As you will recall, last Thursday the Supreme Court struck down the affirmative action programs at Harvard and Carolina (a.k.a. the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill). And ever since, many complained bitterly that legacy admissions were still protected.
And now we see a challenge to legacy admissions at Harvard:
Karma: Harvard Legacy/Donor Admissions Practices Are Racist According To Civil Rights Complaint Just Filed https://t.co/s8n2TKstJn
— William A. Jacobson (@wajacobson) July 3, 2023
From the piece:
The colleges and universities that have been the most aggressive and belligerent in defending illegal race-based affirmative action are finding their most cherished and lucrative admissions practices challenged: Legacy and Donor preferences.
Professor Jacobson also quotes an article describing what happened as a result:
Harvard University’s admission practices unfairly favor children of alumni and wealthy donors, according to a civil rights complaint filed Monday with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights.
The complaint, filed by Lawyers for Civil Rights on behalf of Boston-area advocacy groups representing Black and Latino residents, calls for a federal investigation of Harvard’s admissions process and an end to so-called legacy and donor-related admissions, which gives admissions preference to the children and relatives of donors and alumni.
Thus, contrary to what some sources claim…
A civil rights legal group filed a lawsuit over legacy admissions at Harvard University, saying the practice discriminates against students of color by giving an unfair boost to the mostly white children of alumni. https://t.co/U1aDyUB7Lv
— The Associated Press (@AP) July 3, 2023
…this is not a lawsuit.
Right now, it is just a complaint to the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights. This might cause the DOE to take a number of steps to try to force Harvard to give up its policy of legacy preferences. If the DOE does this, a lawsuit might follow. If they don’t, these parties might follow up the complaint with a lawsuit. Both outcomes seem likely. But it is not currently a lawsuit.
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Would the case have merit? Well, the logic goes like this. Harvard gives a preference to legacy admissions—that is, the children of people who graduated from Harvard. However, since Harvard discriminated against non-whites in the past, that group of people are disproportionately white. Therefore, this discrimination in favor of legacy admissions has the effect of discriminating against non-whites, because it disparately impacts them.
We think this is unlikely to succeed. As the Supreme Court said last Thursday, the relevant statute is interpreted just like the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and when disparate impact claims are brought under that provision, one has to prove not just a disparate impact, but that the people in charge were actively seeking that disparity. In other words, they would have to prove that Harvard adopted the policy specifically to keep Harvard whiter, when we all know why it really happens: Because alumni are more likely to be donors, and this is about keeping the donors happy.
But we also tend to agree with Professor Jacobson when he says that as a matter of policy, he’d be happy to see legacy admissions go away:
By All Means, Eliminate Legacy And Donor Admissions Preferences Because They Are Corrupting, Regardless of Racial Impact https://t.co/WR7Rd0F1En
— 🔥 Bean 🔥 (@BeanFromPA) July 3, 2023
As he notes, these are corrupting influences. That was the point of a very funny bit on the Simpsons (early Simpsons is the best Simpsons). In that episode, Mr. Burns discovered that he had a son named Larry (played by the late, great Rodney Dangerfield) and, in this scene, Montgomery Burns discusses the possibility of getting his son admitted to Yale:
It’s an exaggeration for comedic effect, but it speaks to a certain truth about that system. And any school that has a known preference for legacies devalues the achievements of all of its students. They have to swat aside suggestions that they got into this school because of who they are related to, rather than their own merit—even if they are the first in their respective families to attend that school.
No one is going to feel bad about it if there’s never another David Hogg, Super Dunce. But non-white legacy admissions should be governed by the exact same standard.
— FunkyPox (@corrcomm) July 3, 2023
Why don’t you just try merit admissions for all?
To be fair to Mr. Hogg, we don’t think he benefitted from legacy bias. But we do suspect that he benefitted severely from political bias. He bears the hallmarks of an unsophisticated and shallow mind. He had no business being admitted to a top-tier school, and we believe he wouldn’t have been if merit had been the only consideration.
I will be VERY interested to see how the conservative movement reacts to this one... https://t.co/lz41zD52y2
— Jeff Charles, Liberty Nerd🏴 (@jeffcharlesjr) July 3, 2023
Legacy admissions are inconsistent with merit admissions & inherently unfair. But this is how schools made their money— kickbacks from rich alumni buying spots for their kids.
— Marina Medvin 🇺🇸 (@MarinaMedvin) July 3, 2023
Are they racist? Probably. Mostly antisemitic since Harvard explicitly excluded Jews back in the day. https://t.co/D3fy9wdtA9
That’s an excellent point. Harvard’s first affirmative action program was designed to reduce the number of Jews in its student body.
Yes, really:
Harvard’s Jewish quotas cited in US Supreme Court’s affirmative action ruling https://t.co/cdWJ2oHFkQ
— The Times of Israel (@TimesofIsrael) June 30, 2023
Obviously I think the universities should be bulldozed. But the (non scholarship) parents of legacies spent a whole lot of money at their college.
