A chief enrollment officer I work with sent me a note last month, not about test-optional policy or financial aid packaging. She attached a bill from her state's general assembly and asked: 'If this passes, who on campus owns the fix?' The bill would eliminate legacy preference in admissions at private colleges like hers. Her question wasn't abstract. It was about updating the application reader guide before the next cycle.
Legacy admissions — the practice of giving some preference to applicants whose parents, grandparents, or other close relatives attended the institution — used to be an internal enrollment decision. Donor preference ran alongside it, often quietly, through development-office referrals. That changed after the Supreme Court's June 2023 decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard and Students for Fair Admissions v. University of North Carolina ended race-conscious admissions. Policymakers started asking harder questions about who gets an edge in selective college admissions and why.
The result is a growing list of state laws. Admissions teams aren't just watching them; they're rewriting policies, retraining application readers, checking donor lists against the application file, and updating data flows.
State Legacy Admissions Bans Are Moving Faster Than Campus Policy
Colorado passed the first state ban in 2021, applying to public colleges. For three years it remained a relatively isolated example. Then 2024 produced a cluster of new laws. Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin signed a ban for public institutions in March 2024. Maryland Governor Wes Moore signed a broader measure in May 2024, covering public and private colleges. Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker followed with a public-college ban later that summer. California Governor Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill 1780 in September 2024; because the University of California and California State University systems had already stopped considering legacy ties, the new law focused on private, nonprofit colleges.
Each law defines the prohibited practice slightly differently. Some target legacy status alone. Others fold in donor preference and family relationships to any employee or trustee. A few require annual reports on the demographic and geographic mix of admitted students. Campus legal counsel are reading the definitions line by line because the difference between alumnus and donor often determines whether a development-office referral is allowed anywhere in the decision path.
What's clear is the direction. Once the Supreme Court removed race-conscious admissions as a legal tool, state legislatures saw legacy preference as the next obvious target. Several more states have introduced similar bills. In Congress, the Fair College Admissions for Students Act keeps getting reintroduced but has not advanced.
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What the Laws Actually Require
Maryland's House Bill 2 is the broadest of the 2024 group. It applies to public and private institutions in the state. The ban covers both legacy relationships and donor connections. In practical terms, a Maryland campus cannot mark an applicant as legacy in the review file, cannot ask readers to weigh that marker as a positive factor in holistic review, and should audit any donor-related flags that find their way from advancement into admissions.
California's Assembly Bill 1780 focuses on private, nonprofit colleges. Public institutions in California had already stopped using legacy preference, so the bill's reach is the private sector: Stanford, USC, Santa Clara, and similar institutions now operate under a state-level prohibition. Virginia's law is narrower, applying to public institutions such as the University of Virginia and William & Mary. Illinois also restricts its public campuses.
These aren't symbolic measures. Public institutions face state oversight and budgeting consequences. In California, the ban connects to the Cal Grant program and gives the state a way to enforce compliance. Private colleges that keep legacy preferences in the application file are now reconciling a federal holistic-review tradition with state law.
Public opinion has been moving in the same direction. Pew Research Center found in 2022 that 75% of U.S. adults said legacy status should not be a factor in admissions decisions. That number didn't drive the laws alone, but it gave legislators a clear read on the room.
Private Colleges Are Moving on Their Own, Some Faster Than the Law
Before any state law reached them, a handful of private institutions had already ended legacy preference. Johns Hopkins University removed it in 2014. MIT and Caltech never used it. Wesleyan University announced in July 2023, weeks after the Supreme Court ruling, that it would stop considering legacy relationships. The university's president framed the move as part of widening access rather than a response to litigation.
At many highly selective colleges, though, legacy preference remains embedded in holistic review. The Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights opened an investigation into Harvard University's legacy and donor admissions practices in July 2023 after a federal civil rights complaint. That case, regardless of outcome, changed internal conversations: admissions leaders who once described legacy preference as a small tiebreaker now have to document, defend, or redesign it.
One operational detail matters more than the public statements. The definition of legacy varies widely. Some campuses count parents only. Others include grandparents, siblings, step-parents, and even extended relatives. Donor preference is murkier still because it often enters the process through development-office communications rather than an application checkbox. A state ban that covers donor relationships forces an end to those informal channels, and that can be a bigger adjustment for advancement teams than for admissions staff.
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What Admissions Teams Should Do Before the Next Reading Season
The compliance work falls unevenly. Public colleges in Colorado, Virginia, Illinois, Maryland, and California face direct statutory requirements. Private colleges in Maryland and California face their own. Other institutions aren't covered by a state ban yet but should be ready for one because bills move quickly and board members ask about legacy policy after every legislative session.
Start with the reader guide. Many admissions offices train readers to treat legacy as a mild positive factor. If your state bans it, that sentence has to go, along with any embedded codes in Slate, Technolutions, homegrown CRMs, or any external reader portal. Then check the data flow. Some institutions append legacy status from an alumni database; some rely on an applicant checkbox. Both need an audit.
Next, draw a clear line with advancement. Donor preference bans are broader than legacy bans and less familiar to admissions staff. The development office may have a list of applicants connected to donors. That list, if it reaches the review committee, can create a state law problem even when nobody calls it a preference. The cleanest fix is a written protocol that says who sees donor-related information, when a referral is allowed, what stays in the advancement office, and who may never see it.
Finally, make the public-facing language match the internal reality. A college website that says legacy is not considered while the annual Common Data Set shows otherwise will attract scrutiny from journalists, alumni, regulators, and state auditors. State law has a way of closing that gap, but a college doesn't need a bill to close it first.
This shift sits inside the broader post-affirmative-action admissions data story that campus enrollment leaders have been watching since 2023. Institutions that keep clear, public definitions of every admissions preference have an advantage when the next bill arrives.
If you manage an admissions team, there's one thing to do this month. Pull last cycle's applicant file, isolate every admission decision where legacy or donor status appears in the notes, and ask your general counsel which of those decisions would have been illegal under the strictest state law you could realistically face. The answer tells you what has to change. It might be a sentence in the reader guide, a data flag in the CRM, a difficult conversation with advancement, or a legal review of your donor protocol.
State legislatures have made clear they're willing to legislate this piece of enrollment practice. The practical response isn't waiting for a bill in your capital. It's making your own process clear enough to survive one.