Harvard Faces Federal Probe Over Legacy Admissions Complaint (1)

The US Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights is investigating whether Harvard University discriminates by giving preference to undergraduate applicants with connections to donors and alumni, according to a letter by the agency.

The probe is in response to allegations by a group of civil rights lawyers. They say Harvard’s use of so-called legacy preferences violates a law that prohibits all educational institutions from receiving federal funding if they discriminate on the basis “of race, color or national origin in any programs or activity.”

Read More: Defiant Harvard Hunts New Model to Keep Diversity After Defeat

Colleges are under increasing pressure to keep campuses diverse in the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s June ruling against affirmative action that named Harvard and the University of North Carolina as defendants.

Harvard is reviewing its admissions policies to comply with the Supreme Court’s ruling and to continue its tradition of admitting and supporting a diverse student body, according to an emailed statement on Tuesday.

“Harvard remains dedicated to opening doors to opportunity and to redoubling our efforts to encourage students from many different backgrounds to apply for admission,” according to the statement.

Research shows that policies that favor alumni and donors give an unfair advantage to white applicants and harm minority students by reinforcing racial and social inequality.

Lawyers for Civil Rights, the group that filed the complaint, called for Harvard to abandon the practice of legacy admissions, where children of alumni receive a preference. Only a handful of selective colleges have banned legacy admissions, including Amherst College, Johns Hopkins University and Wesleyan University.

“These unfair and undeserved preferences are bestowed overwhelmingly on white applicants and systematically harm applicants of color, in violation of federal anti-discrimination law,” Oren Sellstrom, litigation director for Lawyers for Civil Rights, said in a statement.

Harvard is also facing state legislation about legacy admissions. A bill in Massachusetts seeks to tax wealthy colleges that favor families of alumni and donors in admissions policies — namely Harvard — and give money to poorer community colleges.

It uses a formula determined by endowment value per student to determine fees based on a sliding scale. The money collected annually would go to a trust to fund community colleges. Harvard is the richest US college, with an endowment of $50.1 billion.

(Updates with lawyer comment in seventh paragraph.)

--With assistance from Madlin Mekelburg.

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Janet Lorin in New York at jlorin@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story:
Pierre Paulden at ppaulden@bloomberg.net

Sarah McGregor, Mark Schoifet

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