The problem with legacy admissions, according to Roth and others, is that legacy admissions stifle diversity. More importantly, the crude, counterfactual math above assumes that the 395 white legacy applicants wouldn’t be admitted otherwise. Indeed, unspoken in all of this is that legacy admissions are only a notable problem at places like Harvard. This is precisely what makes elite institutions elite. This is why calling legacy admissions “affirmative action for white people” misses the point: most white people don’t enroll in college.

Source: New York Times August 29, 2023 21:21 UTC