In 1995, a retired insurance executive named Walter Kaye recommended a friend’s daughter for an unpaid internship at the White House. You will remember her name: Monica Lewinsky.

But you probably don’t remember Kaye, who had contributed about $350,000 to the Democratic National Committee. He had advised Bill Clinton on how to use his personal insurance policies to pay his legal expenses in the Paula Jones sexual harassment case. Kaye had been an overnight guest at the White House. And he was“very tight’ with Hillary Clinton, a former Clinton administration official said.

He was also close to Lewinsky’s mother, who asked him to put in a good word for her 21-year-old daughter. Lewinsky would later have a scandalous affair with Bill Clinton, who was impeached for lying about it. Nobody batted any eye at an otherwise unremarkable young woman getting a plum Washington internship simply because of her connections to the rich and powerful.

I’ve been thinking about that history amid recent news that Jeffrey Epstein helped filmmaker Woody Allen get his daughter into Bard College. Wealthy people get an unfair advantage in college admissions and everything else. Let’s call it what it is: affirmative action for the rich.

And it’s on rich display in the Epstein files. In 2016, Epstein emailed Bard President Leon Botstein and asked him to coordinate a visit to the campus for Soon-Yi Previn, Woody Allen’s wife. A frequent correspondent with Epstein, Botstein wrote back and said he was “delighted to help.”

The same day, Previn sent a note to Botstein. “Thank you so much for your offer to help our daughter, Bechet Allen, get into Bard College,” Previn wrote. “I will take you up on the offer.:)”

In a statement last week, Bard College said that Bechet Allen “was accepted on the merits of her own qualifications for admission.” Perhaps so. But it’s a whole lot easier to display your merits when a billionaire financier is vouching for you.

All of this comes amid attacks by the administration of President Donald Trump of race-based affirmative action and its pledges to return to the ideal of merit. “We believe that whether you are a doctor, an accountant, a lawyer, or an air traffic controller, you should be hired and promoted based on skill and competence,” Trump told Congress back in March. “You should be hired based on merit.”

That rings hollow coming from the same administration that recently sent out a recruiting message seeking prosecutors for the Department of Justice who“support President Trump.” That’s affirmative action based on ideology, not race. No Democrats or Never-Trump Republicans need apply.

Despite its insistence upon“merit-based admissions policies” at universities, meanwhile, the White House hasn’t moved to challenge the most obvious form of affirmative action for the rich: legacy preferences. Over 500 institutions still give you a leg up if your mom or dad went there. But we haven’t heard a peep about that from Trump.

Maybe that’s because three of Trump’s own children attended the University of Pennsylvania, where Trump went (and where I teach).

Trump’s brother, Fred Trump Jr., was an old friend of a Penn admissions officer. In 1966, Trump Jr. called his buddy and told him Donald Trump wanted to transfer to Penn from Fordham. Shortly after that, Donald came down to speak with his brother’s friend. And he was accompanied at the interview by his father, the real estate mogul Fred Trump Sr.

Would Trump have gotten into Penn without the boost he received from his moneyed connections? We don’t know. But here’s what we do know: Affirmative action for rich people makes all of our institutions poorer.

Just ask Walter Kaye. In 1998, he told a grand jury that he regretted helping Lewinsky get her internship at the White House.

Bill Clinton bears the primary responsibility for their affair and everything that came after it. The reality is that Lewinsky wouldn’t have been at the White House without affirmative action for the rich. It happens every day. And that should be a scandal, too.

Jonathan Zimmerman teaches history and education at the University of Pennsylvania. He serves on the advisory board of the Albert Lepage Center for History in the Public Interest. He wrote this column for Tribune News Service.

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The pillars of my civic faith are under fire

I have sympathy for my long-suffering civics teachers who had tried unsuccessfully to help me understand things like strong versus weak mayors or unicameral and bicameral (and no, that’s not one-hump or two-hump camels). But I have been able to distill my civics down to two unalterable truths that I depend on:

One, I have the right of the vote, and two, I trust in the protections of the Constitution.

