Jackie Guenego

[Vedant Nair @vedantnair__]

Much has been said by racists, politicians, and racist politicians (like Bo French) about Indians and UT Austin admissions. I thought I should shed some light so their racism could be slightly more intelligent.

I'm a brown kid. I grew up in Frisco, went to a massive Texas high school, and went to UT.

I would wager that the kids in this picture and I have practically the same background. Like me, they probably went to a massive, pressure-cooker suburban Texas high school, and survived the gauntlet to earn their admissions.

These aren’t foreigners. State law requires 90% of UT's freshman class to be Texas residents. 75% of those in-state seats go to automatic admission on class rank. These are Texans.

Texas, for better or worse, is one of the few meritocratic college admissions schemes in the country for a school of its caliber. The rules are simple. Today, the top 5% of a public school's graduating class is automatically accepted. There is nothing to game. You can’t fake being a competitive rower or have some consultant write your essays for you. There isn’t anything to steal; it’s all there on the table to compete for.

And the competition starts the moment the bell rings for your first period of freshman year. You are ranked in your class every single year, for us, #1 to #450. You knew exactly where you were, exactly how hard you had to compete. My year was even less competitive than it is today. The top 6% made the cut, so that’s an all-out war for ~27 kids to get auto-accepted into UT.

So we worked our butts off. Here's what my life was like, starting in kindergarten.

Every summer, before the school year started, I had to finish the upcoming year's math textbook.

I sweated over getting As, even in elementary school. One funny memory is walking to my parents' room, crying, to report my first-ever 89 on a report card.

I did Kumon, my least favorite thing in the world. I still hate that weird half-smile that is their logo.

I went to math and science competitions, where I always lost, and came home crying again. (Quite the crybaby, wasn't I!)

And everyone else around me worked just as hard. Actually, a lot of the kids worked much harder. I know people who took extra classes (zero period) just to boost their GPA. Who routinely slept 5 hours a night to nail every assignment they had after band practice. Who were distraught when they got a 98 instead of a 100. People who stopped doing things they loved, like sports or arts, because those classes dragged down their GPA.

People put their entire life force into getting into this school.

I wasn't even in the top 10% of my class. The competition was too good. I wasn't disciplined enough to hang with them. I got in as one of the 22.5% of admits who are at-large Texans.

These are American kids who earned their way into this school in the most American way possible. Competition. They were told the rules, they competed, and they got the number. And on Saturday they were in that stadium in burnt orange, screaming their heads off, like every other Texan at DKR or around the country. I can’t feel anything but pride for them. That they get to live the dream that so many of us dreamt growing up!

Kids like this have helped improve UT’s standing on the national stage. They made it out of the pressure cooker and placed well in Finance, Big Tech, and more recently, startups. They meaningfully contribute to the economies of our state and country. You should be proud of them too.

Overall, this seems like a meritocratic (albeit flawed) way for Texans to be admitted to our state’s flagship school. It’s racially blind. But politicians like Bo French are asking for something different. They want the student body to rebalance racially.

Surely they aren’t advocating for affirmative action, are they?

[NYTPitchbot @DougJBalloon]

Opinion | We boomers destroyed American society with our greed and narcissism. Here’s why today’s college kids need to listen to us.

[Jonathan Karl @jonkarl]

Trump is again confused about who is president ...

He tells the crowd that Hungarian leader Viktor Orban has called for Obama to step down as president to be replaced immediately by Trump.

[NOTE: Obama isn't president]

[Sean Casten @SeanCasten]

It's hard to explain how dysfunctional the @HouseGOP is, and the degree to which their own internal divisions are superseding every normal function of government. But I'm going to try with a short story about this week in the house. Thread:

[Peter Baker @peterbakernyt]

A signal from Trump that did not get much attention: “If I happen to be president and I see somebody who’s doing well and beating me very badly, I say, ‘Go down and indict them.' They’d be out of business. They’d be out of the election.” ⁦@sbg1⁩ https://t.co/ZTThAlwNoW

[Legal Defense Fund @NAACP_LDF]

Judges have now found that state legislatures in Alabama, Louisiana, Georgia, South Carolina, and Florida all used their redistricting power to discriminate against Black voters after the 2020 census.

[John Harwood @JohnJHarwood]

last 24 hours:
--Trump fined by judge at his fraud trial who rules he lied under oath
--House GOP picks speaker who wants abortion doctors "imprisoned at hard labor"
--another mass murder highlights GOP resistance to popular gun curbs
--Biden admin reports 4.9% Q3 economic growth

[Michael McFaul @McFaul]

Looks like @SecBlinken diplomacy is achieving results -- opening of Raffa on the Gaza-Egyptian border, possibly new international aid coming into Gaza, water in southern Gaza being turned on. Bravo.

[MeidasTouch @MeidasTouch]

Enough lies. Here are the facts.

[Headquarters @HQNewsNow]

Democrats with a slim House majority vs. Republicans with a slim House majority

[Sahil Kapur @sahilkapur]

Remember, Nancy Pelosi had an identically small House majority over the last two years and this stuff didn’t happen. This is not a “both sides” phenomenon; the two parties are not mirror images of each other.

[Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez @AOC]

Lead?

More Democrats voted to keep government open than Republicans did.

We had to drag your party kicking and screaming across the finish line to fund schools and pay servicemembers.

And that was after you wasted the whole week on a joke impeachment hearing as shutdown loomed

[Jay Rosen @jayrosen_nyu]

"For days, the mainstream media has said Donald Trump is going to Michigan to speak to union autoworkers. That's completely false."

[Bill Kristol @BillKristol]

One man, Kevin McCarthy, is responsible for the looming government shutdown, because he won’t bring to the House floor a funding bill supported by a majority of senators from both parties, the administration, and a majority of House members. It’s the Speaker’s Shutdown.

[Susan Rinkunas @susanrinkunas on Bluesky ☁️ @SusanRinkunas]

I know the internet was ablaze Friday with reporting on corrupt Senators and Supreme Court Justices, but please don’t miss this news

[Christiane Amanpour @amanpour]

“I was going over a list of books that are banned in Tennessee [schools] and… the list was really staggering,” says novelist Ann Patchett. “Yet at the same time, we’re not doing anything to keep our children safe from guns… It’s ludicrous and an embarrassment… It’s a crime.”

[Joe Biden @JoeBiden]

Yes.

[Gabrielle Blair @designmom]

I’m a mother of six, and a Mormon. I have a good understanding of arguments surrounding abortion, religious and otherwise. I've been listening to men grandstand about women's reproductive rights, and I'm convinced men actually have zero interest in stopping abortion. Here's why…

[Gabrielle Blair @designmom]

Happy five year anniversary of pointing out that men cause pregnancy and could easily prevent abortion by ejaculating responsibly (but they choose not to) to all who celebrate.

[Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez @AOC]

Fun fact: Every government shutdown in the last 30 years occurred when Republicans had control of the House of Representatives.

Last time it happened, it drove people to food pantries and forced an $8b hit to the economy. They treat people missing paychecks like it’s no big deal