Since about 2022, as the SFFA case was gaining steam, I decided to take a look at the when colleges that considered legacy status in admissions graduated their first black student. I started the project to attempt to quantify the disadvantage that considering legacy in admissions has given black families. Admitting only white families for 75 years before admitting the first black families means at least 3 generations have benefited from the economic boost of going to college before a black family has a chance.
By quantifying the legacy advantage, I'm hoping that those arguing against ending this practice will see its harm and also recognize that there is no way that just expanding it to include black people could ever make up for the harm already caused.
This research was in part inspired when James Murphy tweeted (not linking to twitter anymore) a thread exploring this Du Bois publication, so I have to give him a shout out (despite his admiration of the Beatles and hatred of Star Wars).
The Research
Since there are over 2,500 colleges that award bachelor's degree, I started by looking at colleges that considered legacy admissions (based on some list I downloaded in 2021 or 2022). I eventually expanded that list to include flagship colleges and highly rejective colleges (as well as any I came across that I felt like including). Eventually, I'd love to reach the 500 most prominent/largest colleges in the country.
I used this article from The Journal of Blacks In Higher Education to get a good start and then it was a lot of searching. There is a lot of complexity in this type of data gathering which makes it frustrating and interesting. Here are a few things I learned doing this:
- First enrolled doesn't mean first graduated
- Black students were often enrolled only after getting a bachelor's degree elsewhere so "degree" became a deceptive term.
- Black students were often allowed to enroll but excluded from dorms, I didn't find a good way to capture that.
- Allowed to enroll or graduated Black students doesn't really tell the story, Harvard graduated their first black student relatively early but they had strict limits on the number of black students allowed well into the 1900s.
- I wish I studied quant methods, I'd love to calculate the generation advantage given to white families.
The Findings (so far)
Here's what I've found so far from the 93 colleges I have data from:
- Average year of first black graduate (of the schools I currently have): 1924
- Median year of first black graduate: 1930
- Average for Flagships: 1921
- Average for All Publics: 1925
- Average for Private: 1923
- Average founding year: 1871
- Average years in existence: 154
- Average white head start: 77
- Average generations of advantage: 3
The Data (in progress)
Here is my current primary spreadsheet.
The Ask
If you find this interesting and want to help, you can send me info on an individual school by just filling out this form.
I'm not sure what I'm going to do with this information but it feels like something we should know and record in a coherent way.