A Student’s Ancestry Does Not Indicate Ability

In some ways, legacy preferences are worse than racial preferences for historically disadvantaged minority groups. The former cannot be defended on the rationale that they are somehow making up for historic injustices. They also cannot be justified on the grounds that they promote “diversity”–the rationale the U.S. Supreme Court rightly rejected last year as justification for racial preferences. Scions of elite‐​college graduates are neither a historically oppressed minority nor a source of educationally‐​valuable diversity. Like race, legacy status may sometimes be correlated with academic or other skills. But university admissions offices need not rely on such crude proxies when they can simply use direct measures of skills that interest them.

The usual rationale for legacy preferences is that they increase alumni donations. This might be a defensible argument for profit‐​making institutions whose primary goal is to make money. But most universities are public or nonprofit institutions that—at least in principle—are supposed to prioritize other objectives, such as promoting education and research. Legacy preferences are obviously inimical to those goals. Moreover, it isn’t even clear that legacy status actually increases donations significantly. Several elite schools, such as Johns Hopkins, MIT, and my undergrad alma mater Amherst College, have recently abolished legacy preferences with few, if any, ill effects.

Many of my fellow elite‐​college alumni are now in their peak‐​giving years. Few support legacy status and fewer still, if any, are likely to reduce their giving if their alma mater drops that policy. Polls indicate that 75 percent of Americans oppose legacy preferences, a figure comparable to the level of opposition to racial preferences. I doubt the opposition among elite‐​college graduates is significantly lower than that in the general public. The available evidence on this point is imperfect. But it should at least lead us to be skeptical of claims that ending legacy admissions will impoverish universities. American higher education can do without this form of hereditary privilege.

Many thanks to Mr. Graham for his contribution to the debate, and his willingness to take on the difficult task of defending legacy preferences. Mr. Graham and I agree that selective college admissions must rely on preferences of some kind unless they are to admit students through a random lottery process. We even agree that some legitimate preferences may involve nonacademic considerations. But it doesn’t follow that all types of preferences are permissible. Some–including legacy status–are deeply unjust.

Mr. Graham is wrong to analogize legacy preferences to “preferences for students with strong athletic or artistic abilities.” Athletic and artistic abilities are valuable skills. By contrast, legacy status is an arbitrary circumstance of birth, like race or ethnicity. Being the scion of an alum does not indicate that you are a good student or have a valuable skill to contribute to the university community. Being the child of an elite‐​college graduate may be correlated with academic ability, just as being the son of an NBA player may be correlated with basketball ability. But schools need not rely on such crude correlations based on ancestry when they have access to direct measurements of the relevant skills, such as grades and test scores for academic ability and high school sports records for athletic talent.

Legacy status is even less defensible than racial and ethnic preferences for historically disadvantaged groups, such as black or native american people. The former can be defended on the grounds that they compensate for historic injustices or promote “diversity.” These rationales have serious flaws, and I reject them, but they are at least plausible. By contrast, no one can argue that the children of elite‐​college alumni are an oppressed minority. Nor are schools likely to suffer from a shortage of the “diverse” perspectives provided by such students. Selective colleges will have plenty of legacies in the student body, even without preferences.

When I applied to college, I was the first in my family to do so in the United States. Today, my wife and I have degrees from multiple elite colleges and universities. I could argue that privileges for my kids are needed to compensate the family for the unfair disadvantage I once faced when I had to compete with others admitted through legacy preferences. But enough is enough. We cannot fix all the wrongs of the past, but we can at least stop perpetrating similar injustices in the future. The time has come to end hereditary privilege in higher education.