Now we have had our share of scalawags and misfits in positions of power, but our institutions remain strong due to the guide rails of our Constitution and the corrective power of the ballot.

But these pillars of my civic faith are now under fire.

I see an unchecked masked militia operating with a total disregard of the Bill of Rights and I hear of a credible threat to our free and fair elections. The threat is of intimidation at polling sites by the same militia now violating our civil rights. All under the spurious guise of protecting us from voting fraud. I’m a worried man.

Bob Emery, Mendota Heights

 

We’ll not forget what we have seen

The recent article describing life in the Twin Cities two months into the federal immigration crackdown should unsettle every Minnesotan, regardless of political affiliation. What was being described is not simply a policy dispute — it is a humanitarian and civic crisis unfolding in our neighborhoods, schools, workplaces and places of worship.

As a longtime Minnesotan, I recognize the strain our state has carried before. But the fear, grief and hypervigilance voiced by residents in this article — including U.S. citizens, legal immigrants, and lifelong community members — signal a troubling breakdown of trust between government power and the people it serves. When parents are afraid to send children to school, when workers with legal status disappear from jobs, when neighbors organize warning systems just to feel safe leaving their homes, something fundamental has gone wrong.

Many Minnesotans hold nuanced views: Borders matter, laws matter, and violent crime must be addressed. But sweeping enforcement tactics that rely on fear, racial profiling and overwhelming force are neither just nor effective. Public safety is undermined, not strengthened, when enforcement itself becomes a source of trauma.

What struck me most was how widely this pain is felt — across race, class and political identity — and how familiar it feels to those who have lived through other moments when Minnesota was forced to confront the consequences of unchecked authority. We should not need another death, another vigil or another investigation to remember that human dignity and the rule of law are not opposing values.

Leadership is tested not by how forcefully it acts, but by whether it listens, corrects course and reduces harm while protecting communities. Minnesotans are paying close attention. And we will not forget what we have been witnessing.

Jane White Schneeweis, Mahtomedi

 

Hard to believe, this behavior

I commend the hard-hitting journalism of Jack Brook, Michael Blessecker, Jim Mustian and Cedar Attanasio in their article Sunday, Feb. 8, “His skull was broken…” presenting Alberto Castaneda Mondragon’s horrifying treatment at the hands of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. I wept at this story because I cannot believe that members of our federal police would beat and permanently harm a man who, as it turned out, had no reason to be arrested in the first place.

One cannot turn away from the truth of what has been happening with some of our neighbors who have been traumatized, ill treated, beaten and even killed. I cannot believe that Donald Trump, Kristi Noem and Kash Patel would allow these atrocities against people in our country. We cannot turn away from what is happening in our America today, so tragically reminiscent of Germany during the rise of Hitler and the Nazis.

Donna Isaac, Inver Grove Heights

 

His legacy

At the annual National Prayer Breakfast keynote speaker Donald Trump exposed himself for his lack of Christian conviction. He chose to pass on sincere prayer for others and the country, choosing to use the forum for a political rally. He mocked individuals, told lies, minimized Speaker of the House Mike Johnson’s religious conviction and made light of meal-time devotions. Though we might expect more of a president, one sincere prayer would be nice, we know Donald Trump as a narcissist who wishes to be served by religion rather than practice its principles. After all, he uses the Bible as a prop when convenient, sells them to grift Americans and has little understanding of the contents.

To the point, Donald Trump has proven through his words and actions to be the antithesis of the Good Samaritan by berating third-world countries, mercilessly trashing immigrants and eliminating humanitarian relief. His cuts to Medicaid and SNAP reduce essential benefits to millions. Sending 3,000 federal agents to Minnesota, Operation Metro Surge was simply his fulfilled promise of revenge and retribution, hateful and definitely un-Christian. This will be his legacy.

