A Critique of “Time to Bury the Legacy”
Legacy admission is based upon parents’ graduating from the school, or their donations in the past, or the pledges they made. There is a controversial issue whether legacy should be taken into consideration during college admissions. Some people consider it is unfair to increase individuals’ admission probability by monetary factors, while others consider that the legacy admission helps colleges shape their own students body shape. In his article, “Time to Bury the Legacy”, Robert DeKoven, a professor at California Western School of Law, argues that legacy admission is unfair and should be eliminated.
The article first describes that both private and public colleges determine their admissions not entirely upon merit, but on legacy, explaining that legacy admission is the legitimate action to diversity. However, the author argues that considering legacy in admission equals to taking races and genders as factors, which is discrimination. According to the author, it is unfair that affluent children who are usually white have a higher chance to be admitted by prestigious colleges. The author also suggests that colleges should make public the data that shows the admissions through signing pledges. It is considered unethical by the author when the legacies are done privately.
The issue that the author particularly concerns about is that legacy admission is unfair. Children of affluent families have higher chance of being admitted into prestigious schools. He lists many qualified supporting details, such as George W. Bush’s enrolling into Yale University with lower credentials, and statistics about Notre Dame’s and Ivy colleges’ legacy admissions, which are higher than non-legacy students. Also, legacy admission is considered discrimination by the author. In colleges, they have a long history of discriminating against people of color and gender in admission before 1960s and 1970s. DeKoven believes that now legacy admission...