California Banned Legacy Admissions. Massachusetts Must Follow.

What should determine whether a student should be accepted to Harvard? Grades? Test scores? A great essay? How about if your parents went here?

If you’re feeling like one of these things is not like the others, you aren’t alone: 75 percent of Americans agree that legacy admissions should be discontinued.

A new California law seeks to change that. Earlier this month, the state became the second in the nation to ban legacy preferences in college admissions. With Harvard and many of Massachusetts’ other top-rate universities continuing to resist calls to end the practice themselves, state legislators must redouble their efforts to follow suit.

Time and time again, we have argued for the indefensibility of legacy admissions. The arguments against have always been numerous (we refer you to our previous pages for those), and the arguments in favor amount to some mystified, hand-wavy promise that legacy students bring a “special something” to the student body.

We’re not convinced. Legacy admissions were wrong from the beginning. And now that affirmative action has fallen, they have become absolutely unacceptable, placing another finger on the scale for white and wealthy applicants.

You’ve heard all this already. That’s because, while this Editorial Board — and many, many others — have gone on and on about the practice, the University has yet to abandon it.

Harvard should end legacy preferences itself, and quickly. But if it won’t do the right thing, Massachusetts must.

The state house has already begun to take action in the form of Bill S.821, a measure currently under consideration which would fine universities that practice legacy admissions. We implore our legislators to work with all urgency to pass this long-needed legislation.

With any luck, their work could fuel a broader move against the practice. New York and Connecticut’s legislatures are currently debating similar bills. And if state legislatures continue to move against legacy admissions, Capitol Hill could take note, prompting a solution that would sweep the practice into the dustbin of history once and for all.

For most Americans, the case has long been closed on legacy admissions. Time for our representatives to act like it.

This staff editorial solely represents the majority view of The Crimson Editorial Board. It is the product of discussions at regular Editorial Board meetings. In order to ensure the impartiality of our journalism, Crimson editors who choose to opine and vote at these meetings are not involved in the reporting of articles on similar topics.

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