Pete Boelter, North Branch

 

Choices

The Minnesota Vikings got rid of QB Sam Darnold and kept play-by-play radio announcer Paul Allen. Huh?

M.L. Kluznik, Mendota Heights

 

Where has our decency gone?

Donald Trump makes a racial post about a former president and says, “I didn’t make a mistake.” Fifteen years ago (before the first Trump term), any person in any position anywhere in the country would get fired for such a public display.

Where has our decency gone? Trump has made this type of behavior acceptable in nearly all our society. He must be removed from office now, before our country degrades even further.

Mark Nelson, St. Croix Falls

 

Proud to have lived among you

As a journalism vagabond, I have lived in too many cities to mention. My 11-year stint as editor of the Pioneer Press during the ‘90s was my longest. My wife and I were native southerners who arrived in the Twin Cities with some trepidation. The Midwest was new territory.

Pretty quickly, we felt at home (except for the winter).

Twin Citizens were honest and open, friendly and, most important for an editor, well read. We didn’t know you were brave because there was no need. Life was normal.

As I have watched you on TV and the Internet these past few weeks, I have seen how brave you are. I am proud I once lived among you.

You should be aware America is watching and cheering. You are standing up to the most powerful man on Earth and you are winning. You, my former readers, are the best of America.

Walker Lundy, East Bay, California

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Today is Sunday, Feb. 15, the 46th day of 2026. There are 319 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On Feb. 15, 1898, the battleship USS Maine mysteriously exploded in Havana Harbor, killing more than 260 crew members and bringing the United States closer to war with Spain.

Also on this date:

In 1879, President Rutherford B. Hayes signed a law allowing female attorneys to argue cases before the U.S. Supreme Court.

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In 1933, President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt escaped an assassination attempt in Miami that mortally wounded Chicago Mayor Anton J. Cermak; gunman Giuseppe Zangara was executed by electric chair the following month.

In 1950, Walt Disney’s animated film “Cinderella” premiered in Boston.

In 1961, 73 people, including all 18 members of the U.S. figure skating team en route to the World Championships in Czechoslovakia, were killed in the crash of a Sabena Airlines Boeing 707 in Belgium.

In 1978, boxer Leon Spinks scored a massive upset as he defeated Muhammad Ali by split decision to become the world heavyweight champion.

In 1989, the Soviet Union announced that the last of its troops had left Afghanistan, after more than nine years of military intervention.

In 2001, the first draft sequence of the complete human genome was published in the scientific journal Nature.

In 2013, with a blinding flash and a booming shock wave, a meteor blazed across Russia’s western Siberian sky and exploded, injuring nearly 1,500 people as it blasted out windows.

In 2022, the families of nine victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting agreed to a $73 million settlement of a lawsuit against Remington Arms, the maker of the rifle used by a gunman to kill 20 first graders and six educators in 2012.

In 2023, Payton Gendron, the white gunman who massacred 10 Black shoppers and workers at a Buffalo, New York, supermarket in May of the previous year, was sentenced to life in prison without parole after pleading guilty to murder and hate-motivated terrorism charges.

Today’s birthdays:

Actor Claire Bloom is 95.
Songwriter Brian Holland is 85.
Jazz musician Henry Threadgill is 82.
Composer John Adams is 79.
Cartoonist Art Spiegelman is 78.
Actor Jane Seymour is 75.
Singer Melissa Manchester is 75.
Actor Lynn Whitfield is 73.
“The Simpsons” creator Matt Groening is 72.
Actor Christopher McDonald is 71.
Football Hall of Famer Darrell Green is 66.
Actor Alex Borstein is 55.
Hockey great Jaromir Jagr is 54.
Olympic swimming gold medalist Amy Van Dyken-Rouen is 53.
Actor-singer Amber Riley is 40.
Rapper Megan Thee Stallion is 31.
Race car driver George Russell is 28.
Actor Zachary Gordon is 28.