When I moved from Compton, California, to Eugene, Oregon, in 1961 to attend the University of Oregon, I thought I had found the city of my dreams.

My hometown of Compton (”Straight Outta”) was an ugly piece of work even back then. It was a city of used car lots, a slum area or two, some tough muthers roaming the streets, and bars on the windows of the downtown stores.

When the college admission scandal broke a couple of days ago, I didn’t think it would be a big deal. (I’m known for my brilliant predictions.) I thought, “We’re supposed to be offended because kids are getting into colleges that they would not normally qualify for? Call me when we dump affirmative action. Then, maybe I’ll get offended by this.” But this has been a huge story. It’s all my patients want to talk about on our office visits. So people clearly got more upset about this than I anticipated. I just couldn’t figure out why. So after giving it some thought, I have a theory. I’m still not sure I understand this, but hear me out…

Again, my confusion arises from the fact that we admit unqualified applicants all the time. Depending on the college, it can be 30-50% of the incoming class. The classic example is a black male college applicant. The qualifications he needs to get into, say, Stanford, are a lot different than the qualifications that would be needed for an Asian applicant. You might say, then, that black race is a qualification for college, just like a high SAT score or a high class ranking. That is objectively true, but I look at it slightly differently.

This past Wednesday, Gavin Newsom, governor of California, announced a moratorium on the death penalty in the Golden State, effectively ending the death penalty here. The same day, Archbishop Jose Gomez of Los Angeles issued a statement praising Newsom’s action. “For many years now,” the Archbishop stated, “my brother Catholic bishops and I have been calling for an end to the death penalty….The death penalty violates the condemned person’s dignity and deprives that person of the chance to change his or her heart and be rehabilitated through the mercy of God.”

Two days later, a man in New Zealand, which long ago abolished the death penalty, entered a mosque, opened fire, and then entered a second mosque, opening fire once again. The death count: 49.