I don't think anyone doesn't believe that BE has an advantage -- demonstrably it does. The problem is how you account for that advantage. Do you use the label "private" to assess some type of penalty or do you use other indicators (such as affluence)?
Here's the analogy from a social issue with which our society is currently wrestling. It can be seen as per statistics that African Americans are unfairly disadvantaged in terms of admittance to universities. There are two fundamental methods for attempting to compensate for this disadvantage: one is to take into account race and the other is to take into account affluence. There are arguments for either; however, there are those that argue that labeling all African Americans as disadvantaged is in and of itself racism (of course, there are others that argue not labeling all African Americans in this manner is also racism.)
In this debate, the theory is that Orangeburg Prepatory school has the same advantage as BE on a student-by-student basis in terms an assessed "1.5" penalty (or whatever.) Maybe...but I kind of doubt it.
I appreciate the pain that schools like Woodruff feel at having to compete "unfairly" with BE. The trouble I have is creating a system that compensates for the "unfairness." I'd want to make sure that Wando and Dorman, two of the largest 4-A schools, are made more "fair." Then again, I'd personally take less affluence, less draw, and less everything else if I could turn LCSC (Lexington's soccer club) into CESA (Mauldin's "unfair" advantage.)
