Last admissions cycle, Claremont McKenna College gave preferential status to 15 legacy applicants.
Governor Gavin Newsom signing a bill into law (credit: Armenian American Museum)
On Monday, September 30, Governor Gavin Newsom signed AB1780, which prohibits private colleges and universities from offering admissions preferences to applicants who have a relationship to alumni of the schools. The new law, which was supported by a host of civil rights groups and the Associated Students of Stanford University, will take effect September 1 of next year. This means that the ban is expected to be reflected in the class of 2030 at the earliest.
In signing the bill, Gov. Newsom stated that he was “opening the door to higher education wide enough for everyone, fairly.”
An earlier version of the law required violating colleges to pay fines equal to state support in Cal Grants. However, the Association of Independent California Colleges and Universities (AICCU), an organization that represents all of the Claremont Colleges and over 85 institutions in total, fought successfully to have the provision removed. Those who refuse to comply will have their names published on a California Department of Justice website.
The public University of California system eliminated legacy admissions in 1998. Such preferences are rare at public institutions but are still very much the norm at selective private ones—California is only the second state after Maryland to ban the practice at private colleges.
In doing so, the state government joins a nationwide backlash against legacy policies following the Supreme Court’s ruling against considering race as a factor in admissions. In contrast to race-based preferences, legacy policies mainly benefit white and wealthy students.
According to the 2024 AICCU report on admissions practices, Claremont McKenna College (CMC) gave 15 applicants, or 2.3 percent of its fall 2023 admitted class, “preferential treatment” for legacy applicants. It is one of only six AICCU undergraduate-serving institutions, along with the University of Southern California (USC), Stanford University, and Harvey Mudd College, that admitted to the practice in the report, although the 2023-2024 Common Data Set for Scripps College indicates that it too considered alumni relations as a factor in admissions for the class of 2027.
Colleges have argued that legacy preferences increase student campus engagement and help sustain alumni donations, though there is mixed evidence regarding the latter. Despite having steadily reduced the number of legacy students it has admitted in recent years, CMC had its most successful fundraising campaign just last fall, raising $1.1 billion and being the first liberal arts college to surpass $1 billion in a single campaign.
While USC stated that it will comply with the ban, Stanford did not comment on its compliance plans. In a statement to the Stanford Daily, it noted that it will “continue to review its admissions policies.”
CMC spokesperson Gilien Silsby declined The Forum’s request for comment.
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