As anger flowed from the left following the Supreme Court’s decision in the Harvard/UNC cases prohibiting affirmative action as unconstitutional race-based admissions, the practice of legacy admissions was immediately targeted as the alternative, affirmative action for the white and wealthy.
Putting aside AOC’s confusion about how law and courts work, as if the Supreme Court could sweep anything it wants to into a case where it’s not at issue, it raised two discrete issues. The first is whether legacy admissions are a good or bad idea. As Yale argued in opposition to banning legacy admissions, it’s a matter of academic freedom for universities to choose the basis for admission provided it’s not unlawful.
Just as every Connecticut college or university teaches different classes in different ways in fulfillment of its educational mission, each institution should likewise be allowed to assemble a student body that promotes its educational goals through diversity, community, and tradition.
But that backlash to the Court’s opinion came swiftly, as the second issue, whether or not it is a lawful practice, was challenged.
It’s been called affirmative action for the rich: Harvard’s special admissions treatment for students whose parents are alumni, or whose relatives donated money. And in a complaint filed on Monday, a legal activist group demanded that the federal government put an end to it, arguing that fairness was even more imperative after the Supreme Court last week severely limited race-conscious admissions.
Three Boston-area groups requested that the Education Department review the practice, saying the college’s admissions policies discriminated against Black, Hispanic and Asian applicants, in favor of less qualified white candidates with alumni and donor connections.
“Why are we rewarding children for privileges and advantages accrued by prior generations?” asked Ivan Espinoza-Madrigal, executive director of Lawyers for Civil Rights, which is handling the case. “Your family’s last name and the size of your bank account are not a measure of merit, and should have no bearing on the college admissions process.”
The complaint alleges that legacy admissions disproportionately benefit white applicants are the expense of others. and in so doing violate Title VI. Ilya Somin, using reason rather than recognition that the decision will be placed in the hands of Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights bureaucrat Catherine Lhamon, argues the complaint is lacking.
I am skeptical that LCR’s complaint will prevail, unless they can prove that Harvard’s legacy preferences were adopted or maintained for the purpose of benefiting whites (or keeping out non-whites). Title VI (and other current federal laws) do not ban legacy preferences as such. And courts are unlikely to invalidate them merely because they disproportionately help white applicants relative to those from other groups.
It should also be noted that legacy admissions have the same disproportionate negative impact on white non-legacy students as black non-legacy students. On the other hand, black legacy applications enjoy the benefit that white non-legacy do not, to the benefit of Joy Reid’s progeny. The question here isn’t whether legacy is a good or bad idea. If Harvard wants to admit people who are under six feet tall, it violates no law no matter what Randy Newman has to say about it.
Other than tradition and the hope that connecting a university with generations of a family will bring in big legacy money, a dubious although long-standing proposition, there aren’t many good reasons for legacy admissions. Most colleges, like Harvard, still don’t admit legacy students who tend to drool as they fail to write their name correctly, but most legacy admits are qualified in their own right, even if not so well as to gain admission in the absence of the benefits of legacy.
But if universities choose to keep legacy admissions, is it unlawful discrimination because more white people will enjoy the perks than black people until there are enough black graduates who want their li’l darlin’s to attend mommy and daddy’s alma mater? If legacy admissions have no discriminatory purpose, why shouldn’t it be left to colleges to decide whether to keep them? If legacy admissions are as unfair to white non-legacy applications as black, is it not equitably applied to the vast majority of unfortunates whose parents didn’t come out double Harvard like my buddy Elie? Legacy admissions may be dumb and suck, but that doesn’t make them unlawful. Or does it?
*Tuesday Talk rules apply within reason.
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Up next athletic admissions and scholarships.
God forbid what might happen if your little darling doesn’t get invited to the party…
Gonna spend the rest of their lives in
“Putting aside AOC’s confusion about how law and courts work, as if the Supreme Court could sweep anything it wants to into a case where it’s not at issue, …”
Sadly, I don’t believe she’s confused. I think she, and many others on the Left, really believe the Court can do just that. It is a failing of our educational system in my opinion.
Except, of course, that the Supremes are, well, supreme and can do anything they damn well want.
Rule on a question not properly before them? It can happen, though there are, I suppose, limits to how far
outside the lines they’re willing to color. Legacy admissions were well beyond those limits, I think, even if there were even one justice who would happily shut them down.
Too many people confuse the Supreme Court reaching a decision they abhor with reaching beyond their authority. At this point, if SCOTUS reached beyond the issues of the case to make some ultra vires ruling, it wouldn’t be nearly as outrageous as it should because of this.
