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Within days of the Supreme Court’s ruling against race-based affirmative action at Harvard, a civil rights group has filed a federal complaint challenging legacy admissions at the Ivy League college.
The complaint argues that the practice of giving admissions preference to the family members of alumni discriminates against students of color. This new challenge could be a preview of what’s to come in the aftermath of the high court’s decision as civil rights advocates work to prevent a return to the kinds of disparities seen on elite college campuses decades ago.
The court’s ruling last Thursday, which also involved a case at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, severely limits any college’s consideration of race in admissions moving forward.
“Why are we rewarding children for privileges and advantages accrued by prior generations?” said Ivan Espinoza-Madrigal, executive director of Lawyers for Civil Rights, the Boston-based nonprofit that filed the complaint. “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.”
More:What students can expect after Supreme Court’s ruling on affirmative action
What are legacy admissions?
Legacy admissions are essentially when applicants to a college get a boost because a parent or another family member also attended the school. The practice has long been scrutinized for its contributions to race and income inequities on campuses but has gained renewed attention as civil rights advocates prepared for the end of affirmative action.
Some critics describe legacy admissions as affirmative action for white, wealthy students. A 2019 analysis conducted on behalf of the plaintiffs in the Harvard and UNC cases, for example, found 43% of Harvard’s white admits were legacy students, recruited athletes, children of faculty and staff or on applicants affiliated with donors.
The complaint filed Monday cites records that became available during the litigation showing 70% of Harvard’s donor-related or legacy applicants were white. According to the records, having legacy status makes an applicant nearly six times more likely to being admitted to the Ivy League institution.
Advocates say it will be even more difficult to offset these preferences now that race-conscious admissions are no longer allowed.
What does the new complaint say?
The complaint was filed with the Education Department’s Civil Rights Office on behalf of Black and Latino community groups in New England. It alleges Harvard’s use of legacy admissions violates the Civil Rights Act and that giving preference to the relatives of donors or alumni – with little regard to their merit – hurts students of color.
The legal challenge is accompanied by several existing or prior efforts to undermine legacy admissions. One campaign, for instance, urges the alumni of nearly three dozen prestigious colleges to boycott donations to the schools until they stop the practice.
President Joe Biden on Friday said he would ask the U.S. Department of Education to analyze legacy admissions and other “practices … that expand privilege instead of opportunity.”
A number of high-profile institutions have eschewed legacy admissions, including Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Amherst College in Massachusetts and Johns Hopkins University in Maryland. Some highly selective institutions in states that previously banned affirmative action have also abandoned the practice, including the University of California, Berkeley and the University of California, Los Angeles.
“Last week, the University reaffirmed its commitment to the fundamental principle that deep and transformative teaching, learning, and research depend upon a community comprising people of many backgrounds, perspectives, and lived experiences,” Harvard said in a prepared statement. “As we said, in the weeks and months ahead, the University will determine how to preserve our essential values, consistent with the Court’s new precedent.”
Ed Blum, the conservative legal strategist who orchestrated the cases against Harvard and UNC, expressed doubt about the feasibility of the challenges to legacy admissions, however.
“Speaking as a non-lawyer, legacy preferences are not actionable in court,” he said. “If they were, I would expect my friends at the (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) or (Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund) … would have brought these lawsuits challenging that years and years ago.”
Contributing: Associated Press
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