Tim Scott calls on universities to end legacy admissions
Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) said now that the Supreme Court has limited the use of race as a factor in college admissions, colleges should eliminate legacy-based admissions next.
“I think the question is how do you continue to create a culture where education is the goal for every single part of our community? One of the things that Harvard could do to make that even better is to eliminate any legacy programs where they have preferential treatment for legacy kids, not allow for the professors — their kids to come to Harvard as well,” Scott said on Fox’s “The Faulkner Focus.”
“They’re looking for a way to improve the footprint of Harvard, let’s make sure that all admissions are based on academic scores, and not just eliminating affirmative action, but let’s look at the legacy programs,” he added. “Let’s look at the fact that the professors’ kids can go there as well.”
Legacy-based admissions occur when a college or university gives a preference to applicants based on whether a family member graduated from that institution. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) said in a post on Twitter Thursday that if the court was “serious about their ludicrous ‘colorblindness’ claims, they would have abolished legacy admissions, aka affirmative action for the privileged.”
Scott’s call to end legacy-based admissions came shortly after the Supreme Court invalidated Harvard’s and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s admissions practices by ruling they did not comply with the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection Thursday. The court ruled that while race cannot be a deciding factor among applicants, applicants could still mention their race in essays and interviews.
“Both programs lack sufficiently focused and measurable objectives warranting the use of race, unavoidably employ race in a negative manner, involve racial stereotyping, and lack meaningful end points,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the majority opinion.
Scott, who announced his bid for the White House earlier this year, also praised the Supreme Court’s decision, saying that its ruling is something the country should “celebrate.”
“This is the day where we understand that being judged by the content of our character, not the color of our skin, is what our constitution wants,” he said.
In a dissenting opinion, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson warned that the court’s decision “makes things worse, not better” for race relations. She also wrote that “deeming race irrelevant in law does not make it so in life,” emphasizing that it will not solve the problem of racism.
Black and Latino leaders across the country also blasted the court’s decision Thursday, with many sayings its ruling will reverse progress bade toward racial equity. Former President Obama said in a statement that affirmative action policies “allowed generations of students like Michelle [Obama] and me to prove we belonged.”
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