Wesleyan University in Connecticut is the latest college to end legacy admissions, doing so just after the recent Supreme Court decision that struck down affirmative action. A number of prestigious schools including Johns Hopkins, Carnegie Mellon, and MIT have already ended the legacy admissions policy, which gives an advantage to the children of university alumni. Critics of legacy admissions argue that it tends to favor wealthier, whiter applicants while leaving behind potential first-generation college students. Wesleyan president Michael S. Roth told The New York Times that legacy status has played a “negligible role” in the admissions process at the university but still represented “a sign of unfairness to the outside world.”
