The Republican Heritage Foundation, An American conservative think tank based in Washington, D.C. that took a leading role in the conservative movement during the presidency of Ronald Reagan, whose policies were taken from Heritage's policy study Mandate for Leadership, recently released its “Project 2025,” which The New York Times called “a conservative ‘battle plan”.
The plan calls for shredding regulations to curb greenhouse gas pollution from cars, oil and gas wells and power plants, dismantling almost every clean energy program in the federal government and boosting the production of fossil fuels — the burning of which is the chief cause of planetary warming. Obviously they do not care about the Future of our planet!!!!
This Republican Party does nothing to help President Biden! In fact everything they do runs against him and his administration.
These Republican members of Congress are all complicit with the eventual destruction of our democracy and, eventually, our country!
Hence the war on public education; if the only education the hoi polloi can get is watching PragerU "educational" videos, legacy admissions won't be needed: only the children of the 1% will be even remotely qualified to go to any university, much less a prestigious one.
Legacy admissions are unquestionably distasteful but I wonder if natural selection will kill the practice.
I frankly fail to see the attraction of an Ivy League education anymore. When I see the prominent graduates of "prestigious" schools who are in the news these days -- Ted Cruz (Princeton, Harvard law), Josh Hawley (Stanford, Yale law), Ron DeSantis (Yale, Harvard law), judge James C. Ho (Stanford, U. of Chicago law), Samuel Alito (Princeton, Yale law) Clarence Thomas (Yale law), and Sam Bankman-Fried (MIT), to name the first few who come to mind -- I have to conclude that either these institutions are all failing in some significant respect or that they are simply favorite stepping stones for ambitious people with control issues. I used to think the Ivy Leagues were the gold standard, but if I were applying to college today I'd be looking elsewhere.
What the Supreme Court inadvertently did was pick off the race cover story behind which all of these legacy admissions were hiding. It is a very interesting and important new development. And a huge criticism of Ivy League college admissions. Rightly so! Thanks for noting this important topic.
Lefty here and I agree with the issue, but I don’t see how federal or state government can restrict this practice at private institutions. Borrowing the Rs favorite term, it seems like government overreach, if even allowable. States could restrict it for their public schools, but that’s not where the problem is.
If Americans still believe in that “ if you work hard enough, you can make it”...then they should come out and VOTE at future elections only for candidates who support true “Advancement on Merit”, and that includes Admission to Universities ; ALL of them. “Buying” their way into University or “using the Family Name” to get in, is a total anathema to that obviously mythical belief. 🤨
I'm not opposed to EVERY manner of hereditary bequeathment: the rich are entitled to all the colorblindness, haemophilia, Huntington's Disease and Habsburg lips their flesh is heir to, but the nation's colleges and universities belong to just that -- the nation, and that's all of us.
A degree from a prestigious university awarded to someone whose family will never have to worry about paying the rent, or the mortgage or deciding between critical medications and heating their home for the winter is just a scrap of paper that opens no doors because the door was already open wide.
Former Supreme Court Justice Breyer said that to help guide his decisions on the court, he asked himself: Would this or that decision promote democracy? I think that's a wise rule of thumb for all policies. It appears legacy admissions have demoted democracy and caused extreme imbalance.
I haven’t heard it said directly, but rich legacy applicants are a business decision in the admissions process, not just a gesture of favoritism. The process of “packaging” financial aid awards, which happens in conjunction with the admissions process, looks specifically for full-pay students; those able to bring in the full cost of attending and not drain the coffers of scholarship and financial aid awards. They are a revenue-generating decision.
