Polished performers wanted: Elite colleges and the scripted art of polite disagreement
In the grand circus of elite college admissions, it appears that the ringmasters have discovered a new act. After years of coaxing applicants to wear their racial or socioeconomic identities like glittering badges of struggle, universities are now demanding a fresh proof of virtue: the ability to
gracefully disagree
.
Yes, 'disagreement' has become the buzzword of the season — not the real, sweaty, soul-testing kind, but the polished, rehearsed variety fit for an application essay or a Zoom call. According to a recent
New York Times
report, elite institutions like Columbia, MIT, Johns Hopkins, Northwestern and others have begun asking students to recount 'a moment of engaging with an opposing opinion.' The goal, ostensibly, is to reward civility and intellectual flexibility.
But here's the catch — and it's a familiar one. Much like the now-defunct diversity essays that students learned to game with borrowed trauma and repackaged ancestry, this new 'disagreement question' has already become another stage for well-scripted performances.
Zooming in on simulated civility
The fakery doesn't stop at essays.
NYT
reports that a new digital tool — Schoolhouse.world, co-founded by Khan Academy's Sal Khan — is being welcomed by top schools as a portfolio option. Students log into Zoom debates on topics like immigration or the Israel-Palestine conflict, not to be evaluated for the strength of their argument, but to be
rated by peers
on 'empathy,' 'curiosity' and 'kindness.'
by Taboola
by Taboola
Sponsored Links
Sponsored Links
Promoted Links
Promoted Links
You May Like
5 Books Warren Buffett Wants You To Read in 2025
Blinkist: Warren Buffett's Reading List
Undo
If that sounds like a Netflix reality show disguised as civic engagement, you're not wrong.
Virtue theatre 2.0
Let's not pretend that these exercises foster genuine discourse. What they reward is
emotional choreography
: Nod, smile, express mild discomfort, concede ground without conviction. It's a civility Olympics judged by unseen deans with rubrics and quotas.
Elite colleges have gone from diversity checkboxes to civility checkboxes without ever examining the machinery itself.
As long as essays remain open-ended moral auditions, the most polished performers — usually from the most privileged backgrounds — will dominate. And so the illusion continues: That admission to the Ivy League is about values, not veneers.
The risk-averse university
What's emerging here is not just student fakery. It's a deeper, institutional anxiety — an aversion to discomfort itself. By over-sanitising admissions prompts, elite colleges are shielding themselves from ideological tension long before the students even arrive.
Rather than strengthening on-campus discourse, these prompts outsource it to a pre-screening ritual that privileges performance over authenticity. Applicants with the resources to workshop their responses — with tutors, counsellors, and guides — are better equipped to navigate the unwritten rules of 'acceptable disagreement.' Those without? They risk being too real and penalised.
This trend doesn't just reward privilege.
It also reflects how elite institutions are trying to engineer safety into spaces that should thrive on discomfort — especially when the point is to prepare students to think critically.
The real fix colleges won't touch
If institutions genuinely cared about fostering meaningful discourse, they wouldn't outsource it to 17-year-olds on application deadlines. They'd build it into the undergraduate experience — through serious investment in disciplines that demand intellectual rigor, curiosity, and ideological discomfort.
They'd train faculty not to police disagreement, but to manage it with nuance.
But that requires structural change. It's easier to tweak the application form and call it transformation.
The next moral checkbox?
The tragedy of the disagreement prompt isn't that it exists — it's that it will be optimised, gamed, and commodified like everything else. From 'tell us about your hardship' to 'tell us how politely you fought,' the admissions process continues to reward those who've mastered the language of institutional approval.
What's next? Patriotism essays? Environmental guilt confessions? A declaration of digital detox?
Until the metrics change, students will continue to simulate virtue. And colleges will continue to pretend they can measure character in 650 words — or one smiley Zoom call at a time.
Ready to navigate global policies? Secure your overseas future. Get expert guidance now!
