Biden’s Education secretary looks to torch legacy admissions

The elite colleges that found an ally in Miguel Cardona while defending their admissions practices are now among the Education secretary’s biggest targets.

The Supreme Court’s decision to gut race-conscious college admissions policies ignited new urgency among civil rights groups concerned about Black and brown students being left out of higher education. But it also gave Cardona — and President Joe Biden — an opening to air long-held criticisms of how Harvard, Yale and other selective institutions favor applicants who come from wealthy alumni families through legacy admissions.

“They said we can't look at race, but the person's last name is fine or if somebody writes a check,” Cardona said of the Supreme Court in an interview. “We shouldn't be highlighting or valuing legacy if we can’t take into account other factors that we think would add value.”

Like Biden, Cardona doesn’t have an allegiance to these elite institutions. A first-generation college student who attended state schools in Connecticut, he was already critical of the selective schools even while they used affirmative action to create some opportunities for students of color. Without that tool, however, Cardona has become more adamant that colleges need to ditch their legacy preferences and fixation on selectivity that have built up their prestige and generated a key source of revenue.

Several institutions, including Wesleyan University, Carnegie Mellon University and Virginia Tech, ended or pared back their use of legacy preferences since the Supreme Court hollowed out affirmative action. Georgetown University students and employees are also drumming up support for a petition to end the practice at the private institution.

But Harvard is facing scrutiny through a complaint filed with the Education Department that could potentially end the school’s use of legacy preferences.

Striking down legacy admissions, civil rights advocates say, could bring real change in a critical process that has remained largely untouched by the federal government and stagnant at the nation’s colleges for years. How Cardona and his agency respond will send a sharp message to some of the most selective universities about what’s acceptable in the high-stakes world of college admissions — and Washington’s willingness to intervene.

“I think it's time in our country that we're honest about college admission processes and check ourselves. Does this reflect the values of what we want our higher education institutions to be?” Cardona said.

Following the Supreme Court’s decision in June, Biden directed the Education Department to analyze practices that hold back efforts to diversify campuses. The president critiqued legacy admissions and “other systems that expand privilege instead of opportunity.”

The complaint filed against Harvard argues that admissions preferences given to athletic recruits, the family of alumni, relatives of donors and children of faculty and staff are discriminatory against first-generation students and students of color. About 43 percent of white accepted students at Harvard were athletes, children of alumni, faculty or staff; or on the “dean’s interest list,” according to a report published in 2020. The lead author of the paper was Peter Arcidiacono, a Duke University economics professor whose research was also used to help dismantle race-conscious admissions.

Cardona’s department is the main venue to challenge legacy admissions, said Lawyers for Civil Rights Executive Director Iván Espinoza-Madrigal, whose group filed the complaint against Harvard.

“The evidence is really strong on disparate impact, discriminatory impact and exclusionary effect when it comes to students of color,” Espinoza-Madrigal said. “This is a textbook example of discrimination.”

Harvard didn’t provide a comment for this report. But a panel convened by the school to review its admissions system argued that eliminating the practice might damage the “generous financial support” alumni provide — some of which goes toward financial aid and Harvard’s efforts to diversify. It also stated that admitting children of alumni “serves a community-building function” and many are strong applicants.

Since taking office, Cardona has called on the nation’s top universities to prioritize expanding access to higher education. He has urged the schools to “stop conflating selectivity with excellence” and admonished them for competing “for the most affluent students by luring them with generous aid.”

For Cardona, this moment allows him the chance to balance the types of opportunities available to students with less means and those who are well connected.

“I'm not against Ivy Leagues,” he said in the interview. “I represent the students that we need to have more of. I should not be a counter-example. I went to a technical high school in a community that has over 75 percent of the students on free or reduced lunch. I learned English second. I'm a Latino. I'm a male in education. All these checks say that I'm not supposed to be where I am right now.”

Obama-era Education Secretary John B. King said Cardona’s personal story and career as an educator “reflects a set of really important principles” about education.

While King’s department worked to highlight efforts at colleges that serve greater shares of underrepresented students, he did not address legacy admissions during his tenure. But the Supreme Court opinion has presented an “even more urgent moment for leadership from the administration,” he said in an interview.

“It's great to see the secretary using the bully pulpit to challenge selective admission colleges to step up and live their commitment to diversity,” said King, who’s now chancellor of the State University of New York.

Taking on legacy admissions could also be a higher education policy win for Cardona, said Peter Cunningham, an Obama-era assistant Education secretary for communications and outreach.

“There's a lot of people out there who think the admissions process is rigged,” Cunningham said. “There's a lot of people who believe that people who deserve opportunities don't always get them and sometimes those who don't really deserve opportunities do get them.”

Espinoza-Madrigal, with the Lawyers for Civil Rights, said it’s simple: Harvard’s preferential treatment violates federal law.

“This is an issue where Republicans and Democrats are talking about basic fairness, and most Americans clearly see that having access to an elite education — Harvard — should not be based on your family's last name, or the capacity to write a check,” he said.

Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) told HuffPost that legacy admissions demonstrate “a large amount of hypocrisy” and Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), who is vying for the Republican presidential nomination, has urged Harvard to eliminate its legacy preferences. Still, many have stopped short of backing a Democratic bill banning the practice.

Just weeks after the Harvard complaint was filed, the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights opened an investigation — though it may be a while until the outcomes are released. The agency in August also followed up with new guidance that strongly recommends that colleges re-examine admissions preferences “that are unrelated to a prospective applicant’s individual merit or potential, that further benefit privileged students, and that reduce opportunities for others who have been foreclosed from such advantages.”

Colleges welcomed the clarity from the federal government, but have already been reviewing their practices, said Jonathan Fansmith, senior vice president of government relations at the American Council on Education. He also said that while Cardona is critical of selective colleges, he may be limited in how he can compel them to make changes.

The glare of attention from Cardona is not new for these colleges either, he said.

“Nobody wants to be criticized by a Cabinet-level official, but I think these institutions are often in the spotlight,” Fansmith said.

“Some of the critiques can be unfounded,” he said. “And some of the critiques reflect broader concerns with institutions in our society … There is a legitimate sort of public outcry against elites and unearned privilege — and that’s not specific to higher ed, but it’s easy to understand it through legacy preference.”