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At a routine hearing at the Joint Committee on Higher Education held in early May, a diverse group of five students gathered to urge the Massachusetts Legislature to ban legacy admissions in the state.

They argued the practice advantages wealthier and whiter students in a time when schools should be doing just the opposite. Luke D.M. Albert ’22-’23, a recent Harvard graduate and a legacy student himself, spoke against the practice in higher education. Albert said he had sometimes wondered whether he had actually been admitted to Harvard on his own merit because of the College’s consideration of legacy.

“They make legacy students question their place in such competitive environments,” Albert said to legislators.

The students, who were from Amherst College, MIT, Harvard, and Northeastern University, represented colleges both with and without legacy admissions policies. All said that such policies are outdated and without value.

Their testimony at the State House marked the start of a monthslong process that the state legislature now begins to vote, amend, and perhaps finally pass a ban on legacy admissions long sought by affirmative action advocates and their peers, targeting some of the most prestigious schools in the country.

‘Fair for Everyone’

Following a surge of admissions-related activism after the Supreme Court’s ban on affirmative action, taking a similar step to end admissions preferences for the relatives of alumni has grown increasingly popular in liberal legislatures across the country. The Supreme Court ruling “opened the door to a new conversation” in eliminating legacy admissions, said Richard D. Kahlenberg ’85, an expert witness for Students for Fair Admissions who has conducted research into legacy admissions.

“There’s a symbiotic relationship between racial preferences and legacy preferences,” he added.

For many, continuing legacy admissions in a post affirmative action world was a double standard.

“It was right after the fall of race-conscious admissions in Supreme Court and students were really fed up with the fact that that that their institutions could no longer consider race in admissions in order to redress centuries of systemic discrimination, yet they could continue to preference students solely on the basis of their of their familial bloodline,” Ryan C. Cieslikowski, a lead organizer at the educational equity activist group Class Action.

In 2024 — less than a year after the Supreme Court decision to ban the use of affirmative action — California, Illinois, Maryland, and Virginia all passed state legislation eliminating legacy admissions to varying degrees, though some of them only apply to public universities.

And more broadly over the past 10 years, 452 colleges have independently stopped considering legacy status, including multiple in the Commonwealth.

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But Massachusetts, a state with one of the highest numbers of colleges to consider legacy status in admissions, has not budged. Nor has Harvard, one of the most visible elite schools to use legacy admissions in the country.

Advocates are hoping this might be the year that will change. In Massachusetts, a proposal to end the practice that failed a year ago in the state legislature has now been brought back, and this time its sponsors are optimistic.

Currently, New York, Minnesota, Rhode Island, and Connecticut have all considered similar legislation over the last year.

“I am confident that we’ll get there,” said State Senator Lydia M. Edwards, a co-sponsor.

“Ending legacy admissions makes sense to me: admission should be based on who the student is not who the student’s parents were,” wrote state Senator William N. Brownsberger ’78, a senior leader in the Senate.

Edwards said reception in the State House has so far been generally favorable, without any organized advocacy against the bill.

Freshman Representative for Lowell, Mass. Tara T. Hong said his colleagues on the Joint Committee on Higher Education seemed interested in the bill, expressing support for it during the May 5 hearing. The previous iteration of the legacy admissions bill passed that committee in 2024, but subsequently died in the Senate Committee on Ways and Means, which acts as the gatekeeper for legislation that will make it to a final vote on the floor.

Hong said the legislation “makes it fair for everyone” to get into college on their own merits.

Hong said the five students who spoke at the hearing convinced him of the bill’s importance, making him “willing to listen more and learn more about the bill.”

The Road Ahead

To pass, the new legacy bill must first go through the Joint Committee on Higher Education, again, and then to one of the chambers’ Committees on Ways and Means, where it was abandoned in the Senate last time.

Once the legacy bill can make it through that crucial juncture, it has a much higher chance of passing both full chambers of the State House.

