Wesleyan University’s president announced Wednesday that the school is formally eliminating its legacy admissions policy in light of the Supreme Court’s ruling against affirmative action.
The prestigious Connecticut college’s decision follows outrage from Democrats, who say if the court insists on doing away with a program designed to help minorities access higher education after centuries of racial discrimination, then universities should also be banned from giving a leg up in the admissions process to children of alumni and donors.
Wesleyan President Michael S. Roth said in his announcement Wednesday that while legacy status has played a “negligible role” in the private university’s admissions for many years, the school is officially ending the policy.
“We still value the ongoing relationships that come from multi-generational Wesleyan attendance, but there will be no ‘bump’ in the selection process,” Roth said. “As has been almost always the case for a long time, family members of alumni will be admitted on their own merits.”
Wesleyan “has never fixated on a checked box indicating a student’s racial identification or family affiliations,” Roth continued, but rather “taken an individualized, holistic view of an applicant’s lived experience—as seen through the college essay, high school record, letters of recommendation, and interactions with our community.”
Wesleyan’s announcement comes a day after the University of Minnesota’s Twin Cities campus announced it was also ending legacy admissions.
While it’s true that some top universities accept more legacy students each year than Black and Latino students combined, a Duke University study found that the “increase in diversity resulting from the elimination of legacy and athlete preferences pales in comparison to the diversity benefits stemming from racial preferences.”
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