Applauding California’s Ban on Legacy Admissions
The Governor of California signed a bill that will prohibit legacy admissions preferences in California’s private colleges and universities. The bill eliminates these unfair and undeserved preferences — which are based solely on familial ties, overwhelmingly benefiting white applicants and harming applicants of color.
As the organization that filed the federal civil rights complaint against Harvard University for its discriminatory legacy and donor preferences, we applaud California’s move. And we ask: why is Massachusetts lagging behind on this critical civil rights issue?
Polls show that nearly three-quarters of Americans agree that college admissions should not be based on your last name or the size of your family’s bank account. That’s why — particularly since the Supreme Court’s decision curtailing affirmative action — numerous institutions have voluntarily abandoned unfair legacy and donor preferences. Harvard, however, has remained silent while clinging to its system of preferences — even as diversity dropped for this year’s entering class.
Massachusetts State Senator Lydia Edwards has introduced a bill that would begin to do in Massachusetts what California has now done — ban unfair and undeserved legacy preferences in the Commonwealth. This bill must move forward.
Massachusetts prides itself on being a world leader on education. If it wants to remain so, it must move expeditiously to ban unmeritocratic admissions preferences that harm students of color.