Lawsuit Filed Against Harvard Over Legacy Admissions Policy After Supreme Court Bans Affirmative Action

A civil rights group is challenging Harvard University’s legacy admissions policy, claiming it discriminates against students of color by giving preferential treatment to white children of alumni.

This comes in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision to end affirmative action in college admissions, fueling a growing movement against legacy admissions.

On Monday, a Boston-based nonprofit organization called Lawyers for Civil Rights initiated a lawsuit on behalf of Black and Latino community groups in New England. The suit claims that Harvard University’s admissions process is in violation of the Civil Rights Act.

“Why are we rewarding children for privileges and advantages accrued by prior generations?” said Ivan Espinoza-Madrigal, the group’s executive director. “Your family’s last name and the size of your bank account are not a measure of merit, and should have no bearing on the college admissions process.”

Opponents of legacy admissions argue that without affirmative action, the practice lacks justification. They pointed out that while the recent court ruling prohibits considering race in admissions, colleges can still give preferential treatment to legacy applicants.

Furthermore, a separate campaign led by Ed Mobilizer is urging alumni from 30 prestigious colleges, including Ivy League schools like Harvard, to withhold donations until legacy admissions are abolished.

Last week, President Joe Biden suggested that universities reconsider their utilization of legacy admissions, expressing the view that this practice perpetuates privilege instead of promoting equal opportunities.

In response to the court’s ruling, multiple Democrats in Congress, including Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, have called for an end to legacy admissions.

The recently filed lawsuit utilizes Harvard data that emerged during the affirmative action case brought before the Supreme Court. This data exposed that 70% of donor-related and legacy applicants at Harvard are white, and being a legacy applicant increases the chances of admission by approximately six times.

The lawsuit highlights the efforts taken by other universities who have discontinued legacy admissions due to concerns about its fairness, including Johns Hopkins University and Amherst College.

According to the lawsuit, Harvard’s legacy preference is unconnected to academic achievement and unfairly denies admission to deserving students of color. It requests that the U.S. Department of Education deem the practice to be unlawful and order Harvard to stop using it as long as the university continues to receive government support

“A spot given to a legacy or donor-related applicant is a spot that becomes unavailable to an applicant who meets the admissions criteria based purely on his or her own merit,” according to the complaint. If legacy and donor preferences were removed, it adds, “more students of color would be admitted to Harvard.”

The transparency regarding the extent and impact of legacy admissions varies among different schools.

In California, where disclosure of this practice is mandatory, the University of Southern California (USC) reported that 14% of admitted students in the previous year had family connections to alumni or donors, which aligns with Stanford University’s rate.

According to a survey conducted by the Associated Press, at the most elite colleges in the country, the proportion of legacy students in the freshman class varied from 4% to 23%. Alarmingly, at four institutions—Notre Dame, USC, Cornell, and Dartmouth—legacy students exceeded the number of Black students.