Editorial: End legacy admissions at California’s private colleges

It’s time for California’s top private colleges to follow Occidental College’s lead and stop giving preferential treatment to children of alumni.

The justification for legacy admissions is weak, at best. College administrators should be embarrassed if the main reason a wealthy donor gives money to a school is to win favor with the admissions department.

Occidental ended the practice last week.

“To ensure we are removing any potential barriers to access and opportunity, Occidental will no longer ask applicants about alumni relationships as part of the application,” President Harry Elam wrote in a statement.

Some other private schools in California, including CalTech, University of San Francisco and Mills College, say they do not use the criterion in deciding which students to admit to their schools.

Wesleyan University, a liberal arts college in Connecticut, ended the practice July 19 in the wake of the Supreme Court’s affirmative action ruling. Other selective schools that had previously ended their legacy-admission approach include Amherst, Carnegie Mellon and Johns Hopkins.

The U.S. Department of Education announced June 24 that it is investigating charges that Harvard University “discriminates on the basis of race by using donor and legacy preferences in its undergraduate admissions process.” The Boston non-profit group Lawyers for Civil Rights argues that students with legacy ties are up to seven times more likely to be admitted to Harvard. In 2019, 28% of admitted applicants were legacy admissions.

In the Bay Area, about 15% of students who enrolled at Stanford University last fall were either the children of alumni or donors. Santa Clara University reports that 17.7% of students enrolling last fall fell into that category.

In Southern California, 14% of the University of Southern California’s admitted applicants for the 2022-23 school year had relationships to alumni or donors.

Stanford’s endowment stands at about $28 billion, USC’s is close to $6 billion, and SCU’s is just over $1 billion. The argument that legacy admissions are essential to building community and encouraging donations that can be used for financial aid pales in comparison to the principle that all applicants deserve a level playing field when applying to the state’s most prestigious private colleges.

Yet neither Stanford nor SCU have committed to changing their admissions approach.

Stanford President Marc Tessier-Lavigne said following the Supreme Court ruling that “faculty representatives, admissions offices and legal counsel will be working to assess the next steps under the ruling.  And an SCU official responded by saying an applicant’s “legacy status is one of many factors that may emerge in our holistic review. All admitted students must meet our rigorous academic and admission standards.”

Rep. Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y., along with Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., reintroduced legislation last week that would prohibit colleges and universities from considering legacy status in the admissions process.

But it shouldn’t take an act of Congress for private colleges to do the right thing. Level the playing field for all applicants.