5 min read

·

Apr 14, 2025

In June 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court effectively ended race-conscious admissions at colleges and universities, branding affirmative action as discriminatory. The ruling sparked national debate, but the loudest cheers came from those who never had to rely on anything but their birthright for access to elite education.

The decision was framed as a win for meritocracy. But let’s be honest: there has never been a truly level playing field in American higher education. If we’re going to dismantle affirmative action, let’s also confront the invisible scaffolding that has always held up white, affluent students, namely, legacy preferences, donor influence, and selective athletic recruitment.

At top-tier institutions like Harvard, legacy applicants are accepted at nearly 34%, compared to 5.9% for the general pool (Harvard Crimson, 2019). Legacy admissions have long favored white, wealthy families, unsurprisingly, since elite institutions excluded Black and brown students for most of their histories. A 2023 internal study by Harvard revealed that removing legacy and donor preferences would increase the number of admitted students who are Black, Hispanic, and Asian American while decreasing white admits by 45% (Harvard Study, NYT, 2023).