The Truth About Legacies

After an initial burst of indignation at the Supreme Court for taking on the unpleasant task of informing college admissions offices that race discrimination is unconstitutional, the media’s main focus quickly shifted to their favorite topic: blaming White men.

True, it was going to be difficult to turn a case finally ending 50 years of discrimination against Whites into a story about how Whites are oppressing Blacks, but you don’t know our media. The fact that the plaintiffs in this case were Asian didn’t even slow them down.

Within hours, everybody was talking about “legacies.” The children of alumni are apparently the ne plus ultra of Whiteness. The New York Times called them “White, wealthy and well-connected.” And that’s how “legacy” entered the vocabulary as an epithet for White men, joining “frat boys,” “rich,” “privileged,” “Chads” and “lacrosse players.”

Unfortunately, much like #BlackLivesMatter, this latest orgy of hatred for Whites is going to end up hurting Black people the most.

We have been assured that preferences for the children of alumni are exactly like racial preferences for Blacks and Hispanics — except given to Whites. Thus, Kenny Xu, one of the plaintiffs in the affirmative action case, sneered that preferences for legacies “disproportionately privilege White applicants.” (These aren’t your allies, White people.)

Then, days after the decision was announced, race activists filed a complaint against Harvard for giving preference to the children of alumni, saying that legacy admissions have “nothing to do with an applicant’s merit” and were “an unfair and unearned benefit.”

Let’s look at how big a “benefit” being a legacy actually is.

Comparing three preferences given to college applicants — legacies, athletes and Blacks/Hispanics — the children of alumni got the smallest boost, according to a 2007 Princeton study of 4,000 students entering 28 selective colleges in 1999. A majority of legacy admissions had SATs above their college’s average. Even those below the average were only slightly below it, 47 points out of a possible 1,600.

By contrast, 77% of Blacks and Hispanics had scores below their college’s average, and 70% of athletes did. Combined, their average gap was 108 points.

A 2009 Harvard study found that legacy applicants to the top 30 most selective colleges had a mean score 10 points higher on the reading SAT than non-legacy applicants and six points higher on the math SAT.

About a decade later, Naviance, a college software provider, examined 15,402 legacy applications from 2014-17 and found that 82% of legacy applicants have SAT or ACT scores at or above their colleges’ average for accepted students.

Apparently, the dumb kids of alumni don’t bother applying to their parents’ schools, and the smart kids are pressured into applying, even if their academic qualifications are good enough to get them into a better school.

The Harvard study also found that the legacy preference is strongest for applicants with perfect SAT scores. (In 2007, Harvard rejected more than a thousand applicants with perfect math SAT scores; Princeton rejected thousands of students with perfect GPAs.)

For the past week, the media have bombarded us with data claiming exactly the opposite — that being a legacy confers a huge advantage, comparable to that given to Blacks and Hispanics simply for being Black or Hispanic. You will notice that these claims never refer to the “children of alumni” in isolation. Legacies are invariably thrown in with other, completely different categories, like “whose parents donated money,” “athletes” or “children of university employees.”

E.g.:

“Most colleges have long resisted eliminating a much-criticized admission practice: giving a boost to the children of alumni, donors and faculty.” — The New York Times, June 30, 2023

“[One] analysis found that 43% of Harvard’s white admits in 2019 were legacy students, recruited athletes, children of faculty and staff or were applicants affiliated with donors.” — USA Today Online, July 3, 2023

“The records revealed that 70% of Harvard’s donor-related and legacy applicants are white.” — The Associated Press, July 3, 2023

Grouping dissimilar things together can give you any statistic you want. Dozens of humans are killed every year by grizzly bears and Dachshunds.

The grizzly bear in these lists is “donor-related.”

I hold no brief for legacies, but I do know that I.Q. is heritable, and the kids of alumni are in a wholly different category from the kids of big donors. One is Aage Bohr, who won the Nobel Prize for Physics 53 years after his father, Niels, did. (They are among seven parent/child Nobel winners in the sciences.)

The other is Jared Kushner, whose father bought his kid’s way into Harvard, despite his not being remotely qualified, as a “track 3” high school student. (By the way, Republicans, your outrage at Hunter Biden’s criminality would be more credible if you ever mentioned the $2 billion Jared got from the Saudis.)

If Harvard didn’t discriminate on the basis of race, instead of a student body that is about 43% White, 19% Asian, 11% Black and 10% Hispanic, it would be 43% Asian, 38% White, 0.7% Black, and 2.4% Hispanic, a 2013 study by the university found.

