A big blow to kids who hoped their family connections would get them into a prestigious college could be coming as one of Assemblymember Phil Ting’s last bills on his way out of office would ban legacy admissions at universities statewide.
When the conservative-majority US Supreme Court shot down affirmative action at colleges and universities last June, one unexpected backlash to that decision was a push to ban legacy admissions at those universities as well. Legacy admissions are sort of the opposite of affirmative action, as they’re college admissions that give a leg up to students who have parents or grandparents who are alumni of that university. The obvious ploy for the university is that those parents and grandparents tend to be wealthy, and therefore more likely to make financial contributions to the school, while the students that benefit from legacy admissions tend to be white and wealthy.
Several universities nationwide have since banned legacy admissions, and the states Colorado and Virginia have also outlawed legacy admissions at public universities. Maryland has banned legacy admissions at both public and private colleges. And now the New York Times reports that our own state Assemblymember Phil Ting has a bill in the state legislature that would ban legacy admission at California’s private universities.
California’s public universities already do not allow legacy admissions.
“It makes complete sense to now ensure that we don’t look at someone’s wealth or lineage with the university to decide whether to admit them,” Ting told the Times. He said his bill “doesn’t ban admitting donors’ or alumni children,” but “it just ensures that there’s no preferential treatment.”
It will probably not come as a shocker to you that the two California private universities with the largest percentages of legacy admission students are Stanford and USC, both with 14% of their incoming student bodies being legacy admitted, according to the most recent year’s data. The University of Santa Clara was not far behind at 13%.
Ting’s bill AB 1780 has already passed the state Assembly 55-0, and is currently in state Senate committees. The measure would have to pass the state Senate by August 31, and be signed by Governor Newsom, to become law.
Phil Ting, of course, is in the final months of his state Assembly term. He’ll be termed out at the end of this year, and SF Supervisor Catherine Stefani is running to be his successor.
Image: Palo Alto, CA, USA - Sept. 17, 2015: Stanford University Hoover Tower. Completed in 1941, the 50th year of Stanford University's anniversary, the tower was inspired by the cathedral tower in Salamanca, Spain. (Getty Images)