Thank you for this piece. I come from a family in which my siblings definitely profited from legacy admissions, and in their defense ....made good use of the opportunity - several Harvard graduates - and have conducted themselves subsequently with generosity. And which doesn’t completely “make it right.” I think we need to do 2 things - end Legacy admissions to the “Ivys” and make a concerted effort to support colleges & universities outside of the Ivy network that deliver an education that may be more than the equal of what their more “illustrious” colleagues are actually providing. I attended Bryn Mawr for a year, and then UC Irvine for the balance of my college career. I received a MUCH BETTER education at UC Irvine than at Bryn Mawr - better teaching and definitely better opportunities for the kinds of “extra curricular” learning that can be a HUGELY important factor in post college career trajectories. At UC Irvine I had a GIFT of studying with a Behavioral Psychologist who was displeased with the utter absence of any real studies on what happens in a "group therapy”session. He could find no studies in which that which was being “measured” was defined such it could be replicated. So he set out to create a methodology. And those of us who benefited from his work learned how to understand a system - the rewards, the punishments & the process. Those lessons have stayed with me ever since, and informed my ability to analyze any system in which mammals ... including 2-legged mammals ... are participating. And yes, reward and punishment functions much the same for humans as it does for rats & pigeons. And this “fringe benefit” of my UCIrvine education turns out to be the single most important “tool” that I took from “Higher Education.”
I highly recommend visiting any college in which you are considering enrolling, and get out into the school to talk to students. You’ll get a much better idea of what’s actually possible to learn at a particular institution by doing so. And you have a much better chance of picking a school in which the “extracurricular” learning opportunities are at least as valuable as the official curriculum.
Ban 'em. Two kids from my son's high school were being considered for entry to Brown - my son and a kid from a super wealthy family. The super wealthy dad offered to build Brown a building. Guess who they chose?...
America's "elite" colleges have a strong history of not allowing Jewish students, and or having explicit quotas to limit their admissions, of requiring higher marks for Jews both to get in and to stay in, and tolerating or even promoting antisemitism on campus. Explicit and implicit Anti-African policies in American colleges in general were so strong that what we now call Traditionally Black Colleges had to be created for African Americans to have someplace to attend. Other non-White groups have fared no better, and have not even been able to compensate with a "separate but equal" alternative.
Since the 60s and 70s, through required and voluntary affirmative action programs, colleges have cast themselves as The Great Equalizers of socioeconomic injustice. In practice, they still only admit disadvantaged students who get remarkably good grades despite the disadvantages they face -- that is, kids who should have gotten in anyway. They are at best just reducing discrimination slightly, not counterbalancing it at all. The White backlash against this, imagining that White Johnny and Janie didn't get in because some presumed to be unqualified Black kid did is well known.
Against this background it amazes me that today's anti-legacy sentiment seems to have legs. Legacy admissions play a significant role in preserving America's bloodline-based class stratification. 50 years hence, this could have significant ripple effects.
If you look at the number of lawyers, candidates, judges (Supreme Court included) who claim to have attended/graduated Harvard Law School and are now firmly dedicated to ending democracy, could there be a problem with legacy admissions? You think?
Fine, ban legacy admissions but that won't stop the elite from getting the best jobs. They all know each other and hire from their own gilded networks. The rest of us have zero access to those networks so despite our educational achievements, we cannot gain a foothold.
I think it would be more helpful to build a culture that values education, especially public education. We don't need Ivy League schools to have good lives and lives well-lived. Then, make a college education free or close to it. At the same time, we can address unfair hiring and promotion practices so that the in-crowd isn't constantly getting the best jobs.
Alas, if we had a country that ensured we have what we needed, regardless of the family into which we were born, we wouldn't feel the need to make billions of dollars. What if we each were valued for what we can contribute to our society and paid enough to have all that we actually need to do that job (clean air and water, healthy food, stable and extremely affordable medical care, safe places to live, access to the outdoors, time with the people we love, enough to take a vacation, vacation time, paid leave for medical and parental needs, etc)? What if we didn't value the fanciest cars and the biggest houses and instead valued hard work, kindness, and contribution to a better country for everyone? I know that is pie in the sky, but I can dream.
