Bipartisan Senate bill aimed at ending legacy admissions at college

Sens. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) and Todd Young (R-Ind.) introduced a bill Tuesday that would effectively end college legacy admissions by changing requirements for school accreditation.

The MERIT Act is intended to stop all non-merit-based admissions factors in college education, the senators said.

“America is a land of opportunity, not a land of aristocracy,” Young said in a statement. “Legacy admissions restrict opportunities for many bright and talented young Americans and provide unmerited advantage to the most connected individuals in our society. Our bill will end legacy preferences in the admissions process and promote upward mobility for Americans of all backgrounds.”

Legacy admissions have come under fire in recent months after the Supreme Court struck down affirmative action in admission processes this summer. Affirmative action had long served as a counterbalance to legacy preferences, which tend to favor applicants who are white and come from wealthy families.

Affirmative action advocates have argued that legacy admissions provide the same preferential treatment that the court outlawed with the affirmative action ruling.

“A student’s acceptance into a college should not hinge on whether their parents attended that school or donated a large sum of money,” Kaine said in a statement. “This legislation would help bring more fairness to the higher education admissions process, and ensure that first-generation and low-income students are not put at a disadvantage because of their parents’ educational histories or incomes.”

The bill amends the Higher Education Act, which outlines the requirements for colleges to receive accreditation and be eligible for federal funds. By adding a requirement preventing “preferential treatment” in the admissions process, the bill effectively would effectively ban legacy admissions and any other non-merit-based admissions factors.

More than 100 colleges and universities have ended legacy preferences since 2015, according to a report from the nonprofit Education Reform Now. That includes the prestigious Wesleyan University and Occidental College, as well as the flagship University of Minnesota system this year.

The issue has united politicians on opposite sides of the political spectrum, receiving endorsements from Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), among others.

After this summer’s Supreme Court ruling, Ocasio-Cortez dubbed legacy admissions “affirmative action for the privileged.”