Perspectives: A “Legacy” of Racial Injustice in American Higher Education

Diverse Online

Current NewsPerspectives: A “Legacy” of Racial Injustice in American Higher Education
By Marybeth Gasman & Julie Vultaggio
Jan 22, 2008, 08:59

It’s admissions time again — this month admissions staff at the nation’s elite institutions are cooped up for days, scrutinizing hundreds of college applications. It’s also legacy time again….

Yale has the Bushes, Basses and Whitneys. Harvard has the Astors, Roosevelts and Kennedys. Throughout the history of American higher education, the nation’s most prestigious colleges and universities have employed legacy policies that preference the children of privileged alumni. In fact, during the early 1900s, prominent graduates of the colonial colleges, fearing that their sons would be displaced in admissions processes, forced the hand of college administrators in myriad ways, such as threatening to withhold donations and using their connections with university higher ups to pull strings. Conversely, according to Dr. Marcia Synnott, the “demand of upwardly mobile sons of Jewish and Catholic immigrants” for admission to the nation’s elite institutions initiated “an institutional crisis, involving not only existing limitations of classroom space and campus housing, but also questions of educational purpose — of whom to educate and why.”

In the 1960s, as pressure toward racial integration intensified, acceptance rates rapidly increased for children of alumni — in some cases, to as much as three times higher than that of the past (Duffy & Goldberg, 1998). Given resistance on the part of historically White institutions to enrolling Black students during the civil rights era, legacy policies may have furnished an excuse to reject racial minorities without resorting to the quotas that had been used to exclude Jews and Catholics earlier in the century (Gasman, 2007; Thelin, 2004). As a result, Synnott writes, colleges became “citadels of Anglo-Saxon culture” and developed extensive legacy policies that continue to be used today. The primary consequence, however, lies in the exclusion of groups whose parents did not attend elite institutions of higher education.

First and foremost, it is important to acknowledge the benefits that institutions gain from legacy admissions. Preferential treatment given to legacies keeps alumni happy, has the potential to increase giving, and can strengthen the existing institutional culture. Generally speaking, most colleges and universities aim to have satisfied, generous graduates. However, as Dr. Jerome Karabel argues in his 2005 book The Chosen: The Hidden History of Admission and Exclusion at Harvard, Yale and Princeton, advocating for legacy preferences with the goal of increasing alumni donations is becoming less persuasive as endowments soar over $20 billion. Likewise, while many colleges and universities long for an institutional culture rooted in history and tradition, when that culture is built on a tradition of exclusion, perhaps it should be changed. This quote from Synnott (1979) illustrates the issue:

Knowing precisely what they wanted, the prep school crowd created collegiate life. For the most part, they shunned honor grades in order to devote themselves to extracurricular activities: editorships, managerships, and athletic competitions. And not only were they paying customers, but they could usually be counted on to contribute generously both their time and money to alumni activities and fund-raising campaigns (the expectation of future support was less certain from students from lower income families).

Because legacy admits are typically wealthy, White, fourth-generation college students, they offer very little to colleges and universities in terms of racial and ethnic diversity. In fact, over 90 percent of legacy admits are White Protestants, especially at highly-selective institutions (Duffy & Goldberg, 1998; Golden, 2006; Howell & Turner, 2004; Larew, 1991). Thus, legacy admits ultimately reinforce the “high-income/high-education/white profile” (Bowen et al. 2005) of elite institutions and systematically reproduce a culture of racial and economic privilege.
[To read the entire article, go to: http://diverseeducation.com/artman/publish/article_10519.shtml]