The college admissions bribery scandal isn’t just the final confirmation that none of us ever have to listen to a single word a rich person says about hard work, perseverance, or the inherent value of an elite education ever again. It’s also a moral dilemma, because although it’s obvious that the parents should see the inside of a jail cell, the culpability of the kids involved in the scheme isn’t as clear. Not all of them knew what their folks were up to, and, as Trevor Noah notes, the scandal is “such a shitty way to find out your parents think you’re a dumbass.” Still, it seems clear that the kids should face some consequence besides expulsion, ideally one that entertains the rest of us, and Trevor Noah has an idea about what to do with these up-and-coming water polo and tennis recruits that would also provide some measure of justice to the coaches who participated in the scheme:
The perfect punishment for these coaches would be forcing them to compete with a team full of all the fake athletes they recruited. And then on top of that, we say that they have to win the championship or all of them go to jail. It would be like a really uninspiring Disney movie.
Noah’s solution lands right in the middle of what criminologists call the “sweet spot”: a punishment that is slightly less humane than making offenders compete in Rollerball matches, but slightly more humane than making them compete in Death Races 2000. Here’s Noah’s take on day two of the scandal:
A 100% estate tax can’t get here fast enough.