“It’s hard to think of a more flagrant way in which the system is rigged than legacy preferences,” Kahlenberg said. “Rarely is a system of hereditary privilege so openly practiced without any sense of shame.”
Some are urging Trump to go further.
“Federally accredited institutions should eliminate ALL preferences grounded in arbitrary circumstances of ancestry that students have no control over, such as legacy status,” Young said on social media.
Stanford University said in July it will continue considering legacy status, even after a California law barred it at institutions that receive state financial aid. Stanford opted to withdraw from the state’s student financial aid program rather than end the practice. The university said it will replace the funding with internal money — even as it begins layoffs to close a $140 million budget deficit.
Stanford officials declined to comment. Last year, as part of a state transparency law, the school reported that about 14% of its new students were relatives of alumni or donors.
The executive action signed by Trump last week requires universities to turn over more information about students who apply to and are accepted to their campuses. Taxpayers “deserve confidence in the fairness and integrity” of decisions, his memorandum said, adding that more information is needed to ensure colleges are heeding the Supreme Court’s decision.
A week earlier, the Justice Department issued a memo clarifying what it considers illegal discrimination in admissions. It takes issue not only with overt racial considerations but also “proxies” for race, including “geographic targeting” or personal essays asking about obstacles applicants have overcome.
Similar language requiring “merit-based” admissions policies was included in the government’s resolutions with Brown and Columbia universities. None of the actions made any mention of legacy admissions.
If the Trump administration wants to make admissions a meritocracy, it should start by ending legacy preferences, said Oren Sellstrom, litigation director for the group.
“These deeply unmeritocratic preferences simply reward students based on who their parents are. It’s hard to imagine anything more unfair or contrary to basic merit principles,” he said.
Colleges defend the practice by saying it builds community and encourages families to become donors. Some backers say it increasingly helps nonwhite students as campuses become more diverse.
Georgetown University reviewed the policy but kept it in place this year after concluding the pool of legacy applicants had a similar makeup to the wider admissions pool.
Universities are required to tell the federal government whether they consider legacy status, but they don’t have to divulge how far it tips the scale or how many legacy students they admit. Among the 20 most selective universities that say they employ the practice, none would tell The Associated Press what percentage of their incoming class has a family connection to alumni or donors.
Trump’s blitz to root out racial preferences has hinged on the argument that it undermines merit. New scrutiny is needed to ensure colleges are following the Supreme Court’s order and “recruiting and training capable future doctors, engineers, scientists” and other workers, he said in his executive action.
That argument sends the message that minority students are “intellectually suspect until proven otherwise,” said Justin Driver, a Yale law professor with a forthcoming book on affirmative action. He worries Trump’s latest actions will intimidate colleges into limiting minority enrollment to avoid raising the suspicion of the government.
“I believe that the United States confronts a lot of problems today,” Driver said. “Too many Black students on first-rate college campuses is not among them.”
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