Time to End Legacy College Admissions

The right-wing majority of the U.S Supreme Court has struck down affirmative action in college admissions, ending decades of expanded access to higher education for students of color. But elite universities legally can and will continue to offer preferential treatment in their admissions to the children of alumni and donors. In 1998, for example, real estate developer Charles Kushner pledged $2.5 million to Harvard University. The following year, his son Jared was admitted.

Legacy preferences effectively exacerbate discriminatory admissions practices by giving wealthy white students and families even more leverage. One study revealed that legacy status was comparable in value to a 160-point gain on the SATs. At Harvard, 43% of white students from 2009 to 2014 were legacy admits—the children of donors, faculty, or athletes. 

As universities continue to seek more diverse student bodies, legacy preferences do more to hurt students of color and low-income students. Legacy preferences are, and have always been, rooted in racism and work to exclude Black students and other students of color from educational opportunities, thereby amplifying racial bias in education. In fact, they were first created in the 1920s to prevent Ivy League schools from admitting too many Jews.

Some schools have made progress in recent years—Amherst College and John Hopkins University, for example—by eliminating legacy preferences in their admissions. And even the student newspaper at Harvard recently wrote an editorial calling for an end to legacy admissions.   

In the aftermath of the Supreme Court ruling, three Boston-area civil rights groups have sued Harvard University, saying the college's admissions policies discriminate against Black, Latino, and Asian applicants in favor of less qualified white candidates with alumni and donor connections.

Democratic Sens. Jeff Merkley of Oregon and Rep. Jamaal Bowman of New York will reintroduce the Fair College Admissions for Students Act to stop universities from giving preferential treatment to children of alumni and donors and help ensure equity in the admissions process. The bill was first introduced in 2022, but now has an added level of urgency with the Supreme Court ruling.