Democrats Introduce Bill To End Legacy College Admissions

Democratic lawmakers are pushing to end legacy admissions to prestigious colleges and universities.

Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., and Rep. Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y., introduced legislation this month that would ban colleges and universities that participate in federal student aid programs from giving students with legacy family ties an advantage in admissions, NBC News reports.

“All students deserve an equitable opportunity to gain admission to institutions of higher education, but students whose parents didn’t attend or donate to a university are often overlooked in the admissions process due to the historically classist and racist legacy and donor admissions practices at many schools across the country,” Bowman, who is a former middle school principal, says in a statement.

IVY LEAGUE: LEGACY ADMISSIONS AMOUNT TO 10 TO 15% OF STUDENT POPULATION

At some top Ivy League schools, such as Dartmouth, Brown, and Yale, legacy admissions often amount to roughly 10 to 15% of the student population, according to the Boston Globe.

Proponents of ending legacy admissions argue that the practice creates an unfair playing field.

“Selecting applicants to universities based off of family names, connections, or the size of their bank accounts creates an unlevel playing field for students without those built-in advantages, especially impacting minority and first-generation students,” Merkley says in a statement.

Some schools have taken a stance on the practice. Johns Hopkins University ended legacy admissions for good back in 2014.

“These efforts are not a panacea for the structural inequities that plague our society. But they are necessary if American universities are truly to fulfill their democratic promise to be ladders of mobility for all,” Ronald Daniels, the president of Johns Hopkins University, writes in a 2020 editorial for The Atlantic.

Sources: NBC News, The Hill, Boston Globe, The Atlantic