Whether university legacy admissions are as big a deal as some make of it is beside the point. At best, it’s a tie-breaker for equally admissible students. Contrary to the widely shared assumption, it doesn’t mean colleges will admit the drooling idiot children of its alumni. But still, it’s hard to justify giving any weight to a legacy when deciding whether a student should be admitted. So when the Supreme Court held that it was unconstitutional for race to be considered in admissions, the backlash was that if they couldn’t have affirmative action, they shouldn’t have legacy admission.

California turned the argument into law.

California’s decision this week to prohibit legacy admissions to private colleges and universities across the state should give reason to cheer. Legacy admissions are the nebulous but sometimes significant bump given to the children of alumni — that je ne sais quoi that might lead an admissions officer to place only one of two similar candidates onto the admit pile.

What’s so bad about legacy admissions that it compelled California to outlaw it?

Legacies are not only one of the least fair elements of college admissions; they are also the least defensible. Asked in public to justify their continued existence, college presidents will offer vague paeans to community building and tradition. Asked in private, they will admit to what everyone already knows: Legacies are about money. Wealthy alumni often give to their alma mater with the tacit expectation that it will propel their borderline offspring over the finish line to Ivy League admission. It amounts to a significant source of fund-raising.

Of course it’s about money. Then again, universities need money to run and alumni fund-raising is a huge source of revenue that enables universities to fund deserving students who lack the wherewithal to pay the extraordinarily expensive full freight of tuition, etc. Yet, there remains something unseemly about money buying access, whether via legacy admissions or Varsity Blues.

And then there’s the attenuated tie to race, linking legacy admissions to historic discrimination, even if that arguably cuts both ways if it cuts at all.

Some have referred to legacy admissions as “white affirmative action” and believe its elimination could help foster racial, ethnic and economic diversity. Others have noted that legacy admissions now stand to benefit the minority children of the first generations of affirmative action; some have cause to bitterly note that its demise comes at the very moment their kids stand to benefit. Others say that eliminating legacies won’t make much difference.

But there’s nothing wrong with hating legacy admissions, even if it’s not a serious problem and, well, there’s nothing inherently wrong with universities doing what they can to foster those sweet alumni donations. And Pamela Paul at the New York Times hates them, and thus applauds California’s bad on legacy admissions.

But if the larger goal is to make college admissions fairer and consistent with higher education’s core principles, legacy preferences must go. In this instance, California is taking the right kind of lead.

Except there is an issue that eludes those whose focus is on whether legacy admits are good or bad. What California is doing isn’t banning legacy ad missions from its state university system, which it clearly has the authority to do, but outlawing legacy admissions by private colleges and universities.

It’s one thing for federal law to prohibit discrimination on the basis of race by private universities under Title VI, provided they receive federal financial assistance, but what California has done is outlaw legacy admissions, which is not a racial category even if it arguably perpetuates attenuated past racial discrimination, by colleges and universities regardless of whether they get a dime from the state or feds.

Granted, the financial penalties that were originally in the law were removed, with the only punishment now being named and shamed as a dreaded legacy admitter, but once the state’s got its toes in the door, future financial penalties are a minor change. Even so, some contend that shaming is a very real penalty these days, especially in a state where activism has bloomed.

Is there any authority for the state of California to tell private universities whom they cannot admit? What power does a state possess to dictate admissions policies to private entities? And if  the state seizes the power to prohibit legacy admissions, with many lauding its “leadership” because they hate legacy admissions and don’t really care much about the ultra vires exercise of authority as long as it’s against something they hate, the state has set a precedent of dictating to private universities what they can, and cannot, do.

The breadth of issues arising in a private university that might capture the interest of legislators is breathtaking. Course curriculum. Books. Professors, Degrees offered. Tuition and financial aid. The list is endless, and the state could easily muster an arguable rational interest in dictating its will to private universities.

But as much as legacy admissions may be dumb, even wrong and unfair, the fact that California enacted a law to prohibit private universities from making whatever admissions decisions in chooses, provided they are not based on race, eliminates the line distinguishing private from public universities. That the government wants control over everything might not come as a big shock to anyone, but that people who applaud this one choice fail to realize the power the state is seizing from private entities is a far more serious problem than whether dopey junior gets into daddy’s alma mater.