This essay argues that affirmative action remains a necessary corrective tool in American higher education, particularly at universities that continue to practice legacy admissions. Drawing on the Supreme Court's ruling in Grutter v. Bollinger, Owen Fiss's "group disadvantaging principle," and data on Ivy League admissions, the paper contends that legacy preferences constitute little more than nepotism that perpetuates class stratification and racial inequality. The author proposes several policy remedies — including requiring universities that practice legacy admissions to adopt robust affirmative action programs — and concludes that genuine educational equality cannot be achieved without dismantling the structural advantages that wealth and alumni status currently confer.
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The paper effectively deploys the compare-and-contrast technique to structure its central argument: every discussion of legacy admissions is mirrored against affirmative action, showing how one entrenches privilege while the other seeks to dismantle it. This parallel structure keeps the argument organized and makes the evaluative claims difficult to dismiss.
The essay opens with a comparative international hook before establishing the problem of legacy admissions and situating affirmative action as its counter. It then marshals legal, institutional, and sociological evidence in support of affirmative action, pivots to structural causes (public school failures), advances concrete policy remedies, and closes with a theoretical anchor in Fiss's group disadvantaging principle. The argument moves logically from diagnosis to prescription to principle.
Oxford and Cambridge Universities — inarguably among the most prestigious universities in the world — abolished legacy admissions even though doing so meant accepting revenue losses. Legacy admissions remain a cherished part of the Ivy League university system in America, however, revealing an ironic scenario: the United States suddenly appears the more class-oriented and elitist society compared to Great Britain. American independence was fought in part over the pull toward greater egalitarianism. Yet, despite the ideals that still characterize American culture — individual opportunity and the American Dream — our culture clings to outmoded practices that perpetuate income disparity and class conflict.
Affirmative action has offered promise to reverse centuries of racial, ethnic, and gender-based discrimination. Ostensibly crafted to create a more perfect union that offers truly equal rights and opportunities to all its citizens, affirmative action has nonetheless been under siege. Affirmative action programs and their goals are threatened by those who resent the notion that women and people of color might achieve upward social mobility. Legacy admissions, on the other hand, constitute little more than nepotism. Legacy admissions to the most prestigious American universities enable oligarchy and erase the possibility for genuine social, political, and economic change.
Bradley (2006) describes legacy admissions frankly as "affirmative action for the rich." Legacy admissions accomplish precisely what affirmative action is trying to reverse: hundreds of years of discrimination. At Harvard University, a full forty percent of legacy applicants are admitted. Most Ivy League schools — including Yale, Cornell, and Princeton — admit similar proportions of legacy students, who end up comprising almost fifteen percent of the student body. Not only is preferential treatment itself troubling, but legacy admissions also risk producing a less academically qualified student body. If legacy students are granted special status, their test scores and grades can be lower than those of all other qualified candidates. Many mediocre students end up at top-tier universities, filling spots that could have gone to more deserving candidates from different racial, ethnic, and economic backgrounds.
Proponents of legacy admissions claim that "children of alumni bring a sense of tradition and a link to a school's history that other students do not" (Weiss 2005). University administrators also point out that legacy students generate more revenue for the school — inarguably one of the main reasons admissions procedures remain biased toward alumni children. Even if "continuity across the generations" were a legitimate goal, advocates of legacy admissions tend to be those who benefit most: the wealthy, already elite members of American society (Wilkins 2001). Wilkins (2001) further notes that many supporters of legacy admissions are hypocrites who express "outright hostility for affirmative-action policies for minority students while saying virtually nothing about the affirmative help routinely given to alumni children."
If America's Ivy League is unwilling to undo the damage legacy admissions has done toward creating an oligarchic nation, then its universities should at least be held responsible — by law if possible — for employing comparably designed affirmative action programs. If schools like Cornell routinely mail letters to the sons and daughters of alumni encouraging them to apply, then Cornell should also be required to send letters of encouragement to disadvantaged students around the country (Weiss 2005). Affirmative action is more necessary at schools that practice legacy admissions precisely in order to ensure a diverse student body and help create a more egalitarian society.
Sabbagh (2003) suggests that affirmative action is "not to be understood as a limited exception to the constitutional guarantee of equality, but rather as a powerful instrument for dismantling the forms of social stratification that are inherently contrary" to the Equal Protection Clause embedded in the United States Constitution. The Supreme Court affirmed the right of universities to practice affirmative action in Grutter v. Bollinger. Race is permitted to be a factor in the admissions process, even when strict quotas are disallowed.
In a survey of presidents of twenty-five of the highest-ranked universities and twenty-five of the country's highest-ranked liberal arts colleges, no president admitted to being "opposed to any form of preferential admissions based on race," and almost half agreed with the statement, "All credentials being equal, I am in favor of giving the admissions nod to an applicant from a disadvantaged racial group" (American Council on Education 2002). With both legal precedent and institutional sentiment supporting affirmative action, there is no compelling reason to abandon the use of race, ethnicity, and other mitigating factors in the admissions process.
The difference between affirmative action and legacy admissions is clear: the former advantages the disadvantaged; the latter empowers the already empowered. Historically disadvantaged groups, including women, need the kind of structural support that affirmative action provides. In a Journal of Blacks in Higher Education report, thirteen percent of top-ranked college and university presidents agreed with the following statement: "Because there is a very large gap between the mean academic credentials of blacks and whites, I am in favor of admitting significant numbers of less academically qualified blacks, provided they can meet our academic standards." Liberal admissions policies that acknowledge the systemic roots of racism and other forms of discrimination may be remedial and temporary, but they represent an attractive path toward deep, lasting, and positive changes in American society.
Affirmative action remains necessary in a nation that only abolished Jim Crow laws five decades ago and which still suffers from one of the largest income disparities of any developed country. On the other hand, legacy admissions further entrench the financially and culturally elite in positions of power. In Liberalism Divided, Owen M. Fiss (1997) analyzes what he calls the "group disadvantaging principle" (p. 36). Fiss posits this principle as the philosophical foundation underlying affirmative action. It acknowledges the link between race and class, and it "seeks to end social subordination" by proactively uprooting all forms of social inequality and discrimination (Fiss 1997, p. 36). It is upon the group disadvantaging principle that all future admissions policies should be based, if one of the goals of education is to help create a more just and equitable society.
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