Camille Faivre brings a sharp, analytical lens to the shifting foundations of American higher education. As an expert in education management, she has witnessed firsthand how the 2023 Supreme Court decision on race-conscious admissions has reverberated through campus boardrooms and legislative halls alike. Her work focuses on the intersection of institutional stability and the growing demand for transparency in a post-pandemic world, where the promise of meritocracy often clashes with the reality of inherited privilege. Today, she navigates the complex web of legacy admissions, exploring why the momentum for reform seems to have hit a wall of political gridlock and institutional pushback despite a rare, simmering consensus across the ideological spectrum.
Despite the bipartisan energy surrounding the Merit Act and similar federal proposals, we are seeing a sense of “utter paralysis” in Congress. Why is this legislation failing to gain traction even with backing from both the pro-equity left and the populist right?
The legislative stagnation we are witnessing is less about a lack of political will and more about the structural gridlock that has come to define our current era of governance. Even though figures across the political spectrum agree that well-heeled institutions shouldn’t be extending privileges to connected children while collecting federal financial aid, the actual mechanisms for passing a standalone bill are incredibly narrow. We have seen the Merit Act reintroduced with bipartisan support from senators in Indiana and Virginia, yet it struggles to find a legislative vehicle because it lacks a direct fiscal impact that would allow it to be tucked into a budget bill. There is a palpable sense of frustration because the “pro-equity left” wants to dismantle systemic advantages, while the “populist right” is eager to challenge the perceived elitism of these institutions, yet they cannot find a way to break through the noise of competing priorities. Without a significant “spark” or a forceful public endorsement from the highest levels of the executive branch, these bills often wither on the vine as Congress focuses on immediate budgetary deadlines.
In the wake of the 2023 Supreme Court ruling, we saw a brief wave of institutions voluntarily rolling back legacy preferences, but that momentum seems to have slowed. How do you interpret the data showing that while 92 colleges have scrapped the practice, hundreds of others—including most elite universities—are holding firm?
It is a tale of two academic worlds where the mid-tier and smaller institutions are leading the way while the elite guard remains deeply entrenched. By 2025, the landscape shows that 62 public colleges and 358 private institutions are still clinging to legacy preferences, which suggests that the “quiet, consequential form of advantage” remains a cornerstone of their institutional strategy. While high-profile names like Carnegie Mellon and Wesleyan made headlines by dropping the practice in 2023, the Ivy League and similar tier-one schools have largely resisted, often citing the role of philanthropy in supporting opportunities for all students. There is an underlying fear that removing these preferences would sever the ties of loyalty that lead to massive donations, which these schools argue are necessary to fund need-based financial aid. This creates a defensive posture where institutions like Yale acknowledge that legacy status contributes to a “growing distrust in academia,” yet they are slow to implement the sweeping changes needed to restore that public faith.
California and Virginia recently joined the list of states banning legacy admissions in public and even some private institutions. However, we see institutions like Stanford choosing to forfeit state financial aid rather than comply—what does this tell us about the power dynamics between state governments and elite private universities?
The situation with Stanford is a fascinating case study in institutional autonomy and the sheer weight of private endowments. When California’s ban took effect in the fall of 2025, Stanford essentially called the state’s bluff by opting for the measure’s punishment—losing state financial aid—and simply filling that gap with its own internal scholarship funds. This move sends a powerful, almost defiant message: for an institution with sufficient wealth, state-level “merit” mandates are merely a financial cost to be managed rather than a moral or legal directive to be followed. Stanford has defended its process by stating that if an applicant isn’t “highly competitive academically,” a family connection means nothing, yet the very act of including notes on legacy status in a file suggests it remains a tie-breaker at the highest levels. This tension reveals that state legislation may be effective for public universities, but for the wealthiest private schools, these laws are often viewed as suggestions that can be bypassed with a large enough checkbook.
We often hear that the debate over legacy admissions disproportionately occupies the minds of politicians given that it only affects a few thousand students. From an education management perspective, why is this issue so culturally and politically explosive if the raw numbers are relatively small?
