Affirmative Action for the Rich: A New Book from The Century Foundation Examines College Admissions Policies that Provide Preferences for Children of Alumni

Sep 27, 2010

Authors: admin

Publisher(s): The Century Foundation

New York, N.Y. September 22— There has been much heated debate about racial affirmative action in higher education over the past four decades, yet one of the most pervasive forms of preference in college admissions has rarely even been mentioned: legacy preference. The Century Foundation spotlights this long-standing practice at elite colleges and universities in Affirmative Action for the Rich: Legacy Preferences in College Admissions. This volume, released today at a policy forum in Washington, D.C., is the first book-length examination of admissions preferences for the children of alumni.

The book reveals that legacy preferences are widespread. Among elite national institutions, almost three-quarters of research universities and virtually all liberal arts colleges grant legacy preferences. It also shows that, despite claims by universities, legacy preferences do not result in significant increases in alumni giving.

The book covers a broad array of legal, policy, and ethical issues related to legacy preferences, and it features new research by several scholars, journalists, and legal practitioners that is likely to create a stir in higher education circles. Chapter authors include: Michael Lind of the New America Foundation; Peter Schmidt of the Chronicle of Higher Education; former Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Golden; Chad Coffman of Winnemac Consulting and colleagues Tara O’Neil and Brian Starr; John Brittain of the University of the District of Columbia Law School and attorney Eric Bloom; Carlton Larson of the University of California at Davis School of Law; attorneys Steve Shadowen and Sozi Tulante; Sixth Circuit Court Judge Boyce F. Martin Jr. and attorney Donya Khalili;  and author Peter Sacks.

Other key findings in the book include:

• While some colleges and universities try to downplay the impact of legacy preferences, calling them “tie breakers” in very close admissions calls, the research suggests that their weight is significant, on the order of adding 160 SAT points to a candidate’s record. The children of alumni generally make up 10 percent to 25 percent of the student body at selective institutions and the proportion often varies little, suggesting, an informal quota system. By contrast, at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), which lacks legacy preferences, only 1.5 percent of students are children of alumni.

• Polls find that Americans oppose legacy preferences by 75 percent to 23 percent. Moreover, in the past decade or so, sixteen leading institutions (including Texas A&M; the University of Arizona; the University of California, Berkeley; the University of California, Los Angeles; and the University of Georgia) have abandoned legacy preferences.

• A new study included in the book finds virtually no relationship between alumni preferences and giving. Chad Coffman of Winnemac Consulting, LLC, and his coauthors look at alumni giving from 1998 to 2007 at the top one hundred national universities as ranked by U.S. News & World Report to examine the relationship between giving and the existence of alumni preferences. They find that schools with preferences for children of alumni did have higher annual giving per alumni ($317 versus $201), but that this advantage resulted because the alumni in schools with alumni preferences tended to be wealthier. Controlling for the wealth of alumni, they find “no evidence that legacy preference policies themselves exert an influence on giving behavior.”

• Coffman and colleagues also examine what happened to giving at seven institutions that dropped legacy preferences during the time period of the study: Georgia Tech, Texas A&M, the University of Georgia, the University of Iowa, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, the University of Nebraska, and Vanderbilt. They find “no short-term measurable reduction in alumni giving as a result of abolishing legacy preferences.” After Texas A&M eliminated the use of legacy preferences in 2004, for example, donations took a small hit, but then increased substantially from 2005 to 2007.

• Legacy preferences disproportionately hurt students of color. Under-represented minorities make up 12.5 percent of the applicant pool at selective colleges and universities, but only 6.7 percent of the legacy applicant pool. At Texas A&M, 321 of the legacy admits in 2002 were white, while only 3 were black, and 25 Hispanic. At Harvard, only 7.6 percent of legacy admits in 2002 were under-represented minorities, compared with 17.8 percent of all students. Likewise, at the University of Virginia, 91 percent of early decision legacy admits in 2002 were white, 1.6 percent black, and 0.5 percent Hispanic.

• Legacy preferences are vulnerable legally. Although a 1976 federal district court ruled in a cursory fashion that legacy preferences were constitutional, the issue has never been properly litigated. Chapters from a legal scholar, a litigator, and a federal Circuit Court judge suggest that the time may be ripe for reconsideration of the issue. The volume outlines two important legal theories under which legacy preferences could be challenged at both public and private institutions under the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause, a provision prohibiting states from granting Titles of Nobility, and the 1866 Civil Rights Act.

• Even if it were true that legacy preferences enticed alumni to provide larger donations than they otherwise would, IRS regulations raise questions about whether those donations should be tax deductible. If universities and colleges are conferring a monetary benefit in exchange for donations, then the arrangement shatters the first principle underlying the charitable deduction, that donations to nonprofit organizations not “enrich the giver.” The IRS regulations place universities in a legal catch-22: Either donations are not linked to legacy preferences, in which case the fundamental rationale for ancestry discrimination is flawed; or giving is linked to legacy preferences, in which case donations should not be tax deductible.

Richard  Kahlenberg, a senior fellow at The Century Foundation, is the editor of Affirmative Action for the Rich: Legacy Preferences in College Admissions. He has also written an issue brief that summarizes the research and arguments in the volume. The issue brief and other reports and information related to higher education issues are available on The Century Foundation’s web site at www.tcf.org. Order information is available here. The book is available free of charge to members of the media. For a copy of the book or to arrange interviews with Kahlenberg or a chapter author, please contact Christy Hicks by e-mail at hicks@tcf.org or by phone at (212) 452-7723 or (917) 544-2940.