Attention turns to legacy admissions after affirmative action ruling

The target on the back of university legacy admissions grew larger after the Supreme Court ruled against the use of race-conscious admissions. 

Every year, thousands of students are able to get into top schools through their ties to family alumni or wealthy donors, a practice that largely favors applicants who are rich and white. 

After the Supreme Court ruled institutions cannot use race as a factor in the admissions process, calls from both Democrats and Republicans went out to end legacy admissions. 

“I think the question is how do you continue to create a culture where education is the goal for every single part of our community?” Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), who is running for president, said. “One of the things that Harvard could do to make that even better is to eliminate any legacy programs where they have preferential treatment for legacy kids, not allow for the professors — their kids to come to Harvard as well.”

Scott also called for admissions “based on academic scores.”

Days after the Supreme Court ruling, Lawyers for Civil Rights (LCR) filed a civil rights complaint to the Department of Education against Harvard for its legacy admissions. It claims 70 percent of applicants related to wealthy donors are white and 70 percent of those related to alumni are white.

“Each year, Harvard College grants special preference in its admissions process to hundreds of mostly white students — not because of anything they have accomplished, but rather solely because of who their relatives are,” the group said in the complaint. 

The momentum for upending legacy admissions was gaining even before the Supreme Court decision on affirmative action. 

In a report from Education Reform Now, at least 102 colleges have voluntarily dropped their legacy admissions since 2015.

Amherst College in Massachusetts voluntarily ended its legacy admissions and saw the number of legacy students admitted into the school drop from 11 percent to 6 percent in one year. In that same time, Amherst gained a new record of first-generation college students, at 19 percent. 

Colorado is the only state that has banned its universities from using legacy admissions, doing so in 2021.

While schools are able to voluntarily drop legacy admissions, many Ivy League and even some state schools still maintain the practice, leading advocates to push for other routes to end the it. 

State and federal legislation is one path, but even with some bipartisan support on the issue, it would be difficult to get passed. 

“A lot of the folks who benefit from [legacy admissions] are overwhelmingly wealthier and in positions of power. We know that when there is legislation that doesn’t benefit those who have wealth and power then it moves much, much more slowly,” said Wil Del Pilar, senior vice president of The Education Trust, a group aimed at ending racial and economic barriers in education.

Legacy admissions would be hard to tackle legally. 

“It would certainly be more difficult to imagine a court case about legacy admissions. In order to file a lawsuit, at least on the theory of race discrimination, an entity would have to prove that there was a deliberate intent to discriminate against a certain group on the basis of race in order to prove a claim in court,” Sarah Hinger, senior staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union, said. “And so that gives, just generally speaking, a difficult case to prevail on.”

The fallout from the Supreme Court’s affirmative action ruling may spur more organic change around legacy admissions. It is sure to put a closer watch on how universities address diversity in the admissions process.

“Carolina remains firmly committed to bringing together talented students with different perspectives and life experiences and continues to make an affordable, high-quality education accessible to the people of North Carolina and beyond,” University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill chancellor Kevin M. Guskiewicz said after the court’s ruling.