[TrumpCard]

There was a Pew Research study in 2022 in which 75% of the respondents believed that legacy status should not be considered in college admissions.

Colleges in Illinois already face that status. Governor Pritzker signed a bill in Illinois effectively outlawing legacy admissions. Governor Newsom is prepared to do something similar, but less onerous. Which is interesting, because the alma mater that we share has more legacy attendees than all but two colleges in California. And not meaning to be political, but the California prohibition enjoys bipartisan support. The UCs banned it in 1998, so it wouldn't affect them. Only Stanford, USC and SCU admit a sizable percentage of legacies.

The bill itself is slightly watered down. At one time, schools faced financial penalties. That element has been removed. All the schools have to do now is publish the names of the legacies online and publish additional demographic data, including status of athletic admits and income of admitted students.

Of course the general public is against legacy preference in admissions.  They are patently unfair to non-legacy applicants.  
The unfairness of legacy preference, however, does not imply that legacy preference should be illegal.
We reserve legal protections against discrimination for protected classes who've historically suffered invidious discrimination.
At least at Stanford, considering the long history of affirmative action, non-legacy status probably isn't heavily correlated with race anymore.
Universities consider personality and "fit" by having alumni conduct interviews of prospective students.
I see no reason that California law should treat legacy status as fundamentally different from interviews.
Arguably, if legacy preference is made illegal, California may as well just dictate that universities must admit students with the highest GPA and AP test scores, ignoring all other criteria as "non-objective."

[TrumpCard]

There was a Pew Research study in 2022 in which 75% of the respondents believed that legacy status should not be considered in college admissions.

Colleges in Illinois already face that status. Governor Pritzker signed a bill in Illinois effectively outlawing legacy admissions. Governor Newsom is prepared to do something similar, but less onerous. Which is interesting, because the alma mater that we share has more legacy attendees than all but two colleges in California. And not meaning to be political, but the California prohibition enjoys bipartisan support. The UCs banned it in 1998, so it wouldn't affect them. Only Stanford, USC and SCU admit a sizable percentage of legacies.

The bill itself is slightly watered down. At one time, schools faced financial penalties. That element has been removed. All the schools have to do now is publish the names of the legacies online and publish additional demographic data, including status of athletic admits and income of admitted students.

Of course the general public is against legacy preference in admissions.  They are patently unfair to non-legacy applicants.  
The unfairness of legacy preference, however, does not imply that legacy preference should be illegal.
We reserve legal protections against discrimination for protected classes who've historically suffered invidious discrimination.
At least at Stanford, considering the long history of affirmative action, non-legacy status probably isn't heavily correlated with race anymore.
Universities consider personality and "fit" by having alumni conduct interviews of prospective students.
I see no reason that California law should treat legacy status as fundamentally different from interviews.
Arguably, if legacy preference is made illegal, California may as well just dictate that universities must admit students with the highest GPA and AP test scores, ignoring all other criteria as "non-objective."