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> which will punish institutions that flout the law by publishing their names on a California Department of Justice website Important to note that this is the

• paxys 2y ago
  Is it even about shame? Universities are proud of having multiple generations of (wealthy) families attend, and will go out of their way to advertise it.
  • pyuser583 2y ago
    I see that as legitimate. Especially for lesser known colleges.
  • WalterBright 2y ago
    I bet Ford is proud that multiple generations of families buy Fords. Why not? It validates that Ford is satisfying its customers.
• gambiting 2y ago
  Or it ends up acting like an advert for those universities.
  • kurisufag 2y ago
    yeah, the legacy option is a big reason to go to Harvard or Stanford instead of MIT or Caltech. the success of your lineage will be automatically secured.
    • sangnoir 2y ago
      Should university acceptance be meritocratic or not? HN seems to be suffering from dissonance.
      • kurisufag 2y ago
        the purpose of Harvard-type monastic institutions and MIT-type land grant engineering schools are /drastically/ different. the big H isn't even really a school, it's a social mixing program for the future 1%. a way for the sons and daughters of the elite to make friends with the smartest of their generation, to ensure the latter get funding and the former are never unseated.
        • sangnoir 2y ago
          I didn't see this amount of bellyaching when race-based affirmative action admissions were eviscerated by SCOTUS. Then, HN was almost unanimous in the opinion that it was a good ruling, because academic meritocracy is a good thing.
          • preciousoo 2y ago
            :-)
        • vkou 2y ago
          > the purpose of Harvard-type monastic institutions and MIT-type land grant engineering schools are /drastically/ different. And the purpose of employment is 'hiring whomever the boss thinks will make the most money for him', without even pretending to provide a public good, yet the same suspects are hand-wringing about how workplaces should be meritocratic. Likewise, when AA-admissions were killed, those people were also all for meritocracy. Mayhaps the demand for meritocracy is just a fig leaf. It's never been about fairness, it's about preserving access to power.
      • epolanski 2y ago
        Does it matter if you're paying for it? Look, I'm European and I just cannot see the issue here. I'm all for government providing excellent public education, but if a private university does admission on whatever metric (unless it's discriminating for illegal, such as race, reasons) so be it? If somebody's shelling millions funding a university, don't see a problem with enrolling his son.
  • JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    > it ends up acting like an advert for those universities Because parents and donors are confused about which two elite California schools that observe legacy?
    • dpkirchner 2y ago
      Stan-ford? Is that a car?
      • erikerikson 2y ago
        If we're talking in Cal. Tech-nically he could own one, it's a big state.
        • tzs 2y ago
          Caltech does not do legacy admissions.
          • JumpCrisscross 2y ago
            Cal generally refers to UC Berkeley, e.g. the Cal Band [1]. (It was the first UC.) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_California_Marching_Band https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_California_March...
            • tzs 2y ago
              And "Technically" usually doesn't have a dash in the middle. The comments above were embedding college names in ways to make them not look like college names. Hence, the "-" to split "technically" emphasize "Tech" immediately after the "Cal" from the previous sentence.
• Moto7451 2y ago
  So… is the way for these institutions to “win” by performing a large scale Prisoner’s Dilemma exercise by all admitting at least one legacy student at the next opportunity?
• berbec 2y ago
  > You get put on a naughty list. I don't see it that way. Sounds more like the state is doing free advertising. "Here is the list of schools Junior, who got a 4.0 in their basket-weaving major in high school, has a shot".
  • moate 2y ago
    1- I’m 40, and childless, so maybe I’m just out of touch, but do high schools do Majors? (Fwiw I’m from the northeastern US) 2- How would that work? Legacy admissions mean your family has a legacy. You can’t just conjure that up because you have a kid who can’t meet academic admissions standards. 3- If you pull a 4.0 in any specialty of academics, no matter how much engineers might sneer at you on their message boards, somewhere a school will admit you because they’re the “forefront of basket weaving in the country”, and I think that’s pretty cool.
    • JumpCrisscross 2y ago
      > do high schools do Majors? (Fwiw I’m from the northeastern US) There are specialised high schools [1]. Even my generic public California high school had unofficial "lines," e.g. if you wanted to take certain AP classes in senior year you needed certain prerequisites, and some bunches of classes naturally went together, socially and academically. [1] https://www.schools.nyc.gov/enrollment/enroll-grade-by-grade/specialized-high-schools https://www.schools.nyc.gov/enrollment/enroll-grade-by-grade...
