Ignorance Was Bliss for the Children of the College-Admissions Scandal

For the second time in just a few months, admissions at America’s elite colleges are under a microscope. In late 2018, the scrutiny was on T. M. Landry, a predominantly black private school in Louisiana that had garnered a national reputation for sending dozens of graduates to the Ivy League and other prestigious institutions. A New York Times report revealed the school as a fraud, faking transcripts and hiding allegations of abuse. The Landry scandal caused tremors in higher education, but damage was limited by the fact that colleges could plausibly claim victimhood—although, I argued at the time, it was difficult not to come away from the debacle with a sense that it called into question core tenets of the American educational meritocracy.

As explosive as the Landry affair was, it is now dwarfed by the bombshell dropped by the Justice Department on Tuesday, when federal lawyers for allegedly facilitating or taking part in a nationwide fraud to game admissions at top colleges. The accused include