[News Terms] Controversy Over 'Legacy Admissions' as a Source of Discrimination in the US

'Legacy admission' is a system that provides advantages in the admissions process if at least one parent or grandparent is an alumnus or if the applicant is a child of a donor.

Many universities operate this system, including prestigious private universities such as Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, Dartmouth, and Brown, as well as renowned public universities like Michigan and Virginia.

American citizens protesting against the Supreme Court ruling that affirmative action for minority admissions is unconstitutional.
[Photo by AP Washington DC / Yonhap News]

Universities introduced this system in the 1920s as a strategic measure to reduce admission rates for Jewish, minority, and immigrant children. The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported in 2020 that 56% of 250 top universities consider legacy issues in their admissions process.

Recently, after the federal Supreme Court ruled affirmative action policies favoring minorities unconstitutional, criticism arose that legacy admission is even more discriminatory. The nonprofit organization Lawyers for Civil Rights (LCR) officially raised concerns with the federal Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights on the 3rd (local time), alleging that Harvard University's legacy admission system violates civil rights laws, according to the New York Times (NYT).

According to LCR, about 70% of Harvard's legacy admission applicants are white, and applicants related to donors are seven times, and those related to alumni are six times more likely to be admitted than general applicants. Approximately 28% of the 2019 graduates were children of alumni whose parents or other relatives attended Harvard University. LCR criticized, "These privileges have nothing to do with the applicants' merits and are unfair and unearned benefits granted solely based on the family into which the applicant was born."

Accordingly, there is growing demand across the political spectrum to abolish the legacy admission system, and the number of states eliminating this system is increasing. President Joe Biden stated on the 29th of last month, immediately after the affirmative action ruling, "I will ask the Department of Education to review legacy admission and other systems that expand privilege rather than opportunity."

Colorado was the first state to ban legacy admissions at public universities in 2021, and Connecticut legislators submitted a bill last year to prohibit legacy admissions at both public and private universities. Massachusetts legislators also introduced a bill earlier this year that would impose fines on universities that give priority to legacy or donor applicants.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.