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
India Today
14 minutes ago
- India Today
Trump AI policy: Build supercomputers, fight ‘woke' bias, slash red tape
President Donald Trump on Wednesday unveiled a sweeping new plan for America's 'global dominance' in artificial intelligence, proposing to cut back environmental regulations to speed up the construction of AI supercomputers while promoting the sale of US-made AI technologies at home and 'AI Action Plan' embraces many of the ideas voiced by tech industry lobbyists and the Silicon Valley investors who backed Trump's election campaign last must once again be a country where innovators are rewarded with a green light, not strangled with red tape,' Trump said at an unveiling event that was co-hosted by the bipartisan Hill and Valley Forum and the 'All-In' podcast, a business and technology show hosted by four tech investors and entrepreneurs, which includes Trump's AI czar, David Sacks. The plan includes some familiar tech lobby pitches. That includes accelerating the sale of AI technology abroad and making it easier to construct the energy-hungry data centre buildings that are needed to form and run AI products. It also includes some AI culture war preoccupations of the circle of venture capitalists who endorsed Trump last signed three executive orders on Wednesday to deliver on the plan. They seek to fast-track permitting of AI construction projects, expand US tech exports and get rid of 'woke' in had given his tech advisers six months to come up with new AI policies after revoking President Joe Biden's signature AI guardrails on his first day in PLAN: GLOBAL DOMINANCE, CUTTING REGULATIONSThe plan prioritises AI innovation and adoption, urging the removal of any barriers that could slow down adoption across industries and government. The nation's policy, Trump said, will be to do 'whatever it takes to lead the world in artificial intelligence.'Yet it also seeks to guide the industry's growth to address a longtime rallying point for the tech industry's loudest Trump backers: countering the liberal bias they see in AI chatbots such as ChatGPT or Google's plan aims to block the government from contracting with tech companies unless they 'ensure that their systems are objective and free from top-down ideological bias.' The plan says the nation's leading AI models should protect free speech and be 'founded on American values,' though it doesn't define which values those should a former PayPal executive and now Trump's top AI adviser, has been criticizing 'woke AI' for more than a year, fueled by Google's February 2024 rollout of an AI image generator. When asked to show an American Founding Father, it created pictures of Black, Asian, and Native American quickly fixed its tool, but the 'Black George Washington' moment remained a parable for the problem of AI's perceived political bias, taken up by X owner Elon Musk, venture capitalist Marc Andreessen, Vice President JD Vance and Republican among the plan's goals is to speed up permitting and loosen environmental regulation to accelerate construction on new data centers and factories. It condemns 'radical climate dogma' and recommends lifting environmental restrictions, including clean air and water has previously paired AI's need for huge amounts of electricity with his own push to tap into U.S. energy sources, including gas, coal and nuclear.'We will be adding at least as much electric capacity as China,' Trump said at the Wednesday event. 'Every company will be given the right to build their own power plant.'Many tech giants are already well on their way toward building new data centers in the U.S. and around the world. OpenAI announced this week that it has switched on the first phase of a massive data center complex in Abilene, Texas, part of an Oracle-backed project known as Stargate that Trump promoted earlier this year. Amazon, Microsoft, Meta and xAI also have major projects tech industry has pushed for easier permitting rules to get its computing facilities connected to power, but the AI building boom has also contributed to spiking demand for fossil fuel production, which contributes to global Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Tuesday called on the world's major tech firms to power data centers completely with renewables by plan includes a strategy to disincentivize states from aggressively regulating AI technology, calling on federal agencies not to provide funding to states with burdensome regulations.'We need one common sense federal standard that supersedes all states, supersedes everybody,' Trump said, 'so you don't end up in litigation with 43 states at one time.'WHO BENEFITS FROM TRUMP 'S AI ACTION PLAN?There are sharp debates on how to regulate AI, even among the influential venture capitalists who have been debating it on their favorite medium: the some Trump backers, particularly Andreessen, have advocated an 'accelerationist' approach that aims to speed up AI advancement with minimal regulation, Sacks has described himself as taking a middle road of techno-realism.'Technology is going to happen. Trying to stop it is like ordering the tides to stop. If we don't do it, somebody else will,' Sacks said on the 'All-In' Tuesday, more than 100 groups, including labor unions, parent groups, environmental justice organizations and privacy advocates, signed a resolution opposing Trump's embrace of industry-driven AI policy and calling for a 'People's AI Action Plan' that would 'deliver first and foremost for the American people.'J.B. Branch, Big Tech accountability advocate at the watchdog group Public Citizen, which signed the resolution, called the plan a 'sellout.''Under this plan, tech giants get sweetheart deals while everyday Americans will see their electricity bills rise to subsidize discounted power for massive AI data centers,' Branch said in a statement Wednesday. 'Americans deserve an AI future rooted in safety, fairness, and accountability — not a handout to billionaires.'- EndsTune InMust Watch
Time of India
20 minutes ago
- Time of India
Trump vs Columbia: Ivy league school to pay $200 million in landmark settlement; campus protests curbed
