State Sen. Josh Newman, who attended legacy-heavy Yale University, chairs the Senate Education Committee
Sacramento – A bill to outlaw so-called “legacy admissions” at California universities has passed the state Assembly and is headed for the Senate. A hearing before the Senate Standing Committee on Education is scheduled for Wednesday at 9:00am.
The bill, authored by Assemblymember Phil Ting (D-San Francisco) would strip all private institutions of higher education – including prestigious private schools like Stanford – of financial aid funding unless they comply with the ban on children of graduates and donors receiving a leg up in admissions. California’s public university system has not considered legacy status for several years.
Senator Josh Newman (D-Fullerton) chairs the Education Committee and plans to support the bill.
“I’d be surprised if it didn’t get the support of a majority of members of the committee,” he told Politico in an interview.
Newman, a native of Poughkeepsie, New York, attended Yale University, one of the most exclusive in the country. Yale has a long history of legacy admissions: in the past decade, approximately 12 percent of Yale students had a legacy connection to the institution. That is similar to the 13 percent average of California’s elite schools, according to data disclosed to the state under a previous Ting bill.
Sen. Newman has not commented on his alma mater’s use of legacy admissions, but Connecticut State Senator Derek Slap, also speaking to Politico, said that California could pave the way for his bill, which would apply to Yale, to pass.
Colorado and Virginia recently banned legacy admissions at public universities while Maryland has banned them for both public and private institutions.
Bipartisan efforts to outlaw legacy and donor admissions have gained steam in the wake of the Supreme Court outlawing racial discrimination in higher education admissions in Students for Fair Admission v. Harvard, which has been illegal at California public schools since voters wrote it into the California Constitution in 1996. This was reaffirmed in 2020 when voters defeated Proposition 16 by a wide margin.
Sen. Newman, who was first elected in 2016 before being recalled in 2018 and returning to office in 2020, currently represents parts of L.A. Orange, and San Bernardino counties. In 2024, he is vacating his 29th District seat and running against fellow Democrat David Min of Irvine in the nearby 37th District.
