Momentum for banning legacy admissions practices has seemingly tapered over the past two years, as legislation has stalled in state legislatures, the fate of bipartisan congressional bills is in doubt, and the Trump administration hasn’t indicated any interest in taking up the issue.
Since the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2023 decision striking down race-conscious admissions practices, prominent Democrats and Republicans alike have called for or backed legislation that would restrict public and private institutions from giving admissions preferences to the children of alumni or donors. Proponents have included governors, lawmakers, and even the conservative activist who brought the landmark case.
But passing any legislation through Congress at the moment could be an uphill battle, said James Murphy, a senior fellow at Class Action, a group that advocates for admissions reform.
“I don’t think there’s a question of political will, so much as just the utter paralysis of the U.S. Congress,” said Murphy. “I sit and hope that something will happen that will spark another wave of interest.”
But to date, Murphy noted, that spark hasn’t come from the Trump administration.
Still, given recent bipartisan legislation introduced in the Senate to address legacy admissions, a federal move in the near future is not out of the question, said Frederick Hess, senior fellow and director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, a right-leaning think tank.
Many people are frustrated that well-heeled institutions are collecting federal financial aid while “extending privileges to connected children” so the colleges can secure more donations, Hess said.
“There is a real chance that you could see legislation,” he said, pointing out that there’s common ground on the issue between the “pro-equity left and the populist right.”
Legacy admissions bans appear in doubt in Congress
Legacy admissions practices have been debated since the Civil Rights era of the 1950s and ‘60s, but the Supreme Court’s decision “sparked new interest” in them, Murphy said.
Since that ruling, in fact, legacy admission bans have garnered rare bipartisan support from congressional lawmakers.
A group of senators recently reintroduced the bipartisan Merit Act, which would tie accreditation to colleges having policies that bar preferential treatment to applicants who are related to their alumni or donors. Sens. Todd Young, R-Ind., and Tim Kaine, D-Va., also introduced the proposal in 2023, but it failed to gain traction.
The reintroduction of the MERIT Act “is encouraging” and signals bipartisan support for eliminating legacy admission policies, Murphy said in an email. But he added he’s not optimistic that it will become law without public support from the White House.
Another Senate bill introduced by Sens. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., and John Kennedy, R-La., last year would bar colleges with legacy admissions from receiving federal financial aid. A companion bill was introduced in the House shortly after by Reps. Summer Lee, D-Pa., and Young Kim, R-Calif.
“Children of donors and alumni may be excellent, well-qualified students,” Merkley said in announcing the Senate version. “But the fact is they are the last people who should get an additional leg up in the complicated and competitive college admissions process.”
Edward Blum, the conservative activist who brought the case to the Supreme Court that successfully challenged race-conscious admissions, called on Congress to pass legislation phasing out legacy and donor admission preferences.
“Preferences for the children of alumni and major donors have become a quiet, but consequential, form of advantage,” Blum wrote in an April column he co-authored with Young for the National Review.
“I don’t think there’s a question of political will, so much as just the utter paralysis of the U.S. Congress.”
James Murphy
Senior fellow, Class Action
Robert Kelchen, a professor and head of University of Tennessee, Knoxville’s educational leadership and policy studies department, said he believes a legacy admissions ban would pass if it came to a vote as a standalone bill in Congress, as the practice is viewed as benefiting people who have power and privilege.
“In an era where we have populists on both the left and the right, restricting legacy admissions creates some interesting coalitions,” said Kelchen.
But it’s a challenge to find the right legislative vehicle to put it in, Kelchen said. Congress has passed relatively little legislation in recent years, largely limited to budget bills, he said.
A legacy admissions ban could potentially be included in a large budget bill. For instance, the FAFSA Simplification Act — legislation that streamlined the form for students applying for federal financial aid — was included in a major government funding bill signed into law in late 2020.
But since a legacy admissions ban lacks a direct fiscal impact,that option is unlikely, Kelchen said in an interview.
After the Merit Act was reintroduced, Kelchen said in an email that he still doesn’t think major legislation will pass gIven how few legislative working days remain on the congressional calendar and the need to prioritize passing a budget.
Institutions resist state bans
Following the 2023 Supreme Court ruling, many elite institutions stated they would examine their admissions policies and eliminate barriers to enrolling a diverse class, said Murphy. Those included Harvard, Yale and Brown universities.
Indeed, data shows many institutions did roll back their policies. By 2025, 62 public colleges and universities and 358 private institutions had legacy admissions preferences, the nonprofit Education Reform Now stated in a report. This means at least 92 colleges had scrapped the practice since the 2023 Supreme Court ruling, including high-profile institutions Carnegie Mellon University and Wesleyan University in 2023.
But few elite institutions were among those that did so, said Murphy.
Earlier this year, a Yale report concluded, among other things, that the institution’s legacy preferences contributed to the growing distrust in academia. Yale’s president asked a committee to examine the distrust issue in 2025.
