Three Black and Latino groups have filed a racial discrimination lawsuit against Harvard University. Chica Project, African Community Economic Development of New England, and Greater Boston Latino Network submitted a 31-page complaint to the U.S. Department of Education alleging the Ivy League school systematically violates the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by privileging the children of donors and wealthy alumni in its annual student selection process. Legacy admissions, a practice that Harvard and other elite institutions have long maintained, is inescapably racialized.
According to the lawsuit, between 2014 and 2019, donor-related applicants to Harvard were nearly seven times more likely to be accepted than were other admission seekers. Similarly, students whose parents and family members were alumni of the institution were nearly six times more likely to be admitted. In 2022, Harvard’s overall acceptance rate was roughly 3.2%, the court document states. The average admit rate was approximately 42% for donor-related applicants and 34% for legacies.
The trio of complainants found disparities not only in who gets admitted, but also in who is extended opportunities to impress the most powerful gatekeepers in Harvard’s admissions process. Accordingly, legacy and donor applicants are nearly 20 times more likely than are others to be interviewed by Harvard admissions office employees.
In a pair of cases that the conservative group Students for Fair Admissions brought forth against Harvard and the University of North Carolina, the U.S. Supreme Court deemed the consideration of race in college admissions unconstitutional. But Chica Project, African Community Economic Development of New England, and Greater Boston Latino Network point out one major problem with this ruling: Nearly 70% of donor-related and legacy admits to Harvard are white. While it could be argued that the preferential treatment of these applicants doesn’t fit the Supreme Court’s definition of race-consciousness, it most certainly isn’t colorblind. Whether or not they intend to, people who work in admissions offices play a major role in systematically privileging white applicants through their continued use of legacy policies and practices.
According to an April 2023 report from the College and University Professional Association for Human Resources, nearly 70% of admissions coordinators and counselors are white. Among chiefs, directors, and heads of admission, 78% are white. The racial demographics of professionals who work in Harvard’s admissions office aren’t available on the University’s website. But if the composition there is similar to the college admissions profession overall, it’s an overwhelmingly white team of leaders and staff that maintains a system that cyclically advantages mostly white applicants with familial or financial ties to the institution.
In admissions offices that give preferential treatment to legacies, there’s a chance that many white employees (and perhaps even some professionals of color) haven’t really thought much about the race of applicants whom this practice disproportionately benefits, or the snowballing racial inequity that it produces year after year. Not being fully conscious of this doesn’t make the practice itself or the outcome colorblind. As evidence furnished in the new racial discrimination lawsuit against Harvard reveals, legacy policies and practices uphold a system that irrefutably benefits one racial group at the expense of others.
In recent years, the University of Georgia, Amherst College, Johns Hopkins University, Texas A&M University, the entire University of California system, and every public higher education institution in Colorado have discontinued the use of legacy preferences in admissions practices. Congressman Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) and Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR) introduced the Fair College Admissions for Students Act earlier this year. If passed, the legislation would ban legacy admissions at all U.S. higher education institutions.
In response to the SCOTUS Affirmative Action ruling, Harvard and other institutions posted statements to their websites and social media platforms expressing serious dedication to pursuing diversity within our nation’s new legal parameters. Eliminating a practice that unfairly benefits applicants (the overwhelming majority of whom are white) just because their parents are alumni and donors is one of many actions that will help these institutions enact their espoused commitments.
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