Columbia University will now be paying more than $220 million along with making major policy changes as part of a settlement with the Trump administration. The deal follows allegations of civil rights violations and claims the university failed to protect Jewish students from discrimination, as reported exclusively by the New York Post. The Ivy League university will also be subjected to federal oversight, with independent monitoring in place to ensure it adheres to merit-based admissions and hiring processes. The agreement follows four months of negotiations and comes amid mounting pressure on elite universities like Harvard, which has taken the administration to court over the loss of $2.6 billion in funding linked to similar issues. As part of the settlement, Columbia will pay $200 million to the federal government to resolve discrimination claims and a further $20 million to Jewish staff who were reportedly targeted during anti-semitic protests on campus in the wake of the 7 October 2023 Hamas attacks on Israel. The Trump administration is touting the payout as the largest of its kind in nearly two decades under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. As per a source cited by the New York Post, when the government pulled $400 million from Columbia in March, it put billions more in research and other funding at risk. The deal mandates that Columbia dismantle any programmes that discriminate based on race, bringing it in line with the Supreme Court's 2023 ruling that banned race-based affirmative action. Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like This Could Be the Best Time to Trade Gold in 5 Years IC Markets Learn More Undo by Taboola by Taboola It will also create new faculty positions aimed at boosting intellectual diversity and overhaul its approach to discipline, removing oversight from the faculty senate and placing it under the Provost's Office. The settlement includes strong security provisions too. Columbia must coordinate with the NYPD to prevent incidents like the 2024 occupation of Hamilton Hall and impose a blanket ban on masked protests. Disciplinary action has already been taken, with dozens of students suspended, penalised, or expelled over recent anti-Israel demonstrations. In a further move likely to fuel debate, the university's admissions office will now vet international applicants more closely, requiring them to disclose their reasons for studying in the US, data that will be shared with federal authorities. Columbia will also report disciplinary actions for visa-holding students under the Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVIS) and reduce reliance on international enrolment. Several academic departments and international centres, including the Center for Palestine Studies and the Middle East Institute, will now come under close scrutiny by a newly created senior vice provost role, aimed at ensuring ideological balance and compliance with federal rules. The school will also align with Title IX standards by ending policies that allow biological men to compete in women's sports or use women's facilities. Most of the $400 million in previously frozen federal funding will be restored once Columbia meets all conditions of the agreement. The resolution will remain in effect for three years, with a compliance monitor issuing twice-yearly updates on progress. 'This agreement marks an important step forward after a period of sustained federal scrutiny and institutional uncertainty,' said acting president Claire Shipman. 'The settlement was carefully crafted to protect the values that define us and allow our essential research partnership with the federal government to get back on track. Importantly, it safeguards our independence, a critical condition for academic excellence and scholarly exploration, work that is vital to the public interest.' Leaked details from the talks suggest that Columbia agreed to release internal admissions and hiring data and accept the $200 million fine to avoid further loss of research funding. In March, the White House issued nine key demands as a prerequisite for federal support, including enforcement of institutional neutrality and academic diversity. The final deal explicitly bans the use of diversity narratives or racial identity statements in applications, in a move likely to send ripples through higher education. The conflict has led to dramatic leadership changes at Columbia. President Minouche Shafik stepped down in August 2024 amid escalating protests. Her interim successor, Katrina Armstrong, was removed just seven months later after publicly supporting the administration's mask ban, while privately assuring faculty she wouldn't enforce it. She has now been replaced by Shipman, whose past private messages questioning fears of anti-semitism and pushing to remove the only Jewish board member and quick appointment of an 'Arab' member instead,have triggered a congressional investigation. Republican lawmakers are currently reviewing whether new laws are needed to hold university leadership more accountable, amid growing concerns over campus anti-semitism and ideological bias.
Time of India
41 minutes ago
- Time of India
14% to 36%: Govt initiatives help increase participation of UP women in labour force
1 2 3 Lucknow: The participation of women in Uttar Pradesh's labour force increased from 14% in 2017-18 to 36% in 2023-24, according to the recently released Women Economic Empowerment (WEE) Index report. A govt spokesperson said: "Over the past seven years, the state govt made continuous efforts to create a safe, respectful, and productive work environment for women. From improving women's safety and launching the Mission Shakti programme, to giving women priority in govt jobs, allowing them to work night shifts, and increasing job opportunities in industries, women have been placed at the centre of all policy decisions. " The WEE report states that India's female labour force participation rate in 2023-24 was 45%, while in UP it was 36%. In 2017-18, when BJP came to power in the state, UP's rate was 14%, against the national average of 25%. The official said that a major reason for the progress was Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath's efforts in ensuring that the several pro-women schemes launched by the Centre were implemented properly in the state. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like 15 most beautiful women in the world Undo "UP govt took several landmark decisions to enhance women's participation in the industrial workforce and empower them economically. Recently, the govt allowed women to work in all 29 categories of factories that were earlier classified as hazardous and prohibited for female workers across the country. Initially, conditional permission was given for only 12 categories," the spokesperson said. He added that the state govt also permitted women to work night shifts, provided employers arrange proper safety, transportation, food, and rest facilities for them. As per the labour and employment department, women now account for 53% of registrations on the e-Shram portal, and 34.65% of workers in the construction sector are women. The govt also helped form over 10 lakh self-help groups, connecting more than 1 crore women with income-generating activities, which boosted women's entrepreneurship and self-reliance across both urban and rural areas.