If Harvard didn’t discriminate in favor of legacies, the average SAT score of its undergrads would be lower, as some perfect-scoring alum kids go elsewhere.

As much fun as you’re having bashing Whites, media, the boost given to legacies is not in the same universe as the preferences given to Black and Hispanic students. On the other hand, judging by Jared Kushner, the preference given to the kids of big donors is every bit as humongous as the affirmative action “plus factor,” but it would take the U.S. Marines to get colleges to cough up that information.

Ironically, getting rid of preferences for legacies will hurt Black applicants the most. Recall that colleges have been giving gigantic racial preferences to Black applicants since the 1960s, which means we have more than half a century of Black graduates whose children and grandchildren are … guess what? Legacies!

Children of alums who got in to college on the basis of anything other than merit, as a group, will tend to be less qualified than the children of alums who got in on merit.

Get rid of the legacy preference, and it’s the kids of affirmative action alums who won’t get in.

     COPYRIGHT 2023 ANN COULTER

 

10 replies
  1. GirlinTexas
    GirlinTexas says:

    Sooner or later, whites will have to come to the conclusion that, as a group, we have no real allies in this world. We are judged, by today’s standards, for past actions, also committed on every corner of this earth, by people everywhere else. I find it ironic that, despite our dreadful behavior, every non-European group in existence clamors to live in our evil, oppressive societies. They pay no mind as they travel by air or automobile, typing on tablets, that connect to the ether, as if by magic, that their lives are better today for what the evil white man has been up to throughout the years past and present. At this point, I, for one, would like to send Asians back to Asia, Africans back to Africa, Mexicans back to Mexico, Arabs back to Arabia and let the chips fall where they may. And, let’s see what happens.

  2. Mungoman
    Mungoman says:

    Well, as long as this “holy semen” doesn’t flow into Ayan women, I don’t give a damn!

    https://www.bild.de/news/inland/news-inland/berlin-rabbiner-soll-mehr-als-15-frauen-in-gemeinde-sexuell-ausgenutzt-haben-84536302.bild.html

    He spoke of his “holy semen”: Rabbi allegedly sexually exploited more than 15 women

    For years, he was outwardly a respected rabbi of the Jewish community in Berlin. But as several women have now reported independently of each other, he allegedly sexually exploited members of his congregation in rows over a period of years.

    Alleged victims report that he always chose Russian-speaking women, mostly of Jewish origin, who had no deep religious education due to their socialization in the former Soviet Union and had come to Germany alone. He then told them pseudo-religious nonsense to get them to perform sexual acts.

    He is said to have told women whose sons he had just circumcised that he had to massage their breasts to improve the flow of milk. To those who did not have a husband, he is said to have told them they needed to receive his “holy seed” to prepare for marriage and to “repair” and “purify” them. He would also have to massage them “from within” to improve their “chakra.” Also, the Savior, the “Messiah,” could only come if they made love to him.

    When he lost his sexual interest, he is said to have urged them to marry other men – preferably far away, in other countries.

    If the accusations were true, the rabbi would not only have incurred human and moral guilt, but would also have completely violated Jewish religious laws: Among strictly religious Jews, premarital sexual contact is absolutely taboo. A man may not even shake hands with a woman who is not his wife.

    Shockingly, there were already charges against the rabbi in 2008 and 2020. But the Berlin prosecutor’s office stopped everything. After all, many of the accusations fall into the spectrum ” abuse of power,” and that is often not punishable. Only after a woman had now turned in a detailed letter to the Jewish community, showed chat messages, the rabbi was fired.

    The Jewish Community of Berlin now promised the women “full support” in the clarification. Its synagogue was temporarily closed. A religious court, the so-called “Beit Din” (“Court House”) is to clarify whether he will be stripped of his rabbinical dignity. One of the judges-rabbis had already publicly told the “Jüdische Allgemeine” in advance that the accusations of the numerous women were very serious and shocking.

    As BILD learned, 17 women were heard on July 2 and 3 for the alleged sexual assaults. The accused rabbi himself canceled two hours before his hearing by calling in sick. The court offered him a new date of July 13.

    Until then, the “Beit Din” informed the women concerned, the following recommendation of the chief rabbis would apply: after hearing the women concerned, the rabbi should no longer hold any religious office on the basis of Jewish religious law (“Halacha”) until the allegations have been clarified.