— Oilfield Rando (@Oilfield_Rando) July 3, 2023
If you’re not gonna give their kids a leg up in the admissions process, you better give them a tuition discount or something lol. https://t.co/2eqkcXZiQd
That is actually a brilliant way to promote donations without denigrating academic standards. (The discount idea, not the bulldozing idea. But we are intrigued by the bulldozing idea.)
And this exchange is interesting:
I think that is great…will shrink Harvard’s endowment and now parents won’t donate large amounts knowing it doesn’t matter, their kids get no preference
— DANGER: DISINFORMATION (@RetiredCrimeDog) July 3, 2023
So this is a facially neutral law/policy challenged for discriminatory impact (vs intent) which uses a lower level of scrutiny (intermediate scrutiny), so it will likely be found Constitutional as it should be. It is and always has been under the purview of the universities-…
— L L R (@pathforward327) July 4, 2023
The full text reads:
So this is a facially neutral law/policy challenged for discriminatory impact (vs intent) which uses a lower level of scrutiny (intermediate scrutiny), so it will likely be found Constitutional as it should be. It is and always has been under the purview of the universities- they’re right to do it, their right to end it. Petition them to stop. Why don’t they?
Because no one in power will ever shoot themselves in the foot- they will protect their own first and legacy admissions helps them and funds Universities through endowment donations.
And now, when this gets shot down, it gives the media a new way to rant and blame ‘right wing extremism’
Right now, it is in the hands of liberals. But, yes, if liberal Harvard administrators are allowed by the liberal Biden administration to continue this policy, we feel pretty confident that conservatives will be blamed.
What goes around comes around. Expect the left to use the same methods the right used to try to force their values in the public.
— David (@dappleathome) July 3, 2023
Wow, he hasn’t been paying attention. How exactly did gay marriage become a constitutional right? Or the right to abortion? The left has been using these tactics for decades.
Harvard right now: https://t.co/DGN9kwJC3J pic.twitter.com/UIokw2eTyL
— Boomieleaks (@Boomieleaks) July 4, 2023
Without legacy admissions high value donations will go down and HELL YEAH Harvard will die of attrition https://t.co/qgWI5Lx7Fc
— Jay (@OneFineJay) July 3, 2023
It’s the end of higher education as we know it, and we feel fine.
Wait til these lawyers crunch the racial numbers on athletic-based admissions. https://t.co/jE2EhN8drC
— David Pivtorak (@piv4law) July 3, 2023
Honestly, we would love to see just one year of these schools admitting people based on neutral academic considerations. Let's see how different the world looks, then.
Our journalists and all these Trustafarian activist-types are the ones who most benefit from legacy admissions. It's going to be fascinating to see how they cover this one.
— Theo Jordan (@Theo_TJ_Jordan) July 3, 2023
The Truman Show script is starting to get tricky. https://t.co/5WbKPQ4OL9 pic.twitter.com/Z0phfNYF0f
Is...this supposed to be some sort of "gotcha"? 🧐 https://t.co/lQMjUF4WEi
— Susie Moore ⚾️🌻🐶 (@SmoosieQ) July 3, 2023
Asians not included in this suit? That’s right they wouldn’t dare go against white folks. The model minority boils down to cowardice self loathing victim playing imports. https://t.co/HYHCgLCVJc
— ELIJAH'S DAUGHTER ADOS 🇺🇸 (@VA2PHILLY) July 3, 2023
The complaint actually mentions how this harms Asian-Americans, too, so … nice try.
Really, we will repeat something we said on Twitter. If you are angry over the Supreme Court’s decision on affirmative action, be angry at the liberals running admissions at Harvard and Carolina. Lawyers have a saying: Bad facts make bad law and good facts make good law. If you like affirmative action, these were absolutely terrible facts. These schools actually made it so that you had a better chance of getting in if you were white, than if you were Asian—because Asian Americans have committed the ‘sin’ of being relatively successful. That's exactly the thrust of @VA2PHILLY'S racist tweet. That, combined with the old stereotype that Asians lack personality, harmed Asians as they attempted to gain admissions at these excellent schools.
Truly, is it even an affirmative action policy if it screws a racial minority in favor of the majority? Or is it just plain racial discrimination? We tend to think it is the latter.
So, there was no way the Supreme Court was going to uphold this policy as is. Harvard and Carolina were both destined to lose and the only question was how badly they were going to lose. And if you are mad that affirmative action lost, get mad at Harvard and Carolina for making it easy.
Finally, we have this:
Democrats will do anything to avoid discussing how they ran the public school system into the ground and did massive, generational damage to black students in the cities they control. https://t.co/eDrtpRczT7
— Derek Hunter (@derekahunter) July 3, 2023
Fair point.
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