If I'm A DEI Hire, When Can We Discuss Legacy Hires & Nepo Babies?
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
It has been almost one year since the United States Supreme Court issued its ruling in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, a landmark case involving affirmative action on college campuses.
The court's decision prohibits universities from taking race into consideration in their admissions decision-making process, which would violate Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
But when the ruling came down, something else caught my attention that was even more surprising: the fact that legacy students, defined as students who have one or more parent who attended Harvard as undergraduates, could have their legacy status taken into consideration during the admission decision-making process.
Race, bad. Legacy, good?
Seems simple enough. Except in America, it's almost impossible to separate legacy from race. From our country's creation in 1776 until the Civil Rights Act of 1964, it was legal to discriminate based on race.
While it's easy to point to Harvard's first Black graduate, Richard T. Greener as a sign of past progress, the reality of the treatment he and others like him endured is what makes the concept of legacy so challenging. Harvard itself is acutely aware of the environment they created for Black students. So much so that they created an entire website entitled Harvard & the Legacy of Slavery.
A quote on that site reads:
"Despite an often inhospitable learning environment at Harvard, they confronted and resisted marginalization, earned their educations, and, ultimately, reshaped the nation. Their leadership and resistance—their struggles and triumphs—are also part of Harvard's story, and part of the legacy that today's Harvard students inherit."
As a father or grandfather, would you encourage your child to attend your alma mater? If you were marginalized, probably not. If you were celebrated, probably.
Which lead me to realize that at least in our lifetime, legacy is, and always will be, inextricable from with race.
A 2005 analysis of 180,000 student records obtained from nineteen selective colleges and universities found that, within a set range of SAT scores, being a legacy raised an applicant's chances of admission by 19.7%.
In a recent Harvard Crimson survey, approximately 12% of freshmen said they're legacy students, with over 17% of freshmen who identified as white also reporting being legacy students.
Education isn't the only industry that operates this way. Just ask any corporate HR, legal, or C-suite officer near you.
Although educational admissions and corporate hiring aren't identical as to the variables that define qualifications, I believe the correlation reveals a parallel point that seems to be left out of the current national conversation about "DEI hires."
Critics often portray a "DEI hire" as someone who got an opportunity or was hired to reach a racial, gender, or accessibility quota. They even disparage the notion of DEI by saying that the letters truly mean the person "Didn't Earn It." While I don't necessarily believe that most people are hired because of DEI, if that's the argument being made I must ask this question: Wouldn't the same be true of legacy hires?
A "legacy hire" represents someone who got the job because someone in their family previously worked at the company and therefore had inside information such as access to HR and knowledge of key relationships and decision-makers.
I can tell you, from my experience as a corporate chief diversity officer, that the scrutiny, review, analysis, vetting, and process of bringing a so-called "DEI hire" on board is ten times more rigid than you might think. Not to mention their visibility once they're on board. You can trust me when I say - they earned it.
There is safety in sameness, and the process to get a "legacy hire" on board may involve as little as a phone call. When it happens—which is all the time—no one even blinks. People see it from a mile away. It's even expected.
But no one can say anything. The term "legacy hire" isn't even used. When that person is referred to, it's "Hey, that's the CEO/CFO/COO's son/daughter/nephew/neighbor, etc." In Hollywood circles, the term "nepo baby," short for "nepotism baby," became popular in recent years. In business, they simply call it "the boss's son" or "a referral we need to strongly consider."
These individuals get a summer internship, even when all the spots are filled. They get interviewed for a position that was thought to be filled or no longer available. They get to lead a team in a new area of focus, because they are "quick learners." I could go on with many more examples.
This is reality. As they say, don't hate the player—hate the game.
But at the same time, let's not trip over ourselves to disguise it as meritocracy.
The simple truth is this: the best candidate doesn't always get the job. The best candidate interviewed, from the perspective of leadership and decision-makers, gets the job. And many times, those who are related to leadership fit that bill.
Instead of provoking, prodding, calling out, and disparaging people of color, women, and people with disabilities for getting roles we feel should have gone to others who are "more deserving" or "more qualified," we should be giving these individuals their flowers for excelling, growing, and building in environments that often haven't warmly welcomed them. And we must keep in mind that the main reason there isn't more diversity in legacy hires is because many of their ancestors didn't have a chance to pursue the careers they wanted, due to race.
So, before we go after a DEI hire for seemingly getting a hand up—as a way to balance out the legacy of how their families were treated in this country—let's recognize and acknowledge that there's a whole group of people in corporate America who have received legacy handouts. And with $6 trillion dollars of economic opportunity represented by these "DEI hires," tapping into those markets, and those who represent them, may be the very thing that not only keeps your company afloat but also helps it grow and thrive.
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the rwnj bottled blond bimbo club...
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Sadly, this will be ignored.
Part of the you are wrong when right and I am right when wrong game a.k.a. partisan onanism.
Only 43%?
Don’t know the stat but I promise “white” is statistically heavily underrepresented at the undergrad level at schools like Harvard.
This article is a non sequitur in that regard
With no other information, I am generally opposed to legacy admissions. However, I am willing to make exceptions for families that donate heavily to the school.
“You say your dad donated $5 million to the new library wing? Right this way, young man.”
In a case like that, it’s not like you’re bumping large cohorts of deserving students, and the donation will benefit many other students.