Getting Testy
Plus: Joe Biden pushes through new background checks for gun purchases, O.J. Simpson dies, NA beer takes D.C., and more...
This is only a test: Yesterday, Harvard became the latest elite college to announce that it would reverse its test-optional policy for student applicants. California Institute of Technology reinstated the test requirement too. This represents a major victory against the anti-test forces.
The argument against mandating SAT or ACT scores for student applicants was that making standardized testing optional would help increase diversity in student populations. As The New York Times report on Harvard's announcement notes, the goal was to encourage "poor and underrepresented students who had potential but did not score well on the tests to apply."
In fact, as Reason's Emma Camp has written, the opposite was true: Eliminating standardized test scores from the applications actually hurt underprivileged kids while giving a boost to children from wealthy families. "Tests are simply harder to game than nonacademic factors," Camp wrote last year. "Wealthy families can hire tutors to write polished admissions essays for their children, ensure they have a battery of extracurricular activities and sports, and make sure they attend schools where skilled guidance counselors know how to write a glowing letter about an applicant."
The evidence that eliminating tests helps the wealthy and hurts low-income applicants has been growing, and it seems Harvard couldn't ignore it.
Harvard's announcement of a return to testing requirements cited a study by Opportunity Insights showing that test scores were a useful predictor of success in higher ed, and that they can help admissions officers pick lower-income students who are likely to perform well.
Harvard is not the first high-profile school to reverse its test-optional policy. Georgetown, Brown, Yale, Dartmouth, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology have all returned to test-mandatory applications. But with Harvard now on board, the case should be closed on this ill-fated experiment. The anti-testers got schooled.
Complete and utter defeat for the anti-test crusaders pic.twitter.com/ubfbg2QTxL
— Alec Stapp (@AlecStapp) April 11, 2024
Biden expands firearm background checks: President Joe Biden approved new federal background checks for private gun sales, intending to close what has sometimes been referred to as the "gun show loophole." It's the most sweeping expansion of background check requirements since 1993.
The gun show loophole was not really a loophole. Rather it was a legal exception for some sellers who were not officially "in the business of selling firearms." But as Axios reports, the new rules will force "anyone who sells a firearm for profit to register with the federal government."
So: New government registration requirements for gun sales. Does that sound likely to go into effect smoothly and without extensive legal opposition? Yeah, I'm thinking…no.
Biden's rule will almost certainly be challenged in court. Meanwhile, two Republican senators, John Cornyn (R–Texas) and Thom Tillis (R–N.C.), have already indicated they plan to introduce a resolution to overturn Biden's rule because, they say, it is unconstitutional.
It's impossible to predict how all this will turn out. But the timing makes the motives more than a little bit suspect: it's probably not a coincidence that Biden approved the new background checks during an election year. Maybe he's just firing blanks.
The Juice is loose dead: O.J. Simpson died of cancer at age 76. Simpson was an actor, football player, and sports broadcaster. But in the 1990s, he became a central figure in the American news media ecosystem for a year after he was charged with killing his former wife and her friend.
The lurid details of the murder and the bizarre celebrity horrorshow of the ensuing trial were irresistible to the era's supermarket tabloids and the nascent 24-hour cable news business. It's hard to overstate how much the O.J. story dominated American media and how obsessed the nation was with the story: I was in middle school when the trial happened, and class stopped so we could all watch the verdict in real time.
It's too bad that comedian Norm MacDonald, who made jokes about O.J. being guilty a major part of his shtick, isn't around to send him off. In any case, here's 11-plus minutes of MacDonald brutally ripping on Simpson. You won't laugh harder today.
Scenes from Washington, D.C. Area brewery DC Brau is introducing a non-alcoholic beer. This isn't a big shocker: The category has been growing rapidly in recent years, with brands like Athletic Brewing upending the otherwise struggling beer market.
But it turns out there are policy reasons too—namely, Maryland's liquor laws. As Washingtonian reports: "The move will allow DC Brau to expand their footprint in Maryland in particular, where restrictive liquor laws limit retailers that can sell their alcoholic beer." DC Brau owner Brandon Skall told the mag that the new brew, dubbed NA Brau, "gives us an easy in to a lot of locations that are not legally allowed to carry our product right now." Now that's (non) booze you can use.
QUICK HITS
- Inflation continues to be a big, big problem for President Biden's reelection campaign. But he has a plan: He'll say it's Trump's fault!
- The Federal Highway Administration has an emergency relief fund and some states have waited decades to access it for their infrastructure projects. But those on the list might not get any money because the entirety of the existing fund might go to repairing the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, reports The Washington Post.
- Amazon CEO Andy Jassy took after regulators for tanking his company's proposed deal with Roomba maker iRobot. U.S. antitrust regulators, he says, "trust these two large Chinese companies with maps of the inside of U.S. consumers' homes more than they do Amazon."
- Wait, didn't we win the war on measles? Nope! Apparently not.
- The feds are investigating Morgan Stanley, per The Wall Street Journal.
- Elon Musk x Javier Milei is obviously a huge brand collab.
- Amazon has turned the sneakily libertarian Fallout video game franchise into a TV show. It's out this week. The reviews are pretty strong.
