There are a bunch of other issues that affirmative action was meant to solve as well, but it did exist explicitly as a counterbalance to the fact that the universities felt they needed legacy admissions to attract donors. Its just also the case that, going back to Jim Crow, grandfathering people in was a great way to fortify racial disparity whilst not having any explicitly racist policies on the books.
It's a debate or policy distraction that I think extends outside of the university and throughout the United States. It's as if the conversation around class inequality takes a back seat to the racial ones, and that the privileged take a very strong stance that it is the singular most important topic to address.
Also the legal argument is a bit more of a stretch and was probably doomed so long as explicit racial discrimination was allowed.
Ultimately, I think it's good because legacy preference is unfair to those born to the wrong parents. But practically, I think there's less impact here than I think most anticipate. Offspring of Harvard parents still have a bunch of economic, social, and genetic advantages. They're still going to have objectively the best academic records. It might cut down on Harvard parent => Harvard child but that will be replaced by Harvard parent => Random Ivy League child.
Citation needed.
Why would they even need legacy admissions if they outperformed the non-legacy admissions?
https://features.thecrimson.com/2021/freshman-survey/academi...
>Why would they even need legacy admissions if they outperformed the non-legacy admissions?
It's not clear that they do which was the point of my last paragraph.
1. Are SAT scores the only criterion for admission?
2. "Recruited athletes had an average SAT score of 1397, whereas non-athletes averaged 1501." How much of the 32 point difference in legacy vs. non-legacy can be attributed to the 104 point difference in athletes vs. non-athletes? Presumably most of the recruited athletes are non-legacy.
3. Where are the stats for affirmative action?
4. Averages don't tell the whole story. I'd like to see where the bottom is for legacy non-athlete vs non-legacy non-athlete.
> It's not clear that they do which was the point of my last paragraph.
Then there should be no debate about eliminated legacy admission. ;-)
If your only goal was to definitively "win" an argument and end all discussion immediately, then maybe it was a waste in your opinion, but otherwise it wasn't. The citation brought more nuance into the argument, and raised more questions.
I'll grant that it's being talked about more but even that is hardly surprising: affirmative action was struck down because it was deemed unfair to give some applications a boost over other applicants. Yet legacy admissions is exactly that and continues. It's hypocrisy and I don't think it's particularly surprising people point it out.
No, it's just that the hypocrisy of legacy admissions is even more evident now that affirmative action has been eliminated.
Not saying they should or shouldn't be dismantled, just bothers me to see likely misattributed motivations.