A recent conflict in a Mississippi high school illustrates why meritocracy is not always the same numerical equality. In that case, two African-American students were selected as valedictorian and salutatorian of their class. Two white parents then complained that their children had higher numerical grades and, according to the published rules of the school, deserved the honors. The school replied: Yes, but the Black students took more difficult AP and dual-credit courses and therefore should be given the honors based on their weighted grade point average, even if their grade point averages were not quite as high in absolute numbers. My own view that schools should generally take the difficulty of the classes into account in awarding honors. Meritocracy is not simply a matter of numbers. In some sports such as diving, total scores are calculated by considering the difficulty of the dive. Similarly, in academics, total evaluations are often made based on the difficulty of the course or project selection. That is as it should be. Students should be encouraged to take more challenging courses, risking lower grades, rather than to take the "gut" courses that increase the likelihood of a higher score. In the end, the school did what it should have done: It awarded honors to all four students, because the formal rules of the school did not yet take into account tougher or AP courses. In the future, it should. What seems like a small incident in a particular town that was resolved equitably actually stands for a larger issue. Meritocracy is not easy. Judging people is an extraordinarily complex and difficult task. As a professor for 50 years, I dreaded grading my students. I wanted them all to get A's. My goal was not to evaluate them but to educate them. But in the end, I had to evaluate students, based largely on their performance on written exams, papers and projects. Although I tried hard to create objective criteria, I never completely succeeded. I leaned over backwards not to prefer students who agreed with me and not to downgrade students with whom I fundamentally disagreed. I think I succeeded in that task, but subjectivity still reigned. Occasionally I would get a student who had performed superbly in class, but whose exam — blind-graded — did not measure up. I recall apologizing to several students over the years for not taking into account their class participation, but school rules precluded that for classes over a certain size.