      • abakker 2y ago
        This is quite different than the lines people were doing at my high school /s. But seriously, earlier specialization does make sense. American education takes too long to get people into the workforce if you are in liberal arts.
        • deleted 2y ago
          [deleted]
    • 2y ago
• JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > Important to note that this is the only enforcement mechanism. You get put on a naughty list "In 2019...[Assemblyman Phil] Ting tried to push through a bill banning legacy preferences in California. That effort fell short. But he did succeed with a measure requiring private colleges to report to the Legislature how many students they admit because of ties to alumni or donors." This time, "an earlier version [of the bill] had proposed that schools face civil penalties for violating the law, but that provision was removed in the State Senate." This is a battle against powerful people. Wins will be incremental. About the smartest things those opposing this could have done would have been firing up (a) nihilistic elements about how nothing changes and (b) outrage at anything short of an absolute ban with criminal penalties and forced revocation of degrees to legacy graduates or whatever.
  • 0cf8612b2e1e 2y ago
    Do universities keep admissions data at that granular of a level? I would add a generic “culture fit” component to each candidate score which you could use as a hedge to admit legacies without calling them as such.
    • JumpCrisscross 2y ago
      > Do universities keep admissions data at that granular of a level? In my experience, yes. (It's an outright question on many college applications.) But this law, together with the older one, mandate recording and retaining these data. > would add a generic “culture fit” component to each candidate score which you could use as a hedge to admit legacies without calling them as such This is a good way to turn a reporting requirement into criminal conspiracy with intent to defraud the state charges.
      • kurthr 2y ago
        Yeah, I don't think so. There's no paper trail. Whether it's in person interviews or not, having a "culture fit" isn't what's in the law. Unless, allowing in legacies is mandated from above and documented, you're gonna have a hard time showing criminal conspiracy. If the form doesn't allow you to put in "legacy" commentary, there will even be "evidence" that it wasn't. If you want to embarrass them, just do it. Spend the capital (political or otherwise) to put it in the media, but pretending it's going to criminal court is kinda out there without some other political motive. Frankly, there are bigger discrimination problems for qualified applicants than legacy for admissions at the most selective colleges. Certainly, nobody is going to prevent "athletic" ability, "extracurricular" experience, or SAT coaching in admissions.
• hammock 2y ago
  >You get put on a naughty list. Might actually help kids pick where to apply and where not to, in the unintended way. Which institutions are meritocratic at best or "woke captured" at worst, and which are invested in perpetuating a ruling class
• whatever1 2y ago
  They could also stop state backed research funding
  • odo1242 2y ago
    Heck, they could stop administrative fees (fees the university gets to itself) on state backed research funding at legacy schools and it would probably be very effective lol
  • OkayPhysicist 2y ago
    The only private universities in California that are existentially dependent on research funding (unlike, say, LMU, which is basically just an undergrad teaching institution/networking mill) are CalTech, Stanford, and USC, and frankly I don't think anybody's arguing CalTech is doing anything but the most extreme meritocracy in their admissions. Such a law very well could be challenged on it's constitutionality for how laser focused on USC it would be.
• IncreasePosts 2y ago
  The naughty list might actually work if they were required to report a demographic breakdown of the legacy admission as well. It would probably be extremely bad PR to point out 93% of students given a free entry pass were white.
  • WillPostForFood 2y ago
    Stanford 2023 incoming class was 23% white, so the change in legacy policy will primarily impact future non-white children of non-white Stanford graduates. This is a win for fairness, not much more. https://facts.stanford.edu/academics/undergraduate-profile/ https://facts.stanford.edu/academics/undergraduate-profile/
    • IncreasePosts 2y ago
      Sure, but based on when college educated people have their first child on average, the average legacy admitted student in 2024 probably has a parent that graduated in the mid-90s.
      • WillPostForFood 2y ago
        I don't when Stanford started being majority non-white, but at least 20 years ago, and probably in the 90s. It was 41% white in 2006. Whenever the date was, it is a benefit that is been accruing to mostly non-White graduates for a long time, and about the time they get to use it, it is gone. It is good for fairness, but don't know that race should even be a part of the winner/loser discussion.
• deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
• throwawaymaths 2y ago
  Yeah that sucks. I'm all for private institutions doing whatever they feel like, but schools like Stanford get a lot of privileges from the state, e.g. they have a charter of incorporation to have their own city. The state could revoke the city charter and revert jurisprudence to the county, for example.
• yieldcrv 2y ago
  I think reframing it as a consumer protection disclosure is fine Maybe they only way for them to mandate it was to only gain leverage after an action was found, as opposed to forcing them to report the action
• ninetyninenine 2y ago
  It’s possible to sue now. That’s my guess. They just wont get a lawsuit from the DA. For example if I’m a clearly qualified and another person clearly less qualified then me gets in to Stanford but has a father who donated… I can sue for that because the school would be in violation of the law. The listed name will clearly mark the school as a violator of the law.
  • NavinF 2y ago
    What exactly do you sue for? Being poorer isn't a protected class
    • ninetyninenine 2y ago
      The university has a limited amount of spots and illegally denied a position you're qualified for and gave it to someone unqualified. The university broke the law and that affected you. Seek damages.
      • polski-g 2y ago
        "Qualified" is not a protected class. All forms of discrimination are legal, except those that are protected class.
        • ninetyninenine 2y ago
          If I broke the law and someone was damaged based off of the breaking of said law I should owe damages right?
          • lazide 2y ago
            It Depends(tm). Tort and civil law is a large speciality, and there are numerous situations where you might technically win but net zero actual damages. You’d need to talk to a lawyer to get specifics.
    • akamel 2y ago
• TulliusCicero 2y ago
  This is a good incremental step though. Once some colleges are on the list, it'll be easier to stir up some populist rancor.
• RajT88 2y ago
  > Will be interesting to see how important that is to the selective universities in the state. I don’t see how being named and shamed on an official government website is much different than the status quo of being named and shamed in a media report on legacy admissions. That government website will become ammunition for bad press, which will be driven by disgruntled parents (of which there are many). The list itself they don't care about, it'll be the downstream actors who do something with it which will create the problems. Once those problems start landing, the schools will change their behavior to get off that list (but continue their selective admission shenanigans however possible).
  • pyuser583 2y ago
    There are plenty of lists of “bad colleges” that are laughable.
• j45 2y ago
  For all the attention maybe there's changes planned.
• pbreit 2y ago
  Seems strange the government can enforce such a thing on private organizations. How would they even determine? Would need to prove that a legacy is clearly underwhelming. If I ran an organization, I'd probably prefer the ability to accept family members and donors.
• EasyMark 2y ago
  I could see this working for the majority of people who donate money but not millions. If you donate millions your kid will get in, they will find a way.
  • ramraj07 2y ago
    You’d think that but no. IITs in India would be filled with rich kids, India is a fairly corrupt place after all. But with education if you fully standardize all admissions and are strict about identity then you really can clamp down on it.
• lern_too_spel 2y ago
  It's not hard to imagine that there will be a push to include this information in college rankings.
• wombatpm 2y ago
  It will only matter to alumni donors. Friends of mine both graduated from the same institution. Their plan with donations was to use their corporate 3x match plus their own wealth to set their daughters up with admission locks.
• giantg2 2y ago
  Considering that they already publish how many legacy students each university takes each year, this law doesn't really do anything new other that stronger wording.
  • alephnerd 2y ago
    It's a good start. It's paving the road for penalties at a later day. I guarantee you penalties will be added within the next 20-30 years because of the political aspect in California. Us Asians and Latinos are the plurality now and underrepresented in legacy admissions - and it's a single voter issue that could flip entire demographics to vote for a candidate.
• dwighttk 2y ago
  Newsome really seems to be trying to stay in the headlines these days. Seems like a new law notable enough for headlines signed every day the past week or so.
• dlkf 2y ago
  The main difference is that the media report will be read.
• steveBK123 2y ago
  This is, as a left leaning guy myself, one of my general frustrations with our current vintage of progressive thought.. Passing laws with weak enforcement mechanisms that leads to passing more laws with more weak enforcement mechanisms which leads to... You get the drift
• tivert 2y ago
  >> which will punish institutions that flout the law by publishing their names on a California Department of Justice website > Important to note that this is the only enforcement mechanism. You get put on a naughty list. It's official: the word "ban" has lost all meaning, according to the New York Times. You can call anything you want a ban now.
• valval 2y ago
  And of course why should they be able to enforce it? The government should have zero business interfering in private university application processes.