The Supreme Court has ruled against the legality of racial preferences in college admissions, a long-overdue move to end a divisive and educationally detrimental policy at many schools. That ruling got people thinking about other kinds of preferences, especially for the children of earlier graduates of the college — “legacy” preferences. At quite a few institutions, legacies are given a boost on the theory that it will help in fundraising. But if racial preferences are taboo, shouldn’t legacy preferences be ditched, too?
That’s the question Harrington Shaw explores in today’s Martin Center article.
Some schools, he reports, quickly decided to end legacy preferences: “Many colleges unilaterally eliminated their legacy-admissions preferences shortly after the SFFA ruling, among them Wesleyan University, the University of Maryland, Carnegie Mellon University, the University of Pittsburgh, Virginia Tech, and Occidental College. Wesleyan president Michael Roth told Inside Higher Ed that advocating for diversity while allowing legacy preferences amounts to hypocrisy, adding that he has witnessed ‘a sea change in alumni attitudes toward legacy.’”
Federal and state legislators are also working on legislation that would end legacy preferences, and the Department of Education is looking at rules against legacy preferences.
These are good developments. Favoring marginal to weak students just because grandpa might give the school more money is just as bad as favoring marginal to weak students because their ancestors were somehow oppressed.