“When selective admissions seem so inexplicable — or, worse, tilted in ways that benefit the already advantaged — it should come as no surprise that many Americans do not trust the process,” the Yale report said.
States, however, have also taken on the issue. Since 2023, four states — California, Maryland, Illinois and Virginia — restricted or banned legacy admissions after Colorado became the first to pass such legislation in 2021.
In 2024, then-Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, a Republican, signed a bill passed by the state’s Democratic-controlled Legislature that banned public institutions from giving admission preferences to legacy applicants, arguing he supported merit-based admissions.
When signing California’s ban on legacy admissions that same year, Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, argued in a statement that everyone in the state “should be able to get ahead through merit, skill, and hard work.”
But California’s ban, which took effect in fall 2025, did not stop Stanford University from maintaining its legacy preferences, opting for the measure’s punishment that restricts them from receiving state financial aid. The university is using its own scholarship funding to cover the gap.
In a 2020 compliance report to the state’s Legislature, Stanford defended its inclusion of notes in applicant files indicating whether they had legacy status by stating that the philanthropy the university receives plays “a significant role” in supporting opportunities for all of its students, including those who receive need-based financial aid to attend.
However, Stanford said, students weren’t admitted based on legacy status alone.
“If an applicant to Stanford is not highly competitive academically, an existing family connection or historical giving to the university means nothing in the process,” Stanford stated in the report.
“In an era where we have populists on both the left and the right, restricting legacy admissions creates some interesting coalitions.”
Robert Kelchen
Professor, University of Tennessee, Knoxville
Meanwhile, several states where Ivy League institutions are located — including Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Rhode Island and New Jersey — have not passed measures that were introduced in their legislatures. Higher education experts attribute that lack of action to lobbying efforts by elite institutions.
Since 2023, Massachusetts’ Democratic-controlled state Senate hasn’t advanced bills that would restrict legacy admissions to a floor vote. The latest bill has been stalled since last year at the Senate’s Ways and Means Committee, where Murphy said he believes it will remain due to suspected lobbying from institutions such as Harvard.
Elite institutions often have strong influence on alumni who are in important roles — such as being state legislators — creating hurdles to passing such bans, Hess said.
Harvard did not respond to requests for comment about whether it lobbied against the bill in Massachusetts and if it planned to eliminate its legacy preferences.
Massachusetts State Senate President Karen Spilka, a Cornell University graduate, also did not respond to questions about why the bill has not been taken up on the floor or if lobbying by Harvard impacted its status.
Kelchen agreed that universities, particularly those in the Northeast, often have strong lobbies that push back against proposed legacy admission bans. That’s because legacy preferences often help secure loyalty and future gifts from their donors, and they fear state oversight could limit their ability to control their operations, he added.
“It’s not going to happen here,” said Murphy, regarding the Massachusetts bill. “It’s not allowed to reach a vote because I think if it gets a vote, it passes.”
No signs of interest from the White House
Whether the Trump administration will address legacy admissions through an executive order or rulemaking is up in the air, said Kelchen. The administration has generally been willing to issue executive orders and has had populist tendencies, but legacy admissions so far hasn’t been a priority for Trump officials, he said.
The higher education policy landscape has changed over the past three years, Hess pointed out. The Trump administration has made many policy changes related to issues such as civil rights enforcement, student lending and scientific research, he said.
“There’s less bandwidth for anyone concerned than there was three years ago,” said Hess.
Last year, for example, the U.S. Department of Education introduced a plan to require four-year colleges to report a wide range of admissions and applicant data broken down by race and sex.
But the new reporting requirements did not include reporting on the number of colleges’ legacy applicants and enrollees, demonstrating the administration wasn’t interested in taking on the issue, said Murphy.
The Trump administration said it intended to use the data to determine whether colleges were violating the 2023 Supreme Court ruling. But without that legacy data, the public won’t have a full understanding of the impact that race has on the admissions process, given legacy applicants are “overwhelmingly White,” he said.
“This level of transparency is great. I fully support it,” said Murphy. But the lack of legacy data is “a huge problem because that skews an understanding of who’s enrolled in any class.”
However, in April, a federal judge blocked the administration from collecting data from public institutions in 17 states. The judge later expanded that order to include dozens of other colleges.
The White House and the Education Department did not respond to questions about whether it planned to try and ban legacy admissions or why legacy applicant data wasn’t included in the new component.
Murphy speculated the administration’s lack of interest on the issue stems from Trump being a part of that “world of privilege” where wealthy individuals are able to use their influence for an edge or favors, he said.
In general, the legacy admissions debate “disproportionately takes up space in politicians’ minds,” given it affects just a few thousand students, said Kelchen.
Still, the issue will continue to be taken up by politicians down the road, with additional states likely passing restrictions, he said.
“But barring some big action at the federal level, I don’t think we’re going to see major changes,” said Kelchen.
