Mass. Legislature Moves to Ban Legacy Preference in College Admissions

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Harvard University would be affected by Massachusetts legislation banning legacy preferences in college admissions. Photo: The Editors.

The Massachusetts Legislature’s Joint Committee on Higher Education yesterday favorably reported “An Act Relative to Equitable Higher Education Admissions Policies,” which would prevent colleges based in the state from giving admissions preferences to those whose parents went to the school.

“When deciding whether to grant admission to an applicant, a degree-granting institution of higher education located in the commonwealth authorized to grant degrees by the board of higher education shall not consider the applicant’s familial relationship to a person who attends or attended the institution,” the legislation says. The law would take effect starting with students being admitted to start in the 2026-2027 academic year.

Regardless of where one stands on the underlying issue, there’s a process dimension to this that highlights a double standard. When the Trump administration or Republicans in Congress press Harvard to crack down against antisemitism, to guard against Chinese Communist Party influence on campus, or to add viewpoint diversity to remedy the stifling ideological conformity, the left cries “McCarthyism” and caterwauls about the supposedly unprecedented infringement on the independence and academic freedom of Harvard and other universities. But when it’s the Democrat-dominated Massachusetts state government trying to make college admissions more merit-based, nobody seems to be complaining.