Last time around, the bill languished in the Joint Committee on Higher Education for months before the session ended, never ultimately making it to a vote. Advocates are more optimistic about the timeline this time, after the House’s recent decision to impose a 60-day deadline for committee votes once a bill has had a hearing.

Since the committee held its oral arguments for the bill on May 5, the house at least will likely make a decision by July 6 at the latest.

When Moran and Edwards proposed the first version of the bill back in 2023, legislators and advocates called only one student, a high school student named Abyssinia Haile, to testify.

This time around, a far wider coalition has formed to support the effort.

Last month, the Massachusetts End Legacy Coalition worked with students to write letters signed by more than 20 prominent state and local organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts, Harvard Black Students Association, Boston City Council President, and the Harvard-Radcliffe Asian American Association. Senator Edwards participated in a panel sponsored by Harvard’s Intellectual Vitality Initiative and hosted by the Black Student Alliance and the Phillips Brooks House.

In a statement to The Crimson, State Representative Marjorie C. Decker wrote that she “personally opposes” legacy admissions, although she did not take a stance on the bill.

“In light of the courts gutting affirmative action, legacy admissions only serve to further amplify the great inequities and disparities in access to higher education for underserved communities,” she wrote.

Despite the general opposition to legacy admissions practices, the bill is not guaranteed, and several major obstacles remain.

For one, the Massachusetts legislature is notoriously slow. Last year, the state entered its fiscal year without a budget for the 14th year in a row. Final votes on legislation are also heavily back loaded to the end of the session, with key votes stalled so long that several carefully crafted proposals failed to pass at the end of the last session because leaders ran out of time.

Though the bill may move more quickly through the House this time around, there is no guarantee that the process will make its way through the rest of the legislative body as swiftly.

And while opposition within the government has yet to arise, there remains time for potential lobbying from the Association of Independent Colleges and Universities in Massachusetts and other higher education institutions interested in keeping their age-old policies.

Even as the legislation finds general support, Edwards said that some representatives may be tentative to impose legislation upon institutes of higher education such as Harvard while it is being “attacked unjustly” by the Trump Administration.

In order to pass the bill, Edwards said that she would be willing to compromise by starting with a less aggressive bill that only targets legacy admissions at public universities.

“If we can’t get to private this year or first, there is also the option of possibly going to public,” she said.

Currently, the University of Massachusetts Boston and Massachusetts Maritime Academy are the only public universities to use legacy admissions in the state.

Though a compromise limiting the bill to public institutions would vastly narrow its impact — UMass Boston and the Maritime Academy already have high acceptance rates — it could help chart the more difficult path of ending the practice at the state’s wealthier and more selective private universities, which run significant lobbying operations.

The legislature may find a considerable base of support from within such elite colleges themselves if the bill does make it over the finish line.

According to both the Crimson’s Class of 2024 and Class of 2025 senior surveys, 57 percent and 54 percent of students respectively opposed legacy admissions, while just 23 percent were in support of the practice.

“In this time when DEI is under attack, Harvard must use every tool possible to create equitable educational opportunity and build a diverse campus, and that includes eliminating legacy and donor preferences,” Jeannie Park ’83, the co-founder of Coalition for a Diverse Harvard, a pro-affirmative action organization wrote in a statement to the Crimson.

Though legacy admissions technically serve the interest of Harvard students — whose potential children would one day benefit if they decided to apply themselves — most Harvard students still oppose legacy admissions on egalitarian principles.

Register said that though she understands Harvard alumni desires to see their children at their alma mater, the practice is ultimately unfair.

“I have nothing against your kids coming to your school and that’s a sense of pride,” Register said. “But it’s when you get the unearned tip because of what, where you were born, who you’re born to.”

—Staff writer Xinni (Sunshine) Chen can be reached at sunshine.chen@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @sunshine_cxn.

—Staff writer Elyse C. Goncalves can be reached at elyse.goncalves@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @e1ysegoncalves.

—Staff writer Graham W. Lee can be reached at graham.lee@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @grahamwonlee.