In that infamous 1995 New Republic article Ruth Shalit implied that Kevin Merida rose to prominence in the journalism field strictly because of affirmative action. 25 years later, Merida is being honored while Ruth’s rep is in tatters once again. Chickens roosting

#WellActually the wildest sentence in the editor’s note is “We took into consideration the argument that [Shalit] Barrett deserved a second chance to write feature stories such as this one.”
On what basis did she deserve a second chance? https://twitter.com/erikwemple/status/1322516020385456128

Have there been any black writers who plagiarized multiple times that still “deserved” a chance to write for a magazine such as The Atlantic? (This gets to @bomani_jones’ repeated point about who gets the benefit of the doubt)

For me, this all goes back to that ridiculous New Republic article by Ruth Shalit in which she tried to make the case that the Washington Post’s attempt to diversity had diminished the product. This came out while I worked there, so yeah...

Donald Graham’s response was tho. He ended it by basically saying: you think diversity has weakened The Washington Post? Ok, fine. Roll call! (Note how many of these names are still getting it done at a high level 25 years later)

The grand irony of the Ruth Shalit saga is that her career arc, right through this latest episode, shows that the longest-running and most detrimental-to-quality affirmative action program is the one for white people.

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