Chapter Fourteen #2
“Um…why did you post this?” Eunjin showed me her phone screen. She had pulled up my comment on Amala’s post about Asian people’s “proximity to whiteness.”
I shrugged. “Are you saying you don’t agree?”
“No…I mean…I don’t not agree. Well, okay. I should say that I think the issue is complicated. But I was just saying that I’m pretty certain you don’t agree.”
“Why would you think that I don’t agree?”
“Didn’t your prelaw advisor basically tell you that you didn’t get into Harvard because you’re an Asian woman?”
“Well, Eunjin, affirmative action is illegal,” I said in a semi-ironic tone.
Eunjin rolled her eyes. “Wouldn’t you say that the reason you didn’t get into Harvard is related to the reason people think Asians have proximity to whiteness?”
“You mean because proximity to whiteness makes it sound like Asians are more privileged, so they don’t need help getting into college or grad school?”
“Something like that.”
“But I can’t just support policies based on whether they benefit me personally. That would make me just as bad as those billionaires who want lower taxes for themselves.”
“I know. I’m just curious, since Harvard meant so much to you, whether this thing has changed your perspective on affirmative action. Or whatever they’re calling it these days. ‘Efforts in making a holistic student body,’ I guess.”
“I don’t know,” I said. I wasn’t lying. I really didn’t know.
Frankly, I hadn’t thought that far. I was more focused on winning within the system than on changing the system.
If you were to force me to also form a view on the system, I would say that my issue wasn’t with affirmative action.
My issue was why I had to be interesting to get into law school in the first place.
I didn’t think it was Harvard’s place to decide which eighteen-year-old was more interesting than this other eighteen-year-old, or which twenty-one-year-old was more boring than this other twenty-one-year-old.
When I explained this perspective to Eunjin, she didn’t seem convinced.
“Hm…I understand that. But I guess my question is, what’s the alternative option? We move to a system where your grades and standardized test scores are the only things that count? That also doesn’t seem ideal.”
“It’s not,” I said, “but at least it’s honest.”
—
I expected an immediate firestorm around Laura, but the reaction was more mixed than I would’ve liked.
The most leftist people on campus, most of whom were already Amala’s friends, called for a reckoning.
They demanded that Columbia expel Laura immediately.
But everyone else remained silent. Most people were waiting for Amala to show proof.
The most conservative students on campus started a campaign against Amala.
They weren’t denying that the author was Laura, but they thought it was unfair that Amala wouldn’t just let the author remain anonymous.
They said that it should’ve been the author’s own decision whether to reveal their identity or not.
The gossip on campus became more about whether or not you believed Amala and less about what repercussions Laura should face.
This, for obvious reasons, pissed me off.
Laura herself went radio silent. Amala had revealed Laura’s identity on a Friday, and from Saturday to Sunday I didn’t spot her on campus a single time. She didn’t delete any of her social media accounts, but she had turned off all the comments and ceased any online activity.
Clearly, Amala needed a bit more hand-holding than I thought.
I was fine with that. I deleted my previous burner account after sending Amala the first tip, so I created a new one to send her the evidence that she needed to back up her accusation.
She was so lucky to have me; she didn’t even need to hire a web scraper.
I could just send her all of my own documentation, including the list of every student’s name, residential hall, and hometown, along with the list of restaurants in the United States that served caviar tater tots, which she could then easily cross-reference to come to the exact same conclusion that I did.
Fortunately, Amala opened my message right away.
She had been getting quite a bit of heat from people who found it distasteful at best and evil at worst to reveal the author’s identity without any concrete justification, especially when the stakes were so high.
I imagined that was why she waited just an hour after she received my message to post all of the evidence I sent her to social media, almost word for word.
I admit, I was a little upset that she took the credit for all the sleuthing.
For instance, she said, “I pulled together this list,” rather than mention even a single time the generous benefactor of information who slid into her Instagram DMs. But once again, I couldn’t stay mad for long.
I would let the firestorm commence, and once a petition for Laura to get expelled inevitably received hundreds of signatures, I would send it to Harvard.