The Republican Heritage Foundation, An American conservative think tank based in Washington, D.C. that took a leading role in the conservative movement during the presidency of Ronald Reagan, whose policies were taken from Heritage's policy study Mandate for Leadership, recently released its “Project 2025,” which The New York Times called “a conservative ‘battle plan”.
The plan calls for shredding regulations to curb greenhouse gas pollution from cars, oil and gas wells and power plants, dismantling almost every clean energy program in the federal government and boosting the production of fossil fuels — the burning of which is the chief cause of planetary warming. Obviously they do not care about the Future of our planet!!!!
This Republican Party does nothing to help President Biden! In fact everything they do runs against him and his administration.
These Republican members of Congress are all complicit with the eventual destruction of our democracy and, eventually, our country!
Hence the war on public education; if the only education the hoi polloi can get is watching PragerU "educational" videos, legacy admissions won't be needed: only the children of the 1% will be even remotely qualified to go to any university, much less a prestigious one.
Legacy admissions are unquestionably distasteful but I wonder if natural selection will kill the practice.
I frankly fail to see the attraction of an Ivy League education anymore. When I see the prominent graduates of "prestigious" schools who are in the news these days -- Ted Cruz (Princeton, Harvard law), Josh Hawley (Stanford, Yale law), Ron DeSantis (Yale, Harvard law), judge James C. Ho (Stanford, U. of Chicago law), Samuel Alito (Princeton, Yale law) Clarence Thomas (Yale law), and Sam Bankman-Fried (MIT), to name the first few who come to mind -- I have to conclude that either these institutions are all failing in some significant respect or that they are simply favorite stepping stones for ambitious people with control issues. I used to think the Ivy Leagues were the gold standard, but if I were applying to college today I'd be looking elsewhere.
What the Supreme Court inadvertently did was pick off the race cover story behind which all of these legacy admissions were hiding. It is a very interesting and important new development. And a huge criticism of Ivy League college admissions. Rightly so! Thanks for noting this important topic.
Lefty here and I agree with the issue, but I don’t see how federal or state government can restrict this practice at private institutions. Borrowing the Rs favorite term, it seems like government overreach, if even allowable. States could restrict it for their public schools, but that’s not where the problem is.
If Americans still believe in that “ if you work hard enough, you can make it”...then they should come out and VOTE at future elections only for candidates who support true “Advancement on Merit”, and that includes Admission to Universities ; ALL of them. “Buying” their way into University or “using the Family Name” to get in, is a total anathema to that obviously mythical belief. 🤨
I'm not opposed to EVERY manner of hereditary bequeathment: the rich are entitled to all the colorblindness, haemophilia, Huntington's Disease and Habsburg lips their flesh is heir to, but the nation's colleges and universities belong to just that -- the nation, and that's all of us.
A degree from a prestigious university awarded to someone whose family will never have to worry about paying the rent, or the mortgage or deciding between critical medications and heating their home for the winter is just a scrap of paper that opens no doors because the door was already open wide.
Former Supreme Court Justice Breyer said that to help guide his decisions on the court, he asked himself: Would this or that decision promote democracy? I think that's a wise rule of thumb for all policies. It appears legacy admissions have demoted democracy and caused extreme imbalance.
I haven’t heard it said directly, but rich legacy applicants are a business decision in the admissions process, not just a gesture of favoritism. The process of “packaging” financial aid awards, which happens in conjunction with the admissions process, looks specifically for full-pay students; those able to bring in the full cost of attending and not drain the coffers of scholarship and financial aid awards. They are a revenue-generating decision.
I suggest also looking at the rural-urban divide? What % of admissions to elite schools are rural versus urban?
