labels here], etc.”).

You write, “I obtained admission to Harvard not because of a handout, but because I am unequivocally a bomb student.” I have no idea how you personally obtained admission and made no claims about you personally. For all I know, you may be the single most talented and amazingly over-qualified student at Harvard. But you’re one person. This isn’t about you. You wrote about a general thing you claimed was going on Harvard and in other Ivy League universities with respect to minorities (“marginalization” and “racism”). I see no evidence of that, whereas I see tons of evidence that these universities have been bending over backwards both to admit and to cater to minorities — and when I say “minorities,” let me be perfectly clear: I’m talking about black students…because Asians, for instance, are certainly the single most discriminated-against group when it comes to admission to these elite universities.

You then write: “Your comment essentially positions Black people as perpetually in a state of submissiveness thankfulness. Essentially your comment reads ‘Black people are not worthy to be in these institutions, so be quiet and be thankful.’”

I made and continue to make no claims about how black people as a whole should feel. I believe in treating people as individuals. I’m only talking about race at all because you introduced it into the conversation. You claimed blacks are being “marginalized.” I have no idea what that even means, even if it’s a claim I hear being “lazily” repeated often, so I called you on that bit of nonsense and said, “Okay, so what I’m aware of is the opposite phenomenon, and here are some facts that support my view, so if you disagree, where’s your evidence?” Your silence in response to that question speaks volumes.