Dan Glumac writes:
 
What bothers me is that some young man, whose relatives gave their lives
in military service for this country and whose parents pay taxes that go
to indirectly fund state schools will get passed up all in the name of
capturing a trophy that , in the big picture is not very meaningful.
 
---
 
Two very separate issues:
 
1)  "whose parents pay taxes that... fund state schools"
 
I can't agree with you here, Dan. Students who do not qualify for state
residency also do not qualify for reduced tuition or for that matter, the
guaranteed entry that some (many?, all?) state schools have for in-state
students. THAT'S the privilege that paying taxes buys the parent. If a public
institution wants to extend that privilege to include qualification for
scholarships, including athletic scholarships, for whatever reason (i.e., good
PR), fine. But they shouldn't be under any obligation to.
 
2)  "whose relatives gave their lives in military service for this country"
 
And I CERTAINLY can't agree here. Does this imply that children of dead
veterans should have affirmative action access to athletic scholarships? What
about children of living veterans? People whose number didn't come up.
Tax-paying conscientious objectors in good standing with the local Rotary?
 
I can sort of understand this as an issue of compensation in the instance in
which a child's parent was forcibly inducted into the US military (drafted) and
killed in training or battle (in effect, murdered by his government). In such
cases, I think compensation would be, to say the least, proper. Otherwise,
not.
 
 
Greg