Legacy admissions, or special preferences given to students with relatives who attended the school, have come under new fire after the Supreme Court ruled in June that race-based affirmative action programs violate the Constitution.“It is a puzzle why Harvard and dozens of other elite schools continue to give preferences for legacy applicants,” said Edward Blum, president of Students for Fair Admissions, which brought the cases to the Supreme Court.
The Education Department’s investigation came after a civil rights complaint filed by Lawyers for Civil Rights, representing several racial and ethnic groups. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 bars racial discrimination in entities that receive significant federal funding, and the complaint says Harvard’s legacy policy is a hurdle for minorities in the admission process.Harvard didn’t respond to an inquiry for this story. The school declined to comment when the complaint was first filed.
John Agresto, former president of St. John’s College in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and author of “The Death of Learning: How American Education Has Failed Our Students and What to Do about It,” said that while ending racial preferences is right, schools — and particularly private institutions — should be able to rely on some non-merit yardsticks.
A study by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology — Harvard’s neighbor and itself a highly selective school that does not use legacy admissions — concluded that giving preference to relatives of alumni makes good financial sense for the schools.
Education Education Latest News, Education Education Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Source: ScienceDaily - 🏆 452. / 53 Read more »
Source: ScienceDaily - 🏆 452. / 53 Read more »
Source: Newsweek - 🏆 468. / 52 Read more »
Source: ksatnews - 🏆 442. / 53 Read more »
Source: wjxt4 - 🏆 246. / 63 Read more »