Stanford community split over California ban on legacy admissions preferences

Stanford community members remain divided over California’s recent ban on legacy preferences in admissions, citing mental health impacts, alumni donations and admissions equity in their support and skepticism. 

The recently passed State Assembly Bill (AB) 1780 bans the practice of preferential admissions for legacy and donor students at private California universities. The bill was signed into law by Gov. Gavin Newsom on Sept. 30 on the heels of the Supreme Court’s ruling against race-conscious admissions last June.

University spokesperson Dee Mostofi wrote in an email to The Daily that the legislation will not take effect until September 2025, first impacting the admissions cycle for the Class of 2030, and that “during that time, Stanford will continue to review its admissions policies.” 

Members of Class Action, a national organization opposed to legacy admissions, have advocated for the bill for months now and were excited about its eventual benefits. Sophie Callcott ’24, a legacy student and a part of Class Action, expressed her support for the decision, noting potential benefits for students’ mental health. 

“For legacy students, it’s a fantastic thing to have legacy admissions abolished, to not have that consideration in your profile anymore,” Callcott said. “It alleviates that imposter syndrome, that stress of, ‘do I deserve to be here?’”

Current ASSU president Diego Kagurabadza ’25 authored a bill in May expressing support for AB 1780. The bill was passed by the Undergraduate Senate (UGS).

“I remember being really nervous about introducing it because it recommended the elimination of legacy preferences, which I knew could be controversial,” Kagurabadza said. “But when we brought it up, I found that the majority of people were actually on our side, and so I felt comforted by that fact and we decided to push forward.”

Some alumni have expressed support for the ban. Alumnus and businessman Stan Polovets ’90 recently took to LinkedIn to share his thoughts on AB 1780. The post, which outlined his support for the ban despite his high school daughter’s decreased chances of admission, amassed over 3,000 reactions. He said many of his friends who graduated from top universities echoed his thoughts. 

“We made it on our own, so should our kids,” Polovets told the Daily. “This is especially true as it pertains to immigrants who had to work their tails off to get into the Stanfords and Harvards of this world.”

AB 1780 also rules out preferential admissions for children of non-alumni donors. However, after universities such as Johns Hopkins, CalTech and Massachusetts Institute of Technology stopped the practice of legacy admissions, “the amount of annual giving by its alumni only increased,” Polovets wrote in his post.

Isaac Nehring ’26, a former undergraduate senator and a legacy student, expressed concerns that the ban on legacy admissions was being viewed as a win for affirmative action advocates.

“AB 1780 does nothing significant to reverse Affirmative Action being banned,” Nehring wrote to The Daily. “Conflating the idea that it does with the actual impacts of the law shows little understanding of what legacy factoring, when even applied, actually has the potential to do.”

For Ralph Richard Banks ’87 M.A. ’87, law professor and the co-founder and faculty director of the Stanford Center for Racial Justice, preserving alumni donations under the new bill is a major concern.

“Despite the unfairness of legacy preferences, private universities should be permitted to rely on them, as they are absolutely central to the fund-raising model on which universities rely,” Banks said in a Q&A published by Stanford Law School.

The final version of the bill only requires schools to report the frequency of legacy admits if they choose to use preferential admissions to legacy and donor students. In previous iterations of the bill, schools would be fined for doing so. Still, many in the Stanford community remain optimistic that Stanford will still comply with AB 1780, despite a lack of monetary penalty. 

“I feel like if you could talk to most teachers, faculty, staff, they would agree that legacy admissions isn’t fair, that it would feel weird for Stanford to break the law, to do something that clearly only very few people actually enjoy,” Callcott said.

While it remains unknown how AB 1780 will impact the exact makeup of future Stanford classes, Kagurabadza said the discussions prompted by the bill’s passage will hopefully expand the community and “encourage us to imagine a more inclusive Stanford.” 

“At the end of the day, we all share the same goal, which is, I think, giving people the same incredible experience that we’ve had at the institution,” Kagurabadza said.

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