Derek Bok Quotes

Whatever we do, whatever our backgrounds, we've all had some kind of advantage somewhere along the way. Some break that might have gone to someone else. Some edge or inside track we couldn't have counted on.

So long as these kinds of inequalities persist, all of us who are given expensive educations have to live with the knowledge that our victories are contaminated because the game has been rigged to our advantage.

We live in a system that espouses merit, equality, and a level playing field, but exalts those with wealth, power, and celebrity, however gained.

The odds of being successful are the same for every group that is educated in America. It's just that the group that is not wealthy is 95 percent of the population. So if there are 100 successful people in a room, probably 95 out of 100 came from more modest means.

The benefit of rich families putting their child through Harvard is always going to exist. But it's quite evident that there are 700 million peasants in China who are never going to go to Harvard.

We're leaving the House to people who either were born with a silver spoon in their mouth... or couldn't get better jobs in the first place.

What family you were born into matters so much more than it did before in a perverse way.

I never came into life with any favours or privileges.

It is a melancholy truth that even great men have their poor relations.

The defeats and victories for the people at the top aren't defeats and victories for the people at the bottom.

It's them that take advantage that get advantage in this world.

Some men will be always able to pay more for their children's education than others; and that those children will, inevitably, win in the struggle of life.

You can’t be a minority in this society without having someone express disapproval of affirmative action.… We have to prove ourselves and we have to work hard doing it.

Inequality is an inevitable product of capitalist activity, and expanding equality of opportunity only increases it—because some individuals and communities are simply better able than others to exploit the opportunities for development and advancement that capitalism affords.

But the truth is the meritocracy is a lie. Those born into wealth and privilege will always be able to game the system for their own benefit and their children's own benefit.

Everybody is not born with a silver spoon in their mouth. There are only a very small percentage of those types of people, you know what I mean?

The idea that there is a meritocracy where anyone from any background really might have the social and economic mobility to rise to the top in Silicon Valley, those are antithetical to a lot of the principles that the Trump administration apparently stands for.

The evidence shows that grammar schools overwhelmingly benefit those from more affluent backgrounds.

I came from a background where access to museum culture was rarely granted, and, when you got it, people wondered what the hell you were doing there.

Students come away with a clear message about how admissions works: If you have money, connections or 'insider' knowledge, you have a leg up. It's hardly surprising that many students of modest or lower means decide it's not even worth playing.

I don't believe in private education.

Let me ask you: Should only children of the wealthy have access to quality early education? Should only children of the wealthy have access to a college degree? The answer - the only answer - is: no.

I just think the most difficult thing to displace is privilege.

The thing that really struck me when I went to junior high was class. I grew up on a pretty poor street, but the school district I was in included some fine neighborhoods - so I got to know a couple of the kids from those places and went to their houses and experienced such culture shock.

Aspiration, it seems, is in danger of becoming the preserve of the wealthy.