Word: merit
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...self-styled enlightened oligarchy, it would not be amiss for it to create strong incentives for actively moral behavior. Almost everyone would hand in their papers on time if they received a gold star by their names in the gradebook. How about a Harvard Scouts program, with merit badges for cleanliness, obedience, and hair length (no long sideburns!). Alcohol and drug use would plummet, and we'd completely eliminate those radical fringe types. We would build a community of upstanding young men and women, who would depart Harvard eager to serve better their country and their kind...
Hamilton usually completes five triple jumps in his final program but he popped out of a triple flip and that cost him point deductions for technical merit. Instead of three revolutions he only did one. Had he not been winning by such a large margin after the compulsory figures, he might have lost the medal that America had expected him to win for some time...
...result is that presidential candidates of all stripes are waving the educational banner in the current campaign--vigorously debating such issues as "merit pay" for teachers, throwing out plans for funneling more money into educational programs, and generally trying to out-promise each other over what they plan to do to get the nation's schools back on track...
...other move that is gaining widespread bipartisan support is the idea of "merit pay," or encouraging good teachers by dangling before them possible salary increases. Reagan and several of the Democratic eight have supported the proposal in general, though no one has proposed anything specific...
Louis's final contention on reverse discrimination is that "'merit' is usually trumpeted as the supreme good which affirmative action undermines, while in reality, anyone can name a thousand and one instances in which factors other than merit were taken into account in, for example, getting a job." First of all, the fact that many employers often consider criteria unrelated to the performance of the job is no invitation to require the addition of racial status to that list. Second, what is especially odious about reverse discrimination is not that it is just another example of an employer considering "factors...