If there is one thing about which we are certain that we are pursuing at Georgetown, it is social justice. We disagree about many things – but, apparently, we know “social justice” when we see it. So certain are we, that we don’t stop to think critically about ways that we may be contributing to social injustice. Yet, in the very act of scouring the world for the best and brightest and putting them on the path to upward mobility, we may be accelerating downward mobility for a great many of our countrymen.
God and Nature, in their wisdom, seem to have dispersed talent and intelligence widely throughout the globe. If one polls an average class of Georgetown students from where they come, you’ll usually get a reasonably widespread representation from many of the States in the Union and the globe. One measure of “diversity” that we like to proclaim is geographic: we are no longer merely a parochial East Coast school, but a global institution. We scour the nation and the world for the best students, and each year bring a sizeable number from everywhere for a first-class education on the Hilltop.
We do not, as a rule, ask many questions about where they go after graduation. Yet, we all know where a great many of our students end up: if they are ambitious and successful (as most are), they end up in one of about half a dozen cities, including New York, Washington D.C., Seattle and Boston. Along with peer institutions, we are engaged in a large-scale operation of accumulating talent and intelligence from the provinces and siphoning them to several centers composed of similarly enriched people.
