Legacy Admissions

There is a bill in the legislature, AB 1780, that seeks to ban legacy admissions (admissions of individuals related to donors or past enrollees) in private colleges and universities in California.

The bill has gone through various drafts and at first covered public institutions as well. As it went through various drafts, the public sector was dropped. UC, pursuant to Regents policy, officially does not have legacy admissions. Eventually, public universities were dropped from the bill, although a state auditor's report back in 2020 found such admissions had occurred at UC despite official policy.*

In its current version, now in the state senate, although the bill states that it is the intent of the legislature to ban legacy admissions, there isn't an explicit penalty for violation listed. Rather, institutions are required to report numerically any legacy admissions that occur. 

There is a hearing today at a senate committee on the bill.

The bill's text is at https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240AB1780.

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*https://laist.com/news/college-admissions-uc-donors-bias-audit.