How not to help your child
All parents want what’s best for their children.
Some parents want more than others.
Those parents break laws, the rules of decency or both to give their kids an unfair help.
A few years ago, I happened to ask a legendary high school basketball coach how the game had changed since he started coaching decades ago.
Without hesitation, he responded, “PARENTAL INVOLVEMENT!”
He told me that his job had gotten increasingly difficult, because of parents who thought their kids were better on the basketball court than they were.
I’ve since been made aware of parents who tried to bribe or even threaten coaches to give their un-LeBron-like offspring more playing time.
That seems to be the motivations of the dozens of parents who are ensnared in this “Operation Varsity Blues” case.
Parents aren’t the only people to blame.
There are college coaches and other profiteers who made a buck – and could end up in jail.
The whole thing stinks.
Unlike those young high school non-athletes who benefit thanks to their overzealous parents, these are college-aged students who’ve been handed college enrollments in a nefarious scheme.
Some were given slots on athletic teams, even though they don’t even play that particular sport.
There are charges that some students were given help passing SAT or ACT tests — even having other people taking those tests for them.
Indictments involved in this scam gained more nationwide attention because there are two Hollywood actresses facing jail time.
Lori Loughlin (from the TV show Full House), and Felicity Huffman (who starred in the show Desperate Housewives) have been charged in the case.
Loughlin and her husband are accused of paying $500,000 in bribes to help their two daughters.
Huffman, who is the wife of actor William H. Macy, is accused of paying $15,000 to help her daughter cheat on her SAT test.
Huffman and Loughlin are just two of the 33 people charged in what is being called the “largest college admissions scam ever prosecuted by the Department of Justice.” None of the others are nearly as famous.
But you can assume that many of the people charged are wealthy enough to spend as much as $6 million to help their unqualified sons and daughters leap overqualified students to get into college.
This scandal, as well as any other major news story, seems to beg for an intemperate comment from the Trump administration.
Thus, White House mouthpiece. Kellyanne Conway tweeted: “Lori Loughlin and Felicity Huffman indicted for lying and buying spots in college. They worried their daughters are as stupid as their mothers.”
Not only is that a low blow, it’s rich, considering she works for a guy who was forced to pay $25 million after engaging in a fraudulent scheme involving “Trump University.”
Twitter can be a mighty nasty place.
Shortly after Kellyanne Conway fired off her tweet that implied Loughlin and Huffman’s kids are “as stupid as their mothers,” somebody on Twitter fired back, “Yes, it’s terrible when kids of wealthy parents get things they don’t earn, like college placements and security clearances,” somebody wrote.
That tweet was a double-barreled insult aimed at Conway’s boss.
First, after Trump, himself, graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1968, curiously, three of his six children graduated from there, too.
Second, there’s been recent news that both Trump’s daughter, Ivanka, and her husband, Jared Kushner, were given top-secret security clearances, despite the warnings of intelligence professionals.
Kushner, by the way, probably benefited by having a father, Charles Kushner, who was wealthy enough to “pledge” $2.5 million dollars to Harvard University, despite having never attended Harvard.
I don’t have any problems with wealthy people. Just the ones who think they can use their wealth to buy unfair advantages.
Look, I went to Harvard back in 2003. But I didn’t depend on anybody to get there. I and my future wife went there on vacation. While sitting on the campus that day, I felt real smart. Or is that really smart?
I don’t know. I’m not that smart.
Edward A. Owens is a multi-Emmy Award winner, former reporter, and anchor for Entertainment Tonight and 20-year TV news veteran. E-mail him at freedoms@bellatlantic.net.