Do Legacy Admissions Policies Have a Future?

Legacy admissions in the cross hairs

In opening a civil rights investigation into Harvard’s legacy admissions policy — in which relatives of alumni and donors are given preference — the Biden administration inserted itself into a fierce debate amid efforts to remake the world of higher education.

Opponents of legacy admissions have argued that the policy is unfair, especially after the Supreme Court struck down affirmative action in higher education. But Harvard and other elite schools have defended the practice as a crucial means of raising money.

The Education Department acted on accusations by liberal groups. Legacy admissions policies, they say, tilt overwhelmingly toward white and wealthy students and discriminate against Black, Hispanic and Asian applicants.

Those claims were buttressed this week by a new study, which found that while legacy applicants were generally more qualified than the average applicant, they were accepted at much higher rates than competitors with similar qualifications. About half of legacy students at the elite colleges examined by the study wouldn’t be there without such an admissions boost.

Legacy admissions policies have been a lightning rod for criticism. Detractors from both parties — including President Biden and Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina — have accused the practice of unfairly favoring the privileged.

In a concurring opinion to the affirmative action decision, Justice Neil Gorsuch criticized legacy policies for “undoubtedly” benefiting white and wealthy applicants. And even Edward Blum, the activist who spearheaded the anti-affirmative action case, has supported banning such preferences.

A growing number of schools are scrapping legacy policies: Wesleyan University did so last week, citing the recent Supreme Court decision.

But Harvard and other elite private schools have defended the policies, arguing that they are important for maintaining strong ties with alumni who are more likely to donate if schools’ admissions departments give their children a leg up.

It’s unclear how the standoff will play out. A Harvard spokeswoman said the school had already been reviewing its admissions policies after the Supreme Court decision. And Education Department civil rights cases tend to be settled, rather than go to court.

Meanwhile, school officials have cautioned that scrapping legacy preferences would mean broader overhauls of admissions policies. It’s also unclear how to balance diversity concerns with institutions’ perennial campaigns to hit up alumni for funds.

HERE’S WHAT’S HAPPENING

Markets prepare for the Fed’s plans for interest rates. The central bank is expected to announce at 2 p.m. Eastern that it will raise borrowing costs by a quarter percentage point. More important to investors is what comes next: Futures markets are pricing in better-than-even odds that this will be the final rate increase this year.

Alphabet’s and Microsoft’s shares diverge on earnings reports. Investors cheered the second-quarter results of Google’s parent company, which showed a rebound in online advertising. (Alphabet also said that Ruth Porat would step down as C.F.O. to become chief investment officer.) But Microsoft shares are down in premarket trading after the company reported record profits — and a disappointing A.I. sales outlook.

The F.T.C. reportedly inches toward an antitrust case against Amazon. The agency may announce a wide-ranging lawsuit as soon as next month, with the aim of breaking up the company, according to Politico. It would be the biggest move yet against Amazon by Lina Khan, the F.T.C.’s chair, who became a star in legal academia for her theories on how to police the company.

The company formerly known as Twitter is said to cut ad prices. The move by X, as the platform is now known, is meant to woo back advertisers who fled amid the chaos wrought by Elon Musk since the fall, according to The Wall Street Journal. Advertisers could lose their verified status on the network if they don’t spend enough.

UPS strikes a deal

United Parcel Service reached a tentative agreement on a five-year contract with the union that represents more than 325,000 of its U.S. workers, a major step in averting a potential strike that was cheered by the White House and retailers alike.

The Times’s Noam Scheiber broke down the accord for DealBook, which could have ramifications for future labor negotiations elsewhere. Here are his takeaways:

• A strike could have been a significant blow to the economy. UPS handles about one-quarter of the tens of millions of packages that are shipped daily in the United States. The Anderson Economic Group estimated that a 10-day strike could have cost the U.S. economy about $7 billion. And economists worried that it could have created supply chain problems that drove up inflation.

• The union, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, estimated that the agreement would cost UPS an additional $30 billion over five years. (The company declined to confirm that figure, adding that it would provide more detail in its second-quarter earnings release on Aug. 8). The deal would give full- and part-time workers a $2.75-an-hour raise. It would increase the minimum pay for part-timers to $21 an hour, compared with the current minimum starting hourly pay rate of $16.20. Alan Amling, a former UPS executive, has estimated that increasing wages by $5 an hour for part-timers, who account for just over half of the company’s unionized work force in the U.S., would cost UPS $850 million per year.

