It's also well known that connections are extremely important for academic positions, especially so in humanities academia where TT positions are so rare and hy

It's also well known that connections are extremely important for academic positions, especially so in humanities academia where TT positions are so rare and hyper competitive. The name appeal of the Ivy's can have huge sway, and it leads to a flattening of intellectual diversity in scholarship as whole fields are shaped by certain "schools" or movements that are more often just former fellow students mutually citing each other and their former supervisors. A lot of brilliant research gets passed over because it's not coming from the right school.