Staff Reports
Last week, the US Supreme Court made a tremendous step towards ensuring equal opportunities in college admissions by declaring the use of racial preferences unconstitutional. While the left mourned the loss of their discriminatory practices, they quickly set their sights on a new target to punish: legacy admissions.
For those unfamiliar with the term, legacy admissions refer to the practice of admitting students to a university because their parent or grandparent attended the same school. Now, some may argue that conservatives are in favor of this practice because the Supreme Court, which has a conservative majority, did not address the issue. But let’s be clear, just because the Court didn’t rule on legacy admissions doesn’t mean conservatives support it. In fact, most conservatives believe in a merit-based system where individuals are judged on their own qualifications, not their family connections.
But of course, we can always count on Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to provide a laughable comment on the matter. She claims that legacy admissions give an unfair advantage to white applicants and insinuates that these admissions keep out better-qualified non-white students. This is simply baseless and ignorant. The fact is, legacy admissions is not some nefarious scheme to exclude minority students, but rather a way for universities to honor their history and traditions.
In the world of college admissions, it’s unclear exactly which schools give preference to legacy applicants and how much it helps. However, it’s worth noting that even schools that practice legacy admissions still consider the qualifications of the applicants. According to a 2009 study, legacy applicants actually had higher SAT scores on average than non-legacy applicants. And more recent data shows that the majority of legacy applicants have SAT or ACT scores at or above their colleges average for accepted students.
If SCOTUS was serious about their ludicrous “colorblindness” claims, they would have abolished legacy admissions, aka affirmative action for the privileged.
70% of Harvard’s legacy applicants are white. SCOTUS didn’t touch that – which would have impacted them and their patrons.
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) June 29, 2023
So, calling legacy admissions a tool of white privilege is nothing more than recycled stereotypes. It’s not as if legacy applicants are a bunch of dim-witted trust fund babies who skate through life on family connections. They are often high-performing students who would likely be admitted even without the legacy factor.
But here’s the kicker. If we were to ban legacy admissions, who do you think would be the ones to suffer? It wouldn’t be the wealthy and privileged. No, it would be economically disadvantaged white students who would lose out on opportunities. By eliminating legacy admissions, we would be taking away a potential avenue for these students to access prestigious universities.
Personally, I’m all for eliminating legacy admissions, but not because I believe they are legally problematic. The data clearly shows that legacy students would still be admitted based on their qualifications. However, if others insist on getting rid of legacy admissions as a reaction to the elimination of a racist admissions system, they should at least be aware of the unintended consequences.
Source: Red State