    Someone who was well connected in the Jewish community told BILD: “The whole thing is a scandal. There had been rumors about him for a long time, I first heard about it in 2005. You’d think no one wanted the matter to become public knowledge.”

    The Berlin community’s press office says: “The acting board of the Jewish Community of Berlin only recently became aware of the allegations against the rabbi. In view of the seriousness of the accusations, the board was shocked and indignant and had immediately released the rabbi and finally terminated him without notice effective May 31. Since he has filed an action for protection against dismissal against this, we ask for your understanding that we cannot currently comment on the details of the allegations as well as the number of victims involved.”

    In response to a BILD inquiry, a lawyer for the rabbi contacted BILD, threatening legal action if it were reported. His client denied any accusations.The whole thing was character assassination, he said, and the client had already been the victim of a knife attack in the aftermath, he had been stabbed, and charges had been filed because of it. However, no bodily injury was reported to the police, as BILD learned there on inquiry.

    On Facebook, he also showed that he is not aware of any guilt.When the accusations became public, the rabbi posted on Facebook in Russian on June 16: “Even if you are very talented and work hard, some results just take time: you won’t have a child in a month, even if you get nine women pregnant.”Then, still on June 23, the rabbi wrote: “A successful man is the one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks that others have thrown at him. (…) It is impossible to defeat a person who never gives up!”

    Space Project leader and community member Elena Eyngorn (41): “He really thinks he can take us all down. He’s threatening women that he has video footage from back then that he’ll release. But we keep going. I have spoken to a total of 18 women who were victims. Many are married now and are afraid that their husbands will find out. Now the religious court, the Beit Din, is to decide.”

    https://www.jta.org/2023/06/15/global/a-berlin-rabbi-has-been-fired-amid-mounting-allegations-that-he-preyed-on-young-women

  3. Birhan Dargey
    Birhan Dargey says:

    The population that benefited most from Affirmative Action were JEWS (Ron Unz). Many of them as Jared Kushner were/are UNqualify, scoring below Asians/Indians/gentile WHITES. The questions must be why are Blacks/Hispanics are NOT ready for University Work.?..The answer is more tan obvious, the dismal failure of the American Educational Secondary System. The Teachers Unions are more interested on gay/homo/pedo/lgbt policies than in teaching Math/Sciences/English/Reading/Writing/Civics…99% of Detroit High School Graduates were functionally ILLITERATES. Similar statics are the norm across the USA…BLACKS/HISPANICS MUST fight for VOUCHER SCHOOLSA, PRIVATE ACADEMIES, etc Otherwise they will lose the future.

      • Birhan Dargey
        Birhan Dargey says:

        Dr. MacDonald sir: So the other half have higher IQs? how high? who? where? What do you/country do with that population below IQ 85 ?? My question is what are the IQ variations among Africans/Blacks people? Then what explains high IQ blacks? factors? purely genetics?? Do Northern Africans have higher IQs than Sub/Saharan Africans?? Why?? Is there an IQ map/census/statistics about African/USA blacks ?? regional? each country? each state? will AI Bioengineering Transhumanism end the IQ debate?

  4. Will Williams
    Will Williams says:

    “If Harvard didn’t discriminate on the basis of race, instead of a student body that is about 43% White, 19% Asian, 11% Black and 10% Hispanic, it would be 43% Asian, 38% White, 0.7% Black, and 2.4% Hispanic, a 2013 study by the university found…”

    Good try, Ann, honey. You know what they say about liars using statistics.
    This study is ten years old and doesn’t mention Jews. Though you don’t use the “J”-word, you at least mention Jared Kushner who was obviously counted among Harvard’s “White” students when he graduated in 2003..

    Jews don’t count the Jareds and his Jew classmates as White

    Undergraduate Enrollment
    700 Jewish Students (9.9%*) of 7,095 Students *Percent of population

    Graduate Enrollment
    2,500 Jewish Students (52.7%*) of 4,748 Students *Percent of population
    https://www.hillel.org/college/harvard-university/

    The Jerusalem Posts claims that Jews are a whopping 25% of Harvard’s student body: https://www.jpost.com/Diaspora/The-most-heavily-Jewish-US-college-and-other-facts-about-Jews-at-American-colleges-437701

    Which Jews to believe? Regardless, what percentage of Harvard’s student body are actually “non-Hispanic” Whites?

  5. willful knowledge
    willful knowledge says:

    Your Judenhass is showing. The difference is that Jared Kushner’s deal was legal.

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