The Future of Legacy at Brown

This week, Brown’s Undergraduate Council of Students (UCS) is voting on a piece of university administration that has been untouched for decades: the role that legacy status should play on admission decisions. A multi-campus platform called #FullDisclosure has brought up the topic of legacy policy on dozens of other universities—advocated for by everything from our very own First-Gens@Brown group to low income and first-gen advocacy groups at Harvard, Swarthmore, and Duke alike.The #FullDisclosure letter points out that by giving preference to students whose parents attended Brown, the admissions process may be perpetuating pre-existing discriminatory practices; if most alumni are wealthy white adults, then their wealthy white children would receive an advantage via legacy beyond any inherent advantages they might have already received. #FullDisclosure argues this is unfair and says that the usual justification for having legacy preference—that it increases alumni donations—is not based in reality.Two notable campuses that don't include legacy preference are Cooper Union and MIT, with endowments of 738 million and 14.8 billion, respectively. However, these two stand alone against thousands of admission committees who think otherwise.Logan Powell, Dean of Admissions here at Brown, counters #FullDisclosure’s points by arguing that legacy students provide a different benefit to the Brown Community: they already have Brown’s values ingrained, reports The Brown Daily Herald. No matter your stance on the issue, it is clear that the impact of Brown's legacy policy is alternately complicated and worth further discussion. One the one hand, by removing legacy status, Brown might be breaking away from higher education standards and risking financial security or campus cohesiveness. Yet, on the other hand, removing said policy could very well be the key to securing fair representation of first-generation, low-income, or other underrepresented students in our community. Whichever way you lean, be sure to vote on what you think is right in this year’s USC Ballot!Image via.