What’s New
The polling firm Data for Progress has released results from a new survey showing bipartisan support for a legislative ban on the practice of giving preferences to the children of alumni and donors in admissions decisions. Here are some highlights:
- Of the 1,202 likely voters surveyed in August, 68 percent would strongly support or somewhat support a ban on legacy admissions.
- The support spans the political spectrum: 72 percent of Democrats, 66 percent of independents, and 66 percent of Republicans said they would strongly or somewhat support a ban.
- Sixty-eight percent of respondents agreed that applicants often have an unfair advantage when applying to the college their parents attended or donated to.
“These results were stark to me given the wide margins of bipartisan support,” said Danielle Deiseroth, executive director of Data for Progress. “That’s pretty unusual.”
The Stakes
The pressure on colleges to end legacy preferences is coming from many directions — but it’s unclear if selective colleges plan to heed the calls.
A group of Boston-area advocacy organizations who represent students of color filed a complaint with the Education Department in July over Harvard College’s use of the practice. And on Monday, the department released a “Dear Colleague Letter” urging colleges to, among other things, reexamine legacy and donor preferences and other practices “that further benefit privileged students, and that reduce opportunities for others who have been foreclosed from such advantages.”
There’s been movement in Congress, too. This month, Rep. Jamaal Bowman, a New York Democrat, and Sen. Jeff Merkley, a Democrat from Oregon, reintroduced a bill that would prohibit colleges from giving admissions preferences to legacy applicants or the children of donors.
The Backdrop
The public’s disdain for legacy and donor preferences has grown louder in the wake of the Supreme Court’s ruling against race-conscious admissions. For advocates of racial diversity in selective higher ed, it seems especially unfair that institutions barred from considering race can put their thumbs on the scale for children of alumni. Data that was presented during the trial that ended up before the Supreme Court showed that at Harvard, legacies and the children of donors were overwhelmingly white.
Selective colleges — a small slice of higher education writ large — are now looking for ways to ensure that they do not admit lower numbers of Black, Latino/a, and Native students. Ending legacy admissions could be one way to do that — if it’s paired with other methods of outreach and support, higher-ed officials say. Yet the number to have done so is small.
What to Watch For
Despite the public’s apparent support for a ban on legacy admissions, Rebecca Natow, who studies federal higher-education legislation as an assistant professor of educational leadership and policy at Hofstra University, is skeptical that the bill will go anywhere.
Her reason? There are no Republican co-sponsors. While Republicans have not spoken up in favor of legacy admissions, a lack of explicit support for a ban shows that it’s not a legislative priority, Natow said. They control the House of Representatives, so their backing would be needed for the bill to gain any traction.
“It’s just been very hard to get higher-ed bills through Congress in recent years without some great urgency,” she said. The Cares Act, a stimulus bill meant to stem economic devastation during the pandemic was one; the Future Act, which authorized funding for minority-serving institutions such as historically Black colleges, was another.
