I am humiliated to admit that, yes, Stanford University is implicated in the rich-parents-want-their-spoiled-kids-to-go-to-good-colleges scandal through the school’s sailing team.  (We have a sailing team?)  I would feel much better about this if it had turned out that instead of our sailing coach (We have a sailing coach?) giving scholarships to kids who don’t know how to sail, it was our basketball coach who had been giving scholarships to kids who can’t play basketball.  That would have explained a lot.

This is a big deal at Stanford.  When the story broke, every Stanford alum in the world received an e-mail from the school assuring us that the sailing coach had been fired, that he had pleaded guilty, and that Robert Mueller has been hired to conduct a thorough investigation of the matter.  No stone left unturned and that sort of thing.

Everyone who ever went to Stanford is proud of the school, but they’re even more proud of the fact that they got into the school.  (When I was a student there, the most beloved figure on campus was Fred Hargadon, the long-time dean of admissions.)  It’s part of who we are – part of our identities.  We’re people who were admitted to Stanford.  Anything which in any way casts doubt on the integrity of the admissions process at Stanford threatens our identities.