The intensity of this debate isn’t about the raw number of students; it is about the symbolic integrity of the “American Dream” and the perceived fairness of our gatekeeping institutions. When the public sees selective admissions as a process that is “tilted in ways that benefit the already advantaged,” it erodes the foundational trust that higher education is a ladder for social mobility. We are in an era where the coalition of the populist right and the pro-equity left finds common ground in their disdain for “connected children” getting an extra leg up in an increasingly competitive environment. Even though the actual number of legacy enrollees might be small in the grand scheme of the millions of students in the system, those few thousand spots are at the most influential institutions in the world. For many, this isn’t just about a seat in a classroom; it’s about who gets access to the networks of power and whether those networks are closed loops for the wealthy.
In the Northeast, particularly in states like Massachusetts and Connecticut where many Ivy League schools are located, legacy ban bills have stalled despite being introduced multiple times. What role is institutional lobbying playing in keeping these measures from reaching a floor vote?
The lobbying efforts in the Northeast are incredibly sophisticated and deeply integrated into the local political fabric. In Massachusetts, for example, the Democratic-controlled state Senate has yet to advance a bill to a floor vote, with many experts suspecting that institutions like Harvard exert significant influence through alumni who now serve as state legislators. These universities are not just schools; they are some of the largest employers and economic engines in their respective states, giving them immense leverage over the legislative process. There is a prevailing sentiment among higher education experts that if these bills were allowed to reach a vote, they would likely pass, but they are “not allowed” to reach that stage due to committee-level maneuvering. It’s a classic example of institutional self-preservation, where the schools fear that state oversight could eventually limit their broader ability to control their own operations and donor relationships.
The Department of Education recently introduced new reporting requirements for admissions data but notably excluded legacy status from the required metrics. What are the practical consequences of this lack of transparency for the public’s understanding of the admissions landscape?
The exclusion of legacy data from federal reporting requirements is a significant setback for those seeking a true picture of how race and class intersect in the admissions process. While the administration is pushing for more transparency regarding the race and sex of enrollees to monitor the impact of the 2023 Supreme Court ruling, the lack of legacy data means we are missing a critical piece of the puzzle. As many advocates point out, legacy applicants are “overwhelmingly White,” and without that data, any analysis of a school’s demographic shift is fundamentally incomplete. This “huge problem” with transparency prevents the public from seeing how much of a class is composed of individuals who received a preference that has nothing to do with their own merit. By not requiring this data, the government is essentially allowing a “quiet” advantage to remain hidden from the same level of scrutiny applied to other demographic factors.
A federal judge recently blocked the administration from collecting even the basic admissions data in 17 states, with that order later expanding to dozens of other colleges. How does this legal pushback complicate the effort to create a more meritocratic system?
This judicial intervention creates a fragmented and inconsistent landscape where the “transparency” we crave is subject to the geographical location of the institution. When a judge blocks the collection of data across dozens of colleges, it effectively creates dark zones where the public and the government have no way of knowing if the 2023 ruling is being honored or circumvented. This legal hurdle, combined with the administration’s general lack of appetite for making legacy admissions a priority, means we are likely to see a “wild west” of admissions policies for the foreseeable future. For proponents of a merit-based system, this is deeply discouraging because it suggests that the tools for accountability are being dismantled before they can even be fully utilized. It reinforces the idea that for many institutions, the admissions process will remain a “black box” that prioritizes institutional stability over public accountability.
What is your forecast for the future of legacy admissions over the next few years?
I believe we are entering a period of “asymmetric reform” where the gap between public perception and institutional practice continues to widen. While we will likely see more states like Illinois or Maryland pass their own restrictions, the federal government will remain largely sidelined by “utter paralysis” and a lack of executive interest. The real change will happen incrementally at the institutional level, driven by the “growing distrust” mentioned in reports like Yale’s; eventually, the reputational cost of maintaining these preferences may outweigh the financial benefits of donor loyalty. However, barring a massive, unforeseen federal action or a significant shift in the White House’s priorities, I expect the elite “world of privilege” to remain largely intact, with a few high-profile schools making symbolic changes while the broader system of donor-and-alumni preference persists in the shadows. The struggle for a truly meritocratic admissions process is far from over, and it will likely be fought state-by-state and donor-by-donor for years to come.
