California will ban some of the nation’s most selective colleges from using legacy admissions, as Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday signed legislation that will prohibit special consideration for applicants on the basis of their connections at private universities in the state.
The prohibition, which will affect Stanford University, the University of Southern California and other private colleges, comes as institutions nationwide have rewritten admissions rules after a Supreme Court ruling last summer that banned race-based considerations in the college admissions process. The case focused on affirmative action, but it also revealed how legacy status can play a role in selection at elite schools.
The University of California, the California State University system and other public California campuses have banned legacy admissions for decades. But private colleges have continued to give some deference to the descendants of alumni or major donors.
“If we value diversity in higher education, we must level the playing field,” Assemblyman Phil Ting, a San Francisco Democrat who wrote the bill, 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.”
Only one other state, Maryland, bans legacy preferences at both private and public institutions. Illinois, Virginia and Colorado ban legacy admissions, but only at public universities and colleges.
Many selective colleges have historically offered special consideration for the children or grandchildren of alumni, in part to reinforce endowments that pay for a host of campus programs or subsidize tuition for students of lesser financial means.
Students who are admitted with legacy preferences are much more likely to be white and wealthy than other applicants, and the practice has never been particularly popular with the broader public. In a 2022 poll by Pew Research Center, 75 percent of American adults said that university admissions should not hinge on whether someone’s relative attended the school.
After the Varsity Blues scandal in 2019, in which parents seeking to win spots for their children in top-ranked schools were found to have paid bribes and falsified their children’s credentials, Mr. Ting tried to push through a similar bill banning legacy preferences. That effort fell short.
But he did pass a measure requiring private colleges to report to the Legislature how many students they admit because of ties to alumni or donors. The reports showed that the practice was most widespread at Stanford and U.S.C., where, at both schools, about 14 percent of students who were admitted in the fall of 2022 had legacy or donor connections. At Santa Clara University, Mr. Newsom’s alma mater, 13 percent of admissions had such ties.
In California, Republicans as well as Democrats in the Legislature voted for Mr. Ting’s proposal, which will punish institutions that flout the law by publishing their names on a Department of Justice website. An earlier version had proposed that schools face civil penalties for violating the law, but that provision was removed in the State Senate.
The rules will take effect Sept. 1, 2025, with the new process expected to be reflected in the class entering in the fall of 2026.
State data submitted in June suggested that the practice has persisted in California, with at least a half dozen private colleges and universities in the state still giving preferential treatment to relatives of graduates and donors, according to Mr. Ting’s office.
For the fall of 2023, U.S.C. led the pack, admitting 1,791 such students, slightly higher than the 1,740 admitted the year prior, the reports showed. Stanford had 295 legacy admissions, compared with 266 the prior year. Santa Clara University reported just 38, compared with 1,133 the prior year. Claremont McKenna and Harvey Mudd each had 15 legacy students.
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