• This deal could influence negotiations elsewhere. The Teamsters are seeking to use the contract as a template for other companies in the industry, including Amazon, which has only one unionized warehouse in the country. “This contract sets a new standard in the labor movement and raises the bar for all workers,” Sean O’Brien, the Teamsters general president, said in a statement. The deal must still be ratified by Teamsters members at UPS, who will vote on it from Aug. 3 to Aug. 22.

How regional banks returned to health

PacWest Bank, the Los Angeles lender whose clients fled amid the regional banking tumult that was set off by the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank this spring, is being acquired by a far smaller rival, Banc of California.

The merger — which wasn’t brokered by regulators and includes $400 million in investments by the private equity firms Warburg Pincus and Centerbridge — is a big fall for the once fast-growing bank.

But regional banks have largely recovered from the crisis, reports The Times’s Emily Flitter. Shares of regional banks have rebounded (save for PacWest’s 27 percent plunge on Tuesday) over the past two months as fears of upheaval have subsided.

Here is how midsize banks have shored up profits:

• They’ve spent heavily to attract and retain customers. Midsize banks saw their deposits grow during the second quarter, or they managed to hold them steady, according to Sayee Srinivasan, the American Bankers Association’s chief economist. One reason? The banks have been offering existing and prospective customers high-yielding money-market funds or short-term lending facilities overseen by the Fed.

• The loan book quality is much improved. Some banks have cut back on low-margin auto loans, for example. Some banks have also stopped renewing loans with customers who don’t have business elsewhere with the bank.

• They’ve increased cash reserves. Alexander Yokum, an analyst at the independent research firm CFRA, said that most of the banks reported keeping more cash on hand to cover surprise losses to help reassure investors and depositors.

The billionaire accused of insider trading

U.S. prosecutors on Tuesday charged Joe Lewis, the British billionaire who owns the Tottenham Hotspur English soccer club, with insider trading, saying he gave tips to friends, personal pilots and romantic partners.

The charges have cast a spotlight on Mr. Lewis, 86, who has largely stayed below the radar over his decades-long career, despite some high-profile investments and friends.

Mr. Lewis was accused of doling out insider information as payouts. He funneled tips about companies he had invested in “as a way to compensate employees and shower gifts on friends and lovers,” said Damian Williams, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York.

His fortune is estimated at more than $6.5 billion. The British financier owns an array of businesses in 13 countries through his Tavistock Group. Among Tavistock’s crown jewels is a majority stake in Tottenham, the English Premier League soccer club in North London that he took control of in 2007.

He made his fortune from currency trading, including the same bet on the British pound in 1992 that made George Soros a household name.

Mr. Lewis briefly became famous for an ill-timed gamble on Bear Stearns. In 2007, he began investing more than $1 billion for a stake in the Wall Street bank, an investment that cratered in 2008 when the firm sold itself to JPMorgan Chase in a fire sale.

Taking another swing at taxing the rich

Democratic lawmakers are set to propose a new wealth tax on Wednesday that they believe could reduce inequality, DealBook is the first to report.

The tax proposal would be linked to American household wealth. The minimum rate, for example, would be a 2 percent duty on all wealth that is 1,000 to 10,000 times as much as the current U.S. median household wealth of about $120,000.

Taxing the wealth — let alone the income — of the richest Americans has never gained much traction in Congress. President Biden, for example, in March proposed a 25 percent tax on all wealth over $100 million. Republicans opposed the bill, and Speaker Kevin McCarthy has said he’s not open to a wealth tax.

Many Americans support higher taxes for the very rich, including about a third of Republicans, according to some polls. “We have a mandate from an overwhelming and bipartisan majority who’s furious that teachers, firefighters and nurses are paying more in taxes than Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg,” said Representative Summer Lee, Democrat of Pennsylvania and a sponsor of the bill.

More potential hurdles loom for a wealth tax: In June, the Supreme Court agreed to hear a tax case next term that may doom a duty on the superrich.

THE SPEED READ

Deals

• Mubadala, the Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund, is reportedly seeking investment partners for its takeover of Fortress Investment Group amid a U.S. national security review of the deal. (Bloomberg)

• Amazon cut the price of its takeover bid for iRobot by 15 percent, to about $1.42 billion, after the maker of Roomba vacuums took on new debt. (Reuters)

Policy

• China replaced Qin Gang as its foreign minister with his predecessor, Wang Yi, a month after he disappeared from public view. (NYT)

• The I.M.F. upgraded its global economic forecast amid signs that widespread recession may be averted despite high inflation and sluggish growth in China. (NYT)

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