Legacy students no longer have an advantage at Stanford and other private California colleges

Gov. Gavin Newsom of California announced a ban on legacy preference in admissions at private colleges in the state.

Students can no longer use their legacy connections to help them get accepted to prestigious California schools like Stanford.

Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday announced a ban on legacy and donor preferences in admissions at private universities in the state, including Stanford and the University of Southern California.

The announcement makes California the second state after Maryland to ban legacy preference in admissions at private universities.

“In California, everyone should be able to get ahead through merit, skill, and hard work,” Newsom said in a statement. “The California Dream shouldn’t be accessible to just a lucky few, which is why we’re opening the door to higher education wide enough for everyone, fairly.”

Following the Supreme Court’s decision on affirmative action last summer that prohibited schools from considering race in college admissions, the admissions practices of colleges across the country have come under increased scrutiny, with legacy preference at the center of the conversation.

Colleges have long used the admission of legacy students to ensure continued donations to support their endowments. Ethan Poskanzer, a professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder, previously told B-17 that legacy students “are more likely to attend the college if they are admitted, so they’re more likely to accept their offers, which means a stabler stream of tuition for the college.”

However, some colleges have taken proactive steps over the past decade to ban legacy preference in their admissions practices. Michael Roth, the president of Wesleyan University, for example, told CNN last year that the Supreme Court’s affirmative-action decision “made it even more clear to me that it was indefensible to give preference to the children of alumni.”

Gabrielle Star, the president of Pomona College, which eliminated legacy preference in admissions in 2017, said that “for every person who may be disappointed that legacy status isn’t considered, there are other people who are really proud that we don’t consider legacies.”

While California’s ban is specific to private universities — the public schools in the University of California system banned the practice in 1998 — other states, such as Illinois and Virginia, have instituted legacy-preference bans at public universities.

“If we value diversity in higher education, we must level the playing field,” Phil Ting, a California assemblyman, said in a statement. “That means making the college application process more fair and equitable. Hard work, good grades and a well-rounded background should earn you a spot in the incoming class — not the size of the check your family can write or who you’re related to.”