The great playwright and screenwriter David Mamet has worked with Felicity Huffman and her husband William H. Macy many times, having known the latter for nearly 50 years (!) and the former, his onetime student, for 35. In 1985 Mamet and Macy co-founded the Atlantic Theater Company, which today is one of the leading proponents of serious theater in the United States. He also knows his way around the elite-college racket.


Mamet says admissions policies are a “corrupt joke” in an open letter, adding, “I worked for very many years in and around our Elite Universities. I am able to report that their admissions policies are an unfortunate and corrupt joke. Harvard was once sued for restricting the admission of qualified Jews; a contest currently being waged by Asians.”

He adds, “That a parent’s zeal for her children’s future may have overcome her better judgment for a moment is not only unfortunate, it is, I know we parents would agree, a universal phenomenon. If ever there were a use for the Texas Verdict, this is it. For the uninitiated, the Texas Verdict is: ‘Not Guilty, but Don’t do it Again.'”

Mamet, by the way, got his degree from Goddard College in Plainfield, Vermont. He once said, “My alma mater is the Chicago Public Library.” Lacking an Ivy League credential, he nevertheless seems to have done okay. Maybe talent is more important than the calligraphy on your sheepskin.