Legacy preferences at universities give a boost to children of alumni who apply for admission.
The ban, which would affect two of the country’s more selective public universities, the University of Virginia and William & Mary, is another indication that legacy admissions, which mostly benefit students who are white, wealthy and well-connected, are losing favor across the country. Virginia Tech, another prestigious public university in the state, announced last year that it would no longer take legacy status into account.
After the Supreme Court banned race-conscious admissions in June, several highly selective private schools, including Wesleyan University, announced they would eliminate legacy preferences. And New York University said it would remove a check-off on its application asking if prospective students were legacies.
They joined several selective colleges that had already eliminated or had never used legacy preferences, including M.I.T., Johns Hopkins, Amherst College and the University of California system.
The state of Colorado has banned legacy preferences in its public universities, and similar legislation prohibiting the practice has been introduced in Congress and in states including Connecticut and New York.
But many elite private universities — including Harvard, Yale, and Brown — continue to give preference to the children of alumni. Data recently released by the Department of Education found that nearly 600 colleges and universities consider legacy status in admission.
Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania are the subjects of federal Department of Education investigations into their use of legacy preferences and whether the practice constitutes a civil rights violation. The Harvard investigation began following a complaint filed by three advocacy groups.
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