For a society that values itself on its supposed meritocracy, there is no greater betrayal than that which is institutional. This is very distinct from a betrayal by friends, lovers, or other peers. It is a betrayal by the very system to which an individual is supposedly bound; the systems which claim to recognize promise, reward effort, and are meant to open their doors to those who knock.
Yet, for many people, these doors remain closed no matter how hard and realizable the knocking, how clear the qualifications, or how desperate the need. Their language of “access” is generous, particularly when the reality of gatekeeping is cruel.
I do not see this as a matter of inequality, but a distortion of the idea of fairness. When an individual is giving their all to stride upward despite hardship, and is reaching an alleged threshold — be that academic or professional or even just generally civic — and is then told, explicitly or implicitly, “You are not the kind we let in.” And it’s not even because they lack the talent or proof thereof, but because they did not enter the race with the “correct” starting block: the correct pedigree, vocabulary, or virtue.
Gatekeeping, admittedly, is framed in a sphere of standards. But these supposed standards can function as a filter for class or comfort or, in definite terms, subjective polish: codes of belonging that reward the already-included. The ones who haven’t built brilliance atop pain.
And yet, worse still is how suffering itself can be turned against the sufferer. Those who carry scars, be they mental health struggles, financial instability, or uneven academic records, are often seen as “too fragile” for the very systems that helped create their fragility. So while we (or rather, society instead of me) may praise resilience in theory, we de facto pathologize it. Should you break down and still get back up, your break-down is recalled more fiercely than your return.
There is thus an indefensible cruelty in how so many contemporary institutions access promise. They don’t do it by what you’ve built. Instead, they look at how uninterrupted your path was while building it. A polished transcript will matter more than a remarkable recovery; conventionality in one’s resume outweighs another’s unconventional triumph over hardship. Whereas this society claims to value “lived experience”, when the experience is actual adversity — particularly the kind these very institutions themselves exacerbate — we all of a sudden get nervous. That’s an injustice to individuals.
It is also a squandering of our civic potential. Those who have climbed through the understructure of this society and learned its operations through its friction are perhaps the best able to improve the same. Their insight is hard-earned and nonsynthetic. Yet when institutions turn them away or dismiss them as liabilities, they make clear that it is not integrity or intellect which they praise but predictability.
To defend this gate, it may be interpreted that the institutions must “maintain standards.” Whose standards? You know, there is a difference between selecting for excellence and selecting for mere ease. In confusing the two, the institutions exclude those whose excellence was forged out of hardship.
I merely believe every door must be available to everyone. Metaphorically, we must interrogate their locks. What are they really measuring, anyway? Are we brave enough to admit when the locks have proved counterproductive to the welfare of society’s vulnerable?
There are many people in America and elsewhere that can rise, if only the scaffolding of prestige did not mistake pain for pathology. Until we reckon with that, “admission” will only remain a polite word for what is a selective blindness.
I believe the system must recognize not just credentials but context. A difficult path must not ever assure disqualification. It is a sign of learned willpower.
Building such systems requires more than empathy, but structural courage. Until real courage passes as worthwhile in institutions, meritocracy will remain a myth. A myth told by the fortunate, privileged, paid for by the rest.