By Caitlin D. Barón
On September 30, 2024, Governor Newsom signed AB 1780 (Ting) (Chapter 1006, Statutes of 2024), to add section 66018.4 to the Education Code to prohibit independent California College or Universities (ICCU) from using legacy or donor status as criteria when considering applicants for regular or early admission. The law also requires independent institutions to report whether they are in compliance or violation to the California Department of Justice and the legislature.
This bill follows the national conversation about race and college admissions. The U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. (SFFA) v. President & Fellows of Harvard College (Harvard), 603 U.S. 181 (2023), “curtail[ed] the use of race in college and university admissions, thus ruling affirmative action in college admissions unconstitutional.” (AB 1780 Assembly Floor Analysis). The University of California college system has since ended its use of legacy status when evaluating applications, and Assemblymember Phil Ting, the author of AB 1780, stated, “legacy admissions practices disproportionately benefit wealthy and white applicants.”
According to a June 2023 report by the Association of Independent California Colleges and Universities (AICCU), of the 70 schools subject to AB 1780, excluding Stanford and the University of Southern California (USC), five schools report giving preferential treatment of “special consideration admissions” such as legacy or donor status. Standford and USC both report that any students admitted with reference to legacy or donor status must be academically competitive and have well-rounded applications to be granted admission. For Fall 2022, 13.5% of the Standford and 14.9% of USC admissions had legacy or donor characteristics in their admission files.
AB 1780 will take effect on September 1, 2025. Beginning June 30, 2026, institutions must report compliance to the California Department of Justice and legislature, and names and statistics of ICCUs in violation will be published by the next fiscal year.