Mary Dixon: In June, the US Supreme Court is expected to ban the consideration of race in college admissions. The ruling wood hinder highly selective universities that are trying to make their traditionally white and wealthy campuses more racially inclusive and it May forced them to take a hard look at policy's working against this goal like giving preference two family members of alumni. WBEZ is Lisa Philip reports

Lisa Philip: every year. Thousands of applicants with stellar GPS and long list of extracurriculars. Five for a limited number of seats at the University of Chicago and Northwestern James Murphy is a fairer admissions advocate with the nonprofit education reform. Now

Speaker 3: they get a huge pile of students, a huge pile of applications and for sure bunch of them can be just swept out like like no, like you're not, you're not in consideration, you're not in contention, but there's still, you know, for every spot, probably like 567 students who can fill that

Lisa Philip: spot. So once they get past academic qualifications, she says admissions officers look at other trades to differentiate applicants like a students race or whether they are related to an alumnus. The latter is known as Legacy Status critics say it unfairly restricts access to schools that educate some of society's most influential decision makers.

Speaker 3: There are these tips or tiebreakers that push you into a category in the same way, like once you're in this pool of hyper competitive, super qualified students, anyone little thing can make all the difference in the world.

Lisa Philip: Data reported by Yu Chicago and Northwestern show. The universities give as much consideration to legacy status as they do to race, but neither is weighed as heavily as academics or extracurriculars. It doesn't

Speaker 3: come down are people who are not qualified, getting into legacy. It's his legacy, a good way to break a tie, right? His legacy, a good way to decide between two incredibly qualified super talented students.

Lisa Philip: Murphy doesn't think so and more and more university leaders seem to agree with him. Over 100 selective institutions have ended their legacy admissions policies in recent years. Murphy says others may feel increasing pressure to do so. After the Supreme Court rules on race conscious admissions, this June, the justices are expected to bar universities from considering race when selecting students. Murphy says that may force tough conversations among university leaders

Speaker 3: were not allowed to do that. We're not going to consider that any more, but we'll still consider where your mommy or daddy went to college, right? Will still give this birthright advantage to people that just seems to be an impossible position for any ethical institution to hold

Lisa Philip: top officials at Northwestern and Chicago declined to comment for this story. Leaders at other selective universities have defended the legacy admissions as a way to maintain and build community among their graduates, Alexi Skin thinks they're motivated to hold onto it because of a desire to keep alumni close skin leads an education research group based at U Chicago and wrote an op ed opposing the policy, let's

Speaker 4: create generations of students and, and you know, build family's that are connected to the university. And I think there's an assumption that those types of connections, you know, yield or lead to donations.

Lisa Philip: University presidents and trustees may also fare backlash from alumni who want to build their families connection to their alma mater and want their Children to receive special consideration. Uchicago student. Al Anani says that was the case for dad. He went to use Chicago years ago and hoped his daughter would go there too. He had

Speaker 5: a great time to do what was best for me. He really believes in use Chicago as an institution

Lisa Philip: as he got closer to applying her dad donated more money to the school. She was admitted last year even though she may have benefited from legacy admissions and is aware of the financial and academic motivations behind it. She doesn't support it. The

Speaker 5: main argument I've heard four legacies is that, you know, kids who are legacies are more suited for the university from just like a value standpoint or like care more about university or like, you know, are willing to put more work like some something about values and stuff like that. But if that's true and he says that should show through your application and the end result should be the

Lisa Philip: same. Historians say a legacy admissions began about 100 years ago, Jewish and immigrant students had started applying in larger numbers to Ivy League colleges. Leaders at those institutions wanted to keep their student body's white and wealthy giving preference to applicants related to alumni. Did just that some like say it's still does by

Speaker 4: design. It's meant to keep the students at in institutions as static because it's trying to draw explicit connections between generations of students that go back to times when there were more explicit policies about who couldn't, who couldn't access selective colleges.

Lisa Philip: Universities are not required to report the number and demographics of legacy students they admit. But data made public in a lawsuit against Harvard revealed the disparities. The policy can perpetuate that school's most academically accomplished. Legacy applicants were more than twice as likely to get in. Then equally accomplished appears from low income families. If we care

Speaker 4: about closing the racial wealth gap, then we have to look at who is admitted to our most selective higher education institutions because getting access to those institutions is the most, you know, it is the clearest pathway we have in our society to becoming wealthy.

Lisa Philip: In recent years. U Chicago and North Western have boasted of their efforts to make their university's more inclusive and equitable including large increases to need based financial aid. But both schools have seen their share of black students grow only minimally to 6%. Skin doesn't blame legacy admissions entirely. But he says it certainly doesn't help. He wonders why your Chicago and North Western have held on to the policy while other selective universities have dropped

Speaker 4: it on the question for both of these presidents is, you know, do you want to lead or do you want to follow

Lisa Philip: if they truly want to make equity and inclusion of priority? He says ending legacy admissions should be their first step. Lisa Philip WBEZ News.

Shows