Oberlin is among the large percentage of elite private colleges and universities that practice legacy admissions: giving special admission preference to the children and relatives of alumni. Until the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College, Oberlin was also one of many colleges that practiced race-conscious affirmative action. As such practices have come under scrutiny in recent years, it is worth asking where the national conversation on these issues should go moving forward; it is my hope that legacy admissions can be discussed in a more productive way now that the debate on race-conscious affirmative action has become moot.
In my opinion, the conversation as it currently exists is failing to engage with these policies meaningfully, in part because people often drag affirmative action into the debate on legacy admissions — or vice versa — in a way that does a disservice to both topics. While the issues are related, and it sometimes makes sense to involve them in the same discussion, it is also worth analyzing them on their own merits. With race-conscious affirmative action no longer in place, it should be easier to have a conversation focused on legacy, which is why I suggest that the Court’s ruling creates an opportunity for a more constructive discourse.
What would a more productive conversation about legacy admissions sound like? Well, it would probably involve more engagement with the reasons why legacy admissions exist. While I agree with the majority of people, including many Oberlin students, who view legacy admissions as an unfair practice and want to abolish it, I rarely hear critics continue the conversation to address the deeper issue of why legacy admissions exist.
Legacy admissions exist because private institutions of higher education, including Oberlin, are profit-driven enterprises that need revenue to stay in business. Much of this revenue comes from wealthy alumni and their families, a source of donations — as well as future applicants, networking opportunities, and prestige — that can last for generations as long as Oberlin maintains its relationship with them — which it does in large part through legacy admissions. To be clear, I do not bring this up to argue for legacy admissions; I am pointing out that this basic and essential point about why legacy admissions exist is rarely addressed.
Addressing this is crucial if we want to convince colleges to abolish legacy admissions, however. We should not just mention it in passing or acknowledge it as a potential counterargument; it must be engaged with — made the crux of the discussion.
Instead of doing this, it is more common for those on both sides of the political spectrum to use legacy admissions as a political cudgel in the debate on race-conscious affirmative action. As an example, I often hear supporters of affirmative action argue that opponents should focus on abolishing legacy admissions instead.
Meanwhile, detractors of affirmative action sometimes claim that the existence of legacy admissions proves that colleges are insincere in their justifications for affirmative action. They reason that if elite colleges truly cared about equity and diversity, they should simply remove the legacy factor from the admissions process.
These arguments aren’t entirely without merit. But in general, I don’t think that these kinds of arguments provide the most productive approach to the conversation because they fail to address why legacy admissions exist.
As I said, dragging legacy admissions into the debate on affirmative action does a disservice to both issues. If you want to argue against legacy admissions — and by all means, do — do it in a way that actually engages with the substance of the situation. If you want to defend or attack affirmative action, you should do so according to its own merits. This is especially true after the recent Supreme Court decision, as debates about which policy should be abolished first are no longer relevant.
In the wake of the ruling, I’ve heard both news outlets and my peers asking if the time has come for colleges to ditch legacy admissions as well. Taking advantage of this opportunity to deal with legacy admissions will require confronting the reasons it exists without getting distracted by arguments about affirmative action; now that race-based affirmative action is banned, it’s time for us to have a more genuine and productive discourse toward abolishing legacy admissions.