If someone with an opposing viewpoint attempts to inject such collateral issues into a discussion, leftists condemn it as “what-about-ism.” So they do understand it. It’s just that it is another one of those limitations that only applies to others.
35 sweet goodbyes for everyone–and proclaim liberty throughout the land
(if that’s not the verse on the Liberty Bell, it should be)
AOCs point re legacy admissions may not be off the mark from a substantive Title VI perspective. There certainly is an argument to be made that Harvard’s legacy system has a disparate impact against non white applicants.
While disparate impact is the test on twitter and MSNBC, is it the test under Title VI?
Yes. The regulations specifically provide for such claims. Not saying it is easy to make out but such a claim is certainly available.
I could be wrong, but I understood the question to be whether disparate impact alone states a case rather than can be used as part, along with many other things, of a cause of action. The point being that the mere incantation of disparate impact does not make the case.
Grades, SAT scores, ACT scores, extracurriculars, awards, AP classes and scores all have a disparate impact.
The AOCs of the world are pretty clear: they’re all about considering race in college admissions. They have their favorites and their not-so-favorites. But in a similar yet less obvious way, they’re not shy about considering alumni status either. Specifically, they want to give a leg-up to ‘first gen’ applicants, which is really it’s just a plus for those who check ‘none of the above’ when asked about their parents’ alma maters on the common app.
I’ll be all in for scrapping legacy preferences soon enough (we’ve just got one more kid in high school), but I’d be even more enthusiastic about it if colleges got out of the sordid business of asking about parental pedigrees altogether. (Besides, we have a Roberts loophole here, as there is nothing prohibiting Cornell from considering an applicant’s heartfelt essay about how listening to the Dead at Barton Hall 5/8/77 affected his life…)
Happy 4th everyone
Heh. Happy 4th.
Apart from the other demagogic nonsense, AOC argues that going after a facially race-neutral policy because of racial outcomes will prove a commitment to “colorblindness”? And isn’t 70% white a pretty good number for people who think race should be determinative? At this point they could just string random casserole ingredients together as an argument and the cheap seats will shout hallelujah.
Legacy admissions are an obvious crystallization of “privilege,” and as such, incompatible with the “progressive” dogma that “privilege” should be eradicated. So, the issue must be brought to lawfare, in a crusade to conform federal law to the dogma (implicitly, “at all costs”). Recognizing the difficulty posed by the current justices’ philosophical alignment, AOC proposes to address that by stacking the Court. So her postulate isn’t so much that legacy admissions are prohibited by current law, but that they can be if the law is properly reinterpreted by a properly politicized court.
What is this ‘legacy’ thing you speak of?
Another word that is akin to putting sweet creamy icing on a horse shit cupcake called nepotism?
Although I did not attend collage, I did find a usable, cinder-block sized 1955 edition of Websters New Twentieth Century dictionary in the trash during my time as a ‘sanitary engineer’…[meditate on that thought the next time you ponder state of this once great nation.] ..but for now we’ll just use goo-hole..
Nepotism is the act of granting an advantage, privilege, or position to relatives or close friends in an occupation or field. These fields may include but are not limited to: business, politics, academia, entertainment, sports, religion, and other activities.
I’d say that covers it.
In other off topic anecdotal news, I have no regrets about missing out on all the so-called ‘opportunities’ provided by higher education…teaching me how to read and comprehend was enough….BUT, (and yes, it’s a big ole’Butt) having grown up with hicks in the sticks, I really wish someone would have sat me down in fifth grade and told me this…
“Although I did not attend collage”
I see what you did there.
We are waiting to see if it is still OK to be smart. Although “progressive” ideology depends on adopting a few elaborate abstractions (e.g., “transwomen are women”), it is intolerant of nonconforming concepts, thoughts and expressions. As tends to be true of totalitarian ideologies in general, it is fundamentally anti-intellectual. If the ideology prevails, it will not be OK to be smart.
Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot and a long list of others lie before us in the history books (literally and figuratively) yet some of this sad generation are sure their heartfelt totalitarian instincts will turn out differently. After 72 years of interacting face to face with every grade of humanity from potentate to peon, I’m sure they won’t. I am, however, willing to cover bets to the contrary.
Nice little subthread starter and subthread!
Mr. Greenfield stated, “Most colleges, like Harvard, still don’t admit . . . students who tend to drool as they fail to write their name correctly . . .”
That’s the job of Big Ten athletic departments.