Are Legacy Preferences in College Admissions Un-American?

By Michael Lind

In 1940, shortly before U.S entry into World War II, at a moment when democratic government survived in only a handful of countries encircled by totalitarian empires, one of the champions of expanded access to higher education, James Bryant Conant, delivered a Charter Day address at the University of California entitled “Education for a Classless Society: The Jeffersonian Tradition.”

The questions that Conant raised are as relevant to the debate over the relationship of higher education to democracy in America today as they were on the eve of Pearl Harbor: “The possibility that each generation may start life afresh and that hard work and ability would find their just rewards was once an exciting new doctrine. Is it outworn? In short, has the second component of the Jeffersonian tradition in education still vitality? Can a relatively high degree of social mobility be realized in this modern world?”

Conant defended the Jeffersonian ideal of a democratic republic and argued for a close connection between education and social mobility:

A high degree of social mobility is the essence of the American ideal of a classless society. If large numbers of young people can develop their own capacities irrespective of the economic status of their parents, then social mobility is high. If, on the other hand, the future of a young man or woman is determined almost entirely by inherited privilege or the lack of it, social mobility is nonexistent. You are all familiar with the old American adage, ‘Three generations from shirt sleeves to shirt sleeves.’ This implies a high degree of social mobility, both up and down. It implies that sons and daughters must and can seek their own level, obtain their own economic rewards, engage in any occupation irrespective of what their parents might have done.

Contrast this adage with a statement of the aristocratic tradition–namely, that it takes three generations to educate a gentleman … The distinction between a stratified class system and one with a high degree of social mobility is apparent only when at least two generations are passed in review. A class, as I am using the word, is perpetuated by virtue of inherited position.

An “inherited position” is a perfect description of a legacy preference – that is, the policy of a college or university in giving preference in admissions to children or other relatives of alumni who would not otherwise be admitted. The number of students admitted to American schools on a hereditary basis by this mechanism is a closely guarded secret of university administrations, but according to some estimates, the beneficiaries of legacy preferences – disproportionately white, Protestant, and upper income – match or exceed the number of students admitted under race-based affirmative action programs, which have been much more visible and controversial.

Are legacy preferences in university admissions un-American? Critics of preferences in college admissions for the relatives of alumni argue that not only are they unfair, they also are incompatible with America’s democratic and meritocratic political traditions. Some argue that the spirit if not the letter of the ban on “titles of nobility” in the U.S. Constitution should discourage  a quasi-hereditary aristocracy of BAs, MBAs, JDs, MDs, and PhDs. Others point out that legacy preferences are biased against non-whites and non-Protestants, inasmuch as they perpetuate a bias for descendants of White Protestant families who were admitted to colleges and universities that excluded or minimized the admissions of black, Latinos, Asians, Jews, and Catholics before the Civil Rights movement.

By themselves, these would be compelling arguments for outlawing discriminatory legacy preferences in higher education. In addition, other powerful arguments against legacy preferences can be made, on the basis of the logic of America’s democratic, republican political creed. According to Thomas Jefferson, the most profound analyst of the American creed, a democratic republic is incompatible with political, economic, and educational aristocracy. Legacy preferences, however, promote aristocracy in all three areas.

Legacy preferences promote political aristocracy, because graduates of universities in general and of elite universities in particular, are over-represented both in the electorate and in the political elite. Legacy preferences promote economic aristocracy, because they promote privileged access by some families of the most precious income-generating assets in a post-agrarian economy of wage earners – diplomas and professional credentials. Last but not least, legacy preferences promote educational aristocracy, because they ration access to higher education partly on the basis of birth rather than solely on the basis of individual ability.

Whether viewed from the perspective of political, economic, or educational opportunity, the system of legacy preferences is at odds with the fundamental design of a democratic republic such as the United States of America.

Michael Lind is the policy director of the New America’s Economic Growth Program, and one of the foundation’s co-founders. This post is adapted from Affirmative Action for the Rich, a collection of essays on legacy preferences in college admissions published recently by The Century Foundation Press. Richard D. Kahlenberg, a senior fellow at The Century Foundation, edited the volume. To read more about the book, click here.