BOSTON — Nearly two years after the Supreme Court ended race-conscious affirmative action college admissions policies, education reform advocates say its past time to also end the practice of allowing higher education institutions to give admissions preferences to relatives of alumni or high-paying donors.
These so-called legacy admissions favor white and wealthy students, advocates told the Joint Committee on Higher Education on May 5, lobbying for the committee to back a Sen. Lydia Edwards and Rep. Michael Moran bill (S 928 / H 1452) that would ban both private and public universities and colleges in Massachusetts from considering relations while admitting students.
“Data from the National Bureau of Economics shows that 25% of white students at Harvard, for example, benefited from a legacy connection, while the same can only be said of 6% of African Americans,” said Zane Khiry, a senior at Amherst College, who described himself as “blessed to be the beneficiary of affirmative action.”
He continued, “Educational disparities baked into the American system continue to limit the extent to which any large swath of minority students would ever be able to benefit from a legacy preference.” Khiry is planning to attend graduate school at Princeton University after graduating from Amherst this spring.
After the United States Supreme Court in June 2023 effectively dismantled affirmative action — which higher education had used for decades to diversify campuses and correct for systemic factors that put students of color at a disadvantage to their peers — a number of states have considered legacy admissions bans.
Colorado was the first state to restrict legacy admissions through state laws, the only to do so prior to the 2023 Supreme Court case, in 2021. Its policy is limited to public universities.
In 2024, California, Illinois, Maryland and Virginia joined Colorado in banning the admissions practice — though only Maryland and California imposed the ban on private universities and colleges as well.
“It amounts to 160 points extra on the SAT, just being born to the right family. Nothing to do with your capabilities or your potential or what you’re going to give to society. It’s simply not fair,” Edwards said.
Since 2015, 452 colleges and universities across the country have stopped considering legacy status, according to James Murphy, director of career pathways and post-secondary policy at Education Reform Now, who authored a report on the current state of legacy admissions policies earlier this year.
Today, 24% of four-year colleges use legacy preferences, down from 49% in 2015, he said.
“It’s unfair and unethical to base an admissions advantage on someone’s ancestry,” Murphy said.
Though the use of legacy admissions has declined in recent years, it is still most prevalent in the Northeast, Murphy said. Massachusetts has the third highest number of higher education institutions that use this admissions practice in the country, behind Pennsylvania and New York, he said.
Maddie Register, a first-year student at Harvard University and first-generation and low-income student from rural Alabama, founded Harvard Students for Educational Equity.
“I was one of two people who left my graduating class to go out of state for college, and I was very lucky to receive an offer from Harvard, where I was told that there were many other students who shared my background. But since arriving on campus, I’ve seen just the opposite. Harvard currently has about 3% of students from the bottom income quintile. In contrast, 70% come from the top quintile. More students come from the top 1% than the entire bottom 50%,” Register told legislators.
She continued, “When I talk to my classmates from these very wealthy backgrounds, I find it shocking how many of them knew that Harvard would be their school because of their legacy status.”
Another Harvard student, Luke Albert, of the class of 2022, called himself a “legacy admit” and “someone who benefited from an unfair and unjust practice.”
According to his LinkedIn page, in high school Albert had a 4.20 GPA, was student body president, in the band, on the varsity football team, captain of science olympiad team and founded a youth government chapter.
“[Legacy students] have parents who know the application process and the schools. They have resources to best prepare themselves for the application process. They are some of the most competitive and talented high school students you will find. The point is — they don’t need this arbitrary advantage to compete to stand out,” Albert said.
The Joint Committee on Higher Education favorably reported a redrafted version of the bill last session, which then died in the Senate Ways and Means Committee.
During Monday’s hearing, committee members asked about potential legal issues around trying to regulate private colleges.
Murphy said he did not think a challenge would stand up in court. For one, he said, in Massachusetts the state grants the power to award degrees at both the two- and four-year level, and institutions need to follow all the laws the state creates to be able to award those degrees.
Additionally, he said, there are huge public investments even in private education, and those can come with strings attached.
Rogers said he’s met with representatives from private universities, and in the wake of the affirmative action decision, they say they’re doing what they can to help those who traditionally have not had a pathway to college.
He asked Murphy about his response for colleges asking for “time to sort it out” as they adjust to this new way to admit students.
“At this point, these colleges have had the momentum, or have had the time to consider this, to do their studies,” Murphy responded. “I would love higher education to actually welcome action on this. I think it would be smart for them to do so, because they could essentially say to alumni, ‘Hey, we didn’t do it. The Legislature made us do it. Sorry guys.’ And I think that honestly would make life easier for everybody involved.”