Thank you for this piece. I come from a family in which my siblings definitely profited from legacy admissions, and in their defense ....made good use of the opportunity - several Harvard graduates - and have conducted themselves subsequently with generosity. And which doesn’t completely “make it right.” I think we need to do 2 things - end Legacy admissions to the “Ivys” and make a concerted effort to support colleges & universities outside of the Ivy network that deliver an education that may be more than the equal of what their more “illustrious” colleagues are actually providing. I attended Bryn Mawr for a year, and then UC Irvine for the balance of my college career. I received a MUCH BETTER education at UC Irvine than at Bryn Mawr - better teaching and definitely better opportunities for the kinds of “extra curricular” learning that can be a HUGELY important factor in post college career trajectories. At UC Irvine I had a GIFT of studying with a Behavioral Psychologist who was displeased with the utter absence of any real studies on what happens in a "group therapy”session. He could find no studies in which that which was being “measured” was defined such it could be replicated. So he set out to create a methodology. And those of us who benefited from his work learned how to understand a system - the rewards, the punishments & the process. Those lessons have stayed with me ever since, and informed my ability to analyze any system in which mammals ... including 2-legged mammals ... are participating. And yes, reward and punishment functions much the same for humans as it does for rats & pigeons. And this “fringe benefit” of my UCIrvine education turns out to be the single most important “tool” that I took from “Higher Education.”
I highly recommend visiting any college in which you are considering enrolling, and get out into the school to talk to students. You’ll get a much better idea of what’s actually possible to learn at a particular institution by doing so. And you have a much better chance of picking a school in which the “extracurricular” learning opportunities are at least as valuable as the official curriculum.
Ban 'em. Two kids from my son's high school were being considered for entry to Brown - my son and a kid from a super wealthy family. The super wealthy dad offered to build Brown a building. Guess who they chose?...
Professor Reich, MIT has a a strict no legacy policy and has had for a long time. Please distinguish from the others. https://mitadmissions.org/blogs/entry/just-to-be-clear-we-dont-do-legacy/
America's "elite" colleges have a strong history of not allowing Jewish students, and or having explicit quotas to limit their admissions, of requiring higher marks for Jews both to get in and to stay in, and tolerating or even promoting antisemitism on campus. Explicit and implicit Anti-African policies in American colleges in general were so strong that what we now call Traditionally Black Colleges had to be created for African Americans to have someplace to attend. Other non-White groups have fared no better, and have not even been able to compensate with a "separate but equal" alternative.
Since the 60s and 70s, through required and voluntary affirmative action programs, colleges have cast themselves as The Great Equalizers of socioeconomic injustice. In practice, they still only admit disadvantaged students who get remarkably good grades despite the disadvantages they face -- that is, kids who should have gotten in anyway. They are at best just reducing discrimination slightly, not counterbalancing it at all. The White backlash against this, imagining that White Johnny and Janie didn't get in because some presumed to be unqualified Black kid did is well known.
Against this background it amazes me that today's anti-legacy sentiment seems to have legs. Legacy admissions play a significant role in preserving America's bloodline-based class stratification. 50 years hence, this could have significant ripple effects.
If you look at the number of lawyers, candidates, judges (Supreme Court included) who claim to have attended/graduated Harvard Law School and are now firmly dedicated to ending democracy, could there be a problem with legacy admissions? You think?
Fine, ban legacy admissions but that won't stop the elite from getting the best jobs. They all know each other and hire from their own gilded networks. The rest of us have zero access to those networks so despite our educational achievements, we cannot gain a foothold.
I think it would be more helpful to build a culture that values education, especially public education. We don't need Ivy League schools to have good lives and lives well-lived. Then, make a college education free or close to it. At the same time, we can address unfair hiring and promotion practices so that the in-crowd isn't constantly getting the best jobs.
Alas, if we had a country that ensured we have what we needed, regardless of the family into which we were born, we wouldn't feel the need to make billions of dollars. What if we each were valued for what we can contribute to our society and paid enough to have all that we actually need to do that job (clean air and water, healthy food, stable and extremely affordable medical care, safe places to live, access to the outdoors, time with the people we love, enough to take a vacation, vacation time, paid leave for medical and parental needs, etc)? What if we didn't value the fanciest cars and the biggest houses and instead valued hard work, kindness, and contribution to a better country for everyone? I know that is pie in the sky, but I can dream.