Regarding the March 12 online-only editorial, “Colleges should stop giving admissions handouts to family”:

I was encouraged to see the Editorial Board call for lawmakers to ban legacy admissions, which amount to affirmative action for the White and wealthy.

As a Black, first-generation college student at Georgetown University, I am frequently reminded that I am part of a severely underrepresented group on campus. Nine percent of Georgetown’s undergraduate class of 2024 are legacy students; the overall student population is just 7 percent Black, significantly less than the 13.6 percent of the U.S. population identifies as Black or African American. Georgetown’s overall endowment net assets have grown to $3.2 billion, yet according to a 2017 New York Times analysis, just 3.1 percent of Georgetown students came from families in the lowest income quintile. Now that the Supreme Court has struck down affirmative action, this lack of diversity could get worse.

Banning legacy admissions at public universities is not enough to correct such imbalances. Many of our nation’s most prestigious institutions are private. Here in D.C., Georgetown University and George Washington University receive millions of dollars in tax breaks from the city every year, even as they continue a practice that perpetuates systemic racism and classism. The D.C. Council should follow the example of other jurisdictions and ban colleges and universities based in the District from using legacy preferences in admissions. If the D.C. Council fails to act, Georgetown University must stop using legacy status as a factor in admissions and focus on giving opportunities to students from marginalized communities who have overcome incredible odds.

Darius Wagner, Washington

I applaud the recent decision in Virginia to outlaw legacy-based admissions in public higher education. Every state and every school should do away with this practice.

Legacy admissions represent a hereditary upper class that is anathema to the collective stories from which the United States derives its identity: The idea that, if you’re willing to try and to work hard, you can achieve success. The idea that social mobility is upward for those who deserve it. But college admissions practices stand as antiquarian insults to those American ideals by concentrating educational opportunity at the top, even if those with less money and connections are more deserving.

The sons and daughters of billionaires are not the sons and daughters of a greater god; the sons and daughters of the poor are not children of a lesser one. The reality in America is that if you’re born to a working-class family, it is exceedingly difficult to get ahead — more so than in countries that some politicians malign as socialist or stagnant. And higher education is part of the problem.

We must be wary, in society, of implementing any protocols that veer from the elevation of merit. These include not only legacy admissions but also race-based affirmative action in higher education. If anything, affirmative action for those coming from lower-income backgrounds — no matter their race — would be more prudent and sensible.

Daniel Dolgicer, New York

Colleges should treat students as individuals

Regarding Kate Cohen’s March 18 op-ed, “Does admissions fairness make my campus look too female?”:

Ms. Cohen performed a very useful public service in explaining something I have long suspected: that elite colleges engage in systematic preference for boys over girls in admissions decisions. They do this because they are seeking to admit classes that are about equally balanced in terms of gender — even though a larger group of better-educated girls is applying to these elite colleges. Ms. Cohen made a critical point I have observed during my long business career. The chance to go to Harvard or Wesleyan gives their graduates an advantage over other people in terms of personal connections, education and credentials. Men already enjoy numerous unsubtle advantages over women. How can elite colleges justify giving them even more?

Last year, the Supreme Court struck down as unconstitutional the admissions policies at Harvard and the University of North Carolina, which included giving some preference to racial minorities because these universities wanted a racial balance in their classrooms representative of the world outside their campuses.

Suppose a women’s group were to bring a constitutional challenge to the male-favoring admissions policies at Princeton and Yale. If the case somehow reached the Supreme Court, would the justices apply their Harvard-North Carolina logic to strike down the gender preference policies at these two elite schools? Or is “classroom balance” a constitutionally acceptable justification for clear discrimination in admissions policies as long as it favors White males?

Nina E. McLemore, Washington

Kate Cohen celebrated the tremendous advances made by women over the past several decades, while downplaying the extent to which young men are struggling. Although women’s advances were made possible in part by affirmative action and other preferences, Cohen opposes the same practices when applied today to men. Instead, her position ought to prompt us all to reconsider the tendency to drift into preferences based on identity politics.

As philosopher Susan Neiman argued in her 2023 book, “Left Is Not Woke,” identity politics today power both the left and right. Ms. Cohen’s advocacy for women’s rights over men’s has more in common than it might seem with the arguments of “America Firsters,” who want preferences for White Americans over foreigners. Ms. Neiman advocates instead for the Enlightenment values on which America was founded: the objectivity of truth and justice, and the value and dignity of each individual.

An article in the Economist this month demonstrated that the bifurcation between men and women is not confined to the United States but, rather, is a fact in much of the Western World. This increasing male-female divide is polarizing societies, because while women are becoming more liberal, their struggling male counterparts are angry and susceptible to right-wing demagogues.

It is clear that America needs policies that bring Americans together rather than separating them on the basis of identity.

Paul Rood, Silver Spring

Don’t place one more burden on Black athletes

Kevin B. Blackistone’s March 13 Sports column, “Black college athletes can send a message to DeSantis,” emphasized the power of Black athletes, who make up the majority of NCAA Division I football and basketball players. His column focused on the influence players could exert on states that seek to ban or water down diversity, inclusion and equity programs.

But there is a bigger picture than diversity: the right to vote. I often wonder why Black athletes attend universities in states that restrict access to voting in ways that seem directly aimed at disenfranchising minorities. If Black athletes used their power and didn’t attend universities in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Mississippi and Texas, among others, and the football and basketball teams there went from national powers to losers, there would be change demanded by the real power in those states: football and basketball voters.

Harry W. Wiggins, Washington

Kevin B. Blackistone rightly pointed out the appallingly backward approach to higher education being taken in Florida and other states and urged young Black athletes to take their talents elsewhere. Boycotting places such as the University of Florida would certainly draw attention to an education system being destroyed by non-educator politicians mandating reactionary policies and practices. But that likely would not be enough to force politicians such as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) to change course. Achieving genuine and lasting change will require more.

If the burden of change continues to fall disproportionately on the Black and Brown students who are already excluded, then the needed culture change will continue to be elusive. The responsibility for changing the culture of universities belongs to all of us, regardless of our race and ethnicity. All of us includes athletes and non-athletes, students, faculty, staff and administrators, alumni and boosters, politicians and citizens, television networks and sponsors.

David Asai, Chevy Chase

Economic opportunity matters, too

The March 10 front-page article “State-level diversity initiatives under siege” noted that my firm, Pacific Legal Foundation — characterized as “conservative” rather than libertarian — is challenging such state programs on the grounds they violate the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment. Though true, that is only half of the story.

PLF’s Equality & Opportunity practice group is committed to vindicating the full promise of that amendment. Individuals should not be discriminated against based on such immutable characteristics as race, nor should they be denied the right to pursue economic opportunity, one of the privileges or immunities of citizenship.

PLF fights against laws that keep entrepreneurs from providing their much-needed services. For example, we represent Katie Chubb in challenging Georgia’s certificate-of-need law, which prevents her from opening a birth center in the state. With one of the worst maternal mortality rates in the country, Georgia should welcome new providers of birth services; instead, it seeks to quash them. The result is that Georgia women, especially those who live in “service deserts,” suffer.

When the government hamstrings access to opportunity, it harms all those at the bottom of the economic ladder. The “affirmative action” all economically disadvantaged people need is for states to remove barriers to the enjoyment of that other civil right.

Donna Matias, Sacramento

The author is an attorney at Pacific Legal Foundation.