Re: Farr: Preserving Tradition While Advancing Equity Through Legacy Admissions
In defending legacy preferences, Grace Farr ’24 writes that there is a symbiotic relationship between legacy preferences and diversity. Her argument seems to be that because Dartmouth has increased enrollment of minorities, those increases are tied to the College’s tradition of favoring white, privileged students. Somehow, legacy preferences will eventually accrue to benefit subsequent generations of minorities. This symbiotic supposition conflates correlation and causation, and, as Farr acknowledges, legacy preferences have historically favored affluent, white applicants at the expense of minorities.
Suggesting that preserving the College’s tradition of extending admissions’ preferences for legacy applicants advances the goal of equity is like promoting the idea that one can lose weight by slowly dismembering one’s body. Paraphrasing an old airline commercial from 1963, “Is this really any way to run a college admissions policy?”
Even if one accepts the proposition that traditions are an important aspect of the college experience, it is by no means clear why second and third generations of legacies propagate those traditions more faithfully than newcomers.
Then, of course, there are some traditions that should be killed off anyway. After 203 years as an all-male bastion, Dartmouth thankfully opened its door to women in 1972.
Dartmouth, along with many of its peers, began extending legacy preferences to WASPs in the early twentieth century as one part of an overall policy to exclude Jewish students. That ugly tradition is not any prettier today even though the brand of pig and shade of lipstick may have changed.
Nineteen years ago, I wrote an op-ed for this newspaper urging the College to drop legacy preferences. Dartmouth was on the wrong side of the admissions' fence then as it is today. Admissions decisions should be based on merit, not birthright.
Patrick Mattimore is a member of the Class of 1972. Letters to the Editor represent the views of their author(s), which are not necessarily those of The Dartmouth.
