Giving preferential treatment to the children of alumni is standard practice at most elite institutions of higher learning. University officials claim these "legacy admittees" strengthen their schools by creating continuity across the generations and building a loyal alumni base. This justification parallels the most commonly articulated defense for affirmative action in minority admissions. But Bush and many of his supporters have expressed skepticism--and in the case of U.S. Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft, outright hostility--for affirmative-action policies for minority students while saying virtually nothing about the affirmative help routinely given to alumni children.

The president's admirers who oppose affirmative action for minorities might try to avoid this uncomfortable analogy by offering a different justification for Yale's decision. During the campaign, those supporting Bush typically chalked up his academic difficulties to youthful indiscretion, emphasizing instead his record in business and as governor of Texas. Judged from the perspective of his post-graduation accomplishments, his defenders implicitly assert, Yale's decision to admit the future president was a wise one.

The empirical record, however, belies any attempt to distinguish the two forms of affirmative action on the basis of post-graduation success. The overwhelming majority of minority students who benefit from affirmative action in university admissions also go on to become productive and public-spirited citizens. In the most comprehensive study to date, former university presidents William Bowen and Derrick Bok conclude that black students from selective colleges and universities lead successful and rewarding careers that parallel those of their white classmates. A recent study of the University of Michigan Law School's minority graduates reaches a similar conclusion. Indeed, the post-graduation success of minority students who neither enjoy Bush's ready access to circles of power, nor the automatic assumption of competence that still is attached to those who are white and male, suggests that minorities actually get more out of their education than their white peers.

Rather than seeking to distinguish affirmative action for legacies from other practices designed to tailor admissions policies to meet university objectives, Bush and his supporters would do better to ask what the success of both kinds of affirmative action says about the predictive value of the "standard" criteria used to admit all students. In the Michigan study, for example, researchers found, with only one exception, no statistically significant correlation for any student between undergraduate grades and scores on the Law School Admissions Test and future income or public service. The exception is the inverse correlation between test scores and public service-- the higher a student's LSAT score, the less likely he or she is to engage in significant public service. These findings suggest that law schools and other educational institutions should re-examine their admissions processes for all students.

President Bush claims he wants to "leave no child behind" and to "improve the tone in Washington." Minorities might take this effort more seriously if Bush were to acknowledge forthrightly the role that legacy affirmative action has played in his own life. Such candor would go a long way toward persuading minorities that the president really intends to move beyond traditional Republican rhetoric that brands any effort to aid minorities as preferential treatment while ignoring advantages routinely given to those already in positions of power.

Similarly, Bush's pledge to leave no child behind would be more credible if it were accompanied by an explicit promise that the Bush Justice Department will, notwithstanding the views of Atty. Gen. Ashcroft, defend admissions policies that ensure minority students have the same opportunity to succeed as Bush was given when he was admitted to Yale.

Should Bush yield to those on the right and attack affirmative action for minorities while saying nothing about legacy admissions, he will reveal that compassionate conservatism has almost nothing to do with practices that promote diversity and everything to do with policies that protect the children of privilege.

David B. Wilkins is a law professor and director of the legal profession program at Harvard Law School.

Copyright 2001 Chicago Tribune

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