US education secretary: affirmative action ruling opens door to ending legacy admissions | US news

The US education secretary is a critic of the supreme court’s elimination of affirmative action but maintains the recent decision created an opening to “go further” with other measures aimed at diversifying campuses, including by axing legacy and donor-based admissions.

“Legacy admissions is one of those things too that a lot of campuses are looking at saying, ‘If I can’t use race as a factor to diversify my campus … why am I allowed to use something like, you know, a person’s last name?’” Miguel Cardona told the Boston Herald.

“So it’s an opportunity for us to come together and exceed the outcomes that were available during affirmative action.”

Cardona spoke to the Herald before addressing the annual convention of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), in Boston. He was speaking after the US education department civil rights office said it was examining a complaint against Harvard University, regarding its practice of giving admissions preference to the relatives of graduates and financial benefactors.

Boston nonprofits filed the complaint against Harvard, alleging the practice violates many applicants’ civil rights.

The complaint forms part of a broad push against legacy- and donations-based college admissions, set off by the June ruling from the supreme court prohibiting race-conscious acceptance decisions.

The wealthiest Americans – who are overwhelmingly white – benefit disproportionately from college admissions based on familial relations to alums and school donors, according to research cited by Axios.

In remarks to Axios, Cardona praised colleges who have put a halt to legacy admissions after the supreme court eliminated race-based affirmative action, including Wesleyan University, Amherst, Johns Hopkins, Carnegie Mellon, Florida, Wisconsin-Madison and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Such moves, Cardona said, show how school heads are recognizing they can “make sure they’re doing more [for diversity] than they were doing before” affirmative action was struck down.

Nonetheless, that alone “won’t change that there are Black and brown kids that now with this affirmative action decision are going to feel like they’re not wanted”, Cardona told Axios.

In a speech at Wesleyan on Friday, according to Connecticut Public Radio, Cardona said: “This … decision by the supreme court, which I believe is wrong, is giving us an opportunity to really be innovative.”

Cardona, education secretary since March 2021, has declined to comment directly in public on the investigation of Harvard admissions practices. But he told the Boston Herald: “As a country, we really need to revisit all practices for college admissions.”

He added: “We’re ripe as a country to really look for ways to increase diversity on campus and engage student voice in the process.”

Cardona reportedly noted that the supreme court decision to eliminate affirmative action stopped well short of saying that “college campuses shouldn’t be diverse”.

The Herald said Cardona emphasized how colleges can prioritize finding diverse admissions candidates by soliciting applications essays meant to detail students’ backgrounds, by expanding access to university-level education in lower grades, and by improving transfer credits.