Criticism of past preferences in college admissions has grown in recent years, especially in the wake of the Supreme Court's decision to ban the use of racial preferences in college admissions. SFFA vs Harvard, last year. Sociologist Roderick Graham and I discussed this issue recently. Divided we fall A website that hosts discussions on a variety of public policy issues.
I opposed the legacy preference and Professor Graham defended it. I appreciate Graham's willingness to take on the difficult task of defending this increasingly unpopular policy. I hold many unpopular views myself, and I know that voicing them is not always easy. Nevertheless, I was not persuaded by his arguments.
The following is an excerpt from my introduction.
I rarely agree with Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, but she's right. Blame legacy preferences It is considered “affirmative action for the privileged” in college admissions. They are unjust for much the same reasons as racial and ethnic preferences. In both cases, some applicants are rewarded, while others are punished due to arbitrary ancestry circumstances beyond their control. These preferences are not related to academic ability or other skills that would make you a better student or better member of the college community. The fact that your parents are black, white, or hispanic doesn't tell you how good of a candidate you are. And the same goes for whether your parents went to Harvard or not…
In some ways, heritage preferences for historically disadvantaged minority groups are worse than racial preferences. The former cannot be defended with the logic that it is somehow making up for historical injustice. Nor can they be justified on the grounds that they promote “diversity.” This is a basis that the U.S. Supreme Court rightly rejected last year as a justification for racial preferences. The descendants of graduates of elite universities are neither a historically oppressed minority nor a source of educationally valuable diversity.
A common rationale for favoring legacy is to increase alumni giving. This may be a defensible claim against a for-profit organization whose primary goal is to make money. However, most universities are public or non-profit institutions that, at least in principle, must prioritize other goals, such as promoting teaching and research. Legacy preferences are clearly detrimental to this goal. Moreover, it is unclear whether legacy status actually significantly increases donations. Several elite schools, such as Johns Hopkins, MIT, and Amherst College, where I am an undergraduate student, have recently eliminated legacy preferences, but with few ill effects.
The following is an excerpt from my response to Graham.
Graham is wrong to liken legacy preference to “a preference for students with strong athletic or artistic abilities.” Athletic and artistic ability are valuable skills. In contrast, heritage status is a random circumstance of birth, like race or ethnicity. Being a descendant of an alumnus does not mean you are a great student or that you have valuable skills that can contribute to the college community. Just as being the son of an NBA player correlates with basketball ability, being the son of a top college graduate may correlate with academic ability. But there is no need to rely on these crude correlations based on ancestry when schools can directly measure relevant skills, such as grades and test scores for academic ability or high school sports records for athletic talent.
Legacy preferences are much less defensive than racial and ethnic preferences for historically disadvantaged groups such as blacks or Native Americans. The former may be defended on the grounds that it compensates for historical injustice or promotes ‘diversity’. This rationale is seriously flawed and I reject it, but it is at least plausible. In comparison, no one can claim that children from prestigious universities are an oppressed minority. Nor is it likely that schools will suffer from a lack of the “diverse” perspectives that such students provide. A selective college will leave a rich legacy in the student body, even if you don't have preferences.
Following my response is Professor Graham's response.
Interestingly, Graham's argument for favoring legacy isn't actually an argument for favoring legacy at all. He doesn't even make the standard argument for increasing alumni giving.
Graham's argument is actually a defense of: different Non-academic admission criteria. For example, in his response, he argues that schools should use admissions priorities to promote ideological diversity (increasing the proportion of conservative students) and socioeconomic diversity (increasing the proportion of students from relatively poor families). I have great skepticism about the desirability of ideological preferences in admissions, and I only use socioeconomic preferences very limitedly to avoid the “mismatch” problems that plague preferences. However, even if these types of preferences are justified, they are not identical to existing preferences. The latter does not help relatively poor candidates (in fact, quite the opposite!) and there is little reason to think that it will contribute to ideological diversity.
I've previously written about legacy preferences and the problems they raise here and here.