4 ms·

Legacy status is different from race. I propose the following thought experiment as comparison. "I need to see a cardiologist, but there's a long waiting list.

Legacy status is different from race. I propose the following thought experiment as comparison. "I need to see a cardiologist, but there's a long waiting list. Fortunately, my dad is a cardiologist so he saw me immediately." Few people would think that this action should be illegal. Compared with: "I need to see a cardiologist, but there's a long waiting list. Fortunately, I'm White, so he saw me immediately." (notice how it's still distasteful even if we replace White with Black, Asian, or whatever). Notice as well how the situation is different if we're talking about a public hospital--in that case we wouldn't accept the nepotism case. So there's real reasons why we would allow a private institution to have legacy admissions but not race-based admissions (and...come on. Only in the USA would that sentence be controversial!). The rub is that in the USA many (most? all?) private institutions--yes, even Harvard--receive government support, participate in government programs, and so constitute a sort of shadow arm of the government. The real answer, unpalatable though it may be to most, is that if private universities have legacy admissions, they should receive no govt support

danans 3y ago
> "I need to see a cardiologist, but there's a long waiting list. Fortunately, my dad is a cardiologist so he saw me immediately." > Few people would think that this action should be illegal. > Compared with: > "I need to see a cardiologist, but there's a long waiting list. Fortunately, I'm White, so he saw me immediately." > (notice how it's still distasteful even if we replace White with Black, Asian, or whatever). > So there's real reasons why we would allow a private institution to have legacy admissions but not race-based admissions (and...come on. Only in the USA would that sentence be controversial!). The relationship between a cardiologist and their child is fundamentally different than that between an educational institution, their alumnus, and the alumnus's child. The former is a nuclear familial relationship and the treatment is comparable to feeding one's own child. The latter is an institutional relationship that gives preferred access to a rarified privilege (attending an Ivy league university), not a basic need like medical treatment. Therefore you can't use the example of the parent/child doctor/patient relationship to justify legacy admissions.

danans 3y ago

> "I need to see a cardiologist, but there's a long waiting list. Fortunately, my dad is a cardiologist so he saw me immediately." > Few people would think that this action should be illegal. > Compared with: > "I need to see a cardiologist, but there's a long waiting list. Fortunately, I'm White, so he saw me immediately." > (notice how it's still distasteful even if we replace White with Black, Asian, or whatever). > So there's real reasons why we would allow a private institution to have legacy admissions but not race-based admissions (and...come on. Only in the USA would that sentence be controversial!). The relationship between a cardiologist and their child is fundamentally different than that between an educational institution, their alumnus, and the alumnus's child. The former is a nuclear familial relationship and the treatment is comparable to feeding one's own child. The latter is an institutional relationship that gives preferred access to a rarified privilege (attending an Ivy league university), not a basic need like medical treatment. Therefore you can't use the example of the parent/child doctor/patient relationship to justify legacy admissions.