After reading the recent conversations around the Education Secretary’s open letter to universities, I find myself looking back at my own academic journey and what terms like “merit” actually mean in practice.

When I was 17, I was a high school salutatorian, a National Merit Scholar, and a member of the National Honor Society. My minister told me I was smart, not my teachers. It was in that church I became confident. One of our members, who graduated with a degree in theatre, produced so many plays. She prepared me to run for class president and give presentations in high school. Those credentials earned me a scholarship offer to the University of Notre Dame. After weighing my options and choosing the expected path, I chose the University of Montevallo.

As a young Black woman entering higher education, I knew that my growth needed to be about more than just a prestigious brand name. I wanted an environment where I could explore my passions without being forced into a narrow box.

I majored in Chemistry and minored in Biology, and while I easily had enough credits to minor in Mathematics, I made a conscious choice to minor in English Literature instead. Alongside organic chemistry labs, I spent my semesters analyzing Chaucer, Shakespeare, English Romanticism, and Southern Literature. I loved reading and writing as much as I loved science.

My university also had a nationally ranked theatre department that brought incredible cultural depth to campus. I saw world-class productions. It was there that I had the unforgettable experience of seeing the Martha Graham Dance Company perform and hearing the extraordinary Randy Crawford live.

Diving into the arts and humanities did not distract from my medical goals—it sharpened my critical thinking, deepened my empathy, and made me a better analyst. As Dr. David Satcher once noted: “We need leaders who care enough, leaders who know enough, leaders who have the courage to do enough, and leaders who persevere enough.” That interdisciplinary foundation taught me to both care enough and know enough, and I went on to graduate with the highest honors.

There were no handouts on my journey. It was built entirely on a foundation of intense focus, endless discipline, and late nights in the lab and the library. My church community and friends supported that foundation. As Maya Angelou succinctly put it::

“Nothing will work unless you do.” That rigorous, multi-dimensional effort is exactly what prepared me to be accepted into Meharry Medical College and fueled the successful medical journey I have today.

The current political debate often tries to reduce higher education to standardized metrics, rigid compliance, and narrow definitions of institutional value. But my experience taught me that true academic excellence thrives when universities have the freedom to let students explore diverse passions, think across disciplines, and earn their success through pure hard work.

As Frederick Douglass famously observed, “Education means emancipation. It means light and liberty. It means the uplifting of the soul of man into the glorious light of truth, the light by which men can only be made free.”

True merit is not a federal checklist, and you cannot manufacture it by forcing universities into politically prescribed boxes. It comes from giving students the space, liberty, and rigor to build a complete, authentic, and independent foundation for the future.

As Michelle Obama reminded us in Becoming:

“You have to trace your own path, and you have to own your own story. No one else can define who you are or what you are capable of achieving.”