California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) signed a bill Monday that bans the use of “legacy” preference in admissions, as well as preference for the children of donors, in colleges and universities in the state, both public and private.
The bill, AB 1780, “would prohibit, commencing September 1, 2025, an independent institution of higher education, as defined, from providing a legacy preference or donor preference in admissions, as defined, to an applicant as part of the regular or early action admissions process.” It requires colleges and universities to submit an annual report on whether they are in compliance.
Curiously, there are no penalties for noncompliance, except being listed as in violation.
CalMatters.org reported:
The state joins a rarefied group of four others that have passed laws banning legacy admissions. Colleges will still be allowed to admit students with alumni or donor ties, but they’ll no longer be able to grant preferential treatment to those applicants in the admissions process.
“In California, everyone should be able to get ahead through merit, skill, and hard work,” Newsom wrote in a press statement. “The California Dream shouldn’t be accessible to just a lucky few, which is why we’re opening the door to higher education wide enough for everyone, fairly.”
The new law is a reaction to the Supreme Court’s decision in 2023 barring the use of race in college admissions, in Students for Fair Admissions v. Presidents and Fellows of Harvard College and Students for Fair Admissions v. University of North Carolina.
The use of race was already outlawed by California’a Proposition 209 of 1996, which was reaffirmed by voters in 2020 in rejecting Proposition 16, which would have rolled Proposition 209 back.
As a result of that, CalMatters.org notes, and due to the fact that public universities in the state do not use legacy admissions anyway, the new law “will affect just a few campuses in California.”
Like many other laws Newsom has signed, including a recent apology for slavery (despite California having entered the Union as a free state), the goal is apparently to set an example that Democrats in California hope the rest of the nation will follow.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days, available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.