Civil rights complaint targets Harvard’s legacy admissions preference
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A civil rights group announced Monday that it has petitioned the federal government to force Harvard University to stop giving a boost to children of alumni in the admissions process, another sign of the mounting pressure on prestigious schools to change their policies following last week’s Supreme Court ruling that rejected race-based affirmative action.
Lawyers for Civil Rights said it filed the complaint with the Education Department, alleging that so-called legacy admissions preferences at Harvard violate federal civil rights law because they overwhelmingly benefit White applicants and disadvantage those who are of color.
The complaint came days after the high court struck down race-conscious admissions policies at Harvard and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The landmark ruling on Thursday declared that those policies — a form of affirmative action the court had previously allowed in the interest of assembling a racially diverse student body — violate equal protection guarantees under the Constitution.
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Harvard declined to comment on the complaint.
But it pointed to a statement the university made previously: “Last week, the University reaffirmed its commitment to the fundamental principle that deep and transformative teaching, learning, and research depend upon a community comprising people of many backgrounds, perspectives, and lived experiences.
“As we said, in the weeks and months ahead, the University will determine how to preserve our essential values, consistent with the Court’s new precedent.”
Selective colleges and universities nationwide are scrambling to review and, if necessary, adjust their admissions practices in the wake of the court ruling.
Documents made public through the Supreme Court case revealed the magnitude of the “legacy” boost for Harvard applicants. About 34 percent of applicants from the United States who were children of Harvard alumni were admitted from 2009 through 2015, court records showed. That was far higher than the overall 6 percent admission rate for non-legacy applicants.
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Selective colleges defend legacy preferences as a legitimate way to recognize and nurture crucial ties they have with alumni. Often the alumni are donors. But the public appears to be deeply skeptical. A Washington Post-Schar School poll last fall found 75 percent of Americans believe it is inappropriate for universities to give preferential treatment in admissions to students whose parents went to the same university.
Amherst College, Johns Hopkins University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are among the most prominent private colleges and universities to declare that they will not give any legacy preferences in admissions. But many others, including those in the Ivy League, have declined to follow their lead.
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Source: The Washington Post
