“The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist."
以下内容英文版来源于定点集团首席律师, Mike Mills。中文版由王一根据Mike的法律分析翻译校对。
魔鬼最大的阴谋就是让世界相信他并不存在。
最近关于加利福尼亚州禁止在本科录取时考虑捐款或是否是校友子女的报道很多，其中不乏西方媒体的渲染，当然也有不少中文媒体跟风报道。似乎一夜之间，某些群体一直享有的特权，至少在加州就被这么一纸公文给解除了。幸福似乎来得很突然。但可是，可但是，这些报道几乎都误解了新法律，并夸大了其会带来的变化。“勋贵录取”(legacy and donation)是指大学给那些其家庭曾就读于该校或捐赠了大量资金的学生提供更好的录取机会。
加利福尼亚的新法律只是要求该州的大学向政府提供年度报告，内容包括：(a) 它们是否使用勋贵录取， (b) 如果使用，勋贵学生的人数及其相关统计数据。加利福尼亚州政府随后将发布一份报告，公开披露那些使用勋贵录取的学校名单。大学需要在2026年6月前披露相关信息，而州政府的第一份报告将在2027年6月前发布。
因此，这不是对这一过程的禁止，而是一种通过公开信息而间接影响大学录取过程的方式。该法律的理念是，在未来几年内，主流媒体将针对该名单上使用勋贵录取的大学撰写报道，给大学施加社会以及舆论压力以促使其改变。从长远来看，加利福尼亚州政府可能会利用这些统计数据制定更严格的法律，但只有在收集统计数据几年后，才能为更严格的监管提供依据。
另外，该法律仅适用于接受州财政援助的大学。逃避该法律的最简单方法是用更多的捐赠替代州财政援助。所以从这个角度看，该法律甚至有可能会增加某些大学勋贵录取在本科录取中的使用频率或权重。加利福尼亚每年向私立大学的学生提供约1200个奖学金，每份奖学金最高额度约为1万美元。这在所有私立学校中总计为1200万美元的学费援助。像斯坦福大学和南加州大学这样的富裕大学可以轻松用捐赠来替代这项援助。相比之下，较小的私立学校则更难以替代州资助。
结果是，我们至少在接下来的五年内看不到任何实际变化，而当我们看到变化时，影响大多会集中在较小的私立学校上，而富裕的学校则可以轻松逃避该法律。
There have been many stories about how California has banned legacy admissions. These stories misunderstand the new law and overhype the changes. Legacy admissions are where a university gives a better chance of admission to a student whose family attended the school or donated a lot of money to the school.
The new California law requires universities in California to provide an annual report to the government on (a) whether they use legacy admissions and (b) if they do, then the statistics on of how many students were legacy and their demographics. The California government will then publish a list of each school who reported that they do legacy admissions. The first university report is due in June 2026, and the State’s first report is to be published by June 2027.
This is thus not a ban on the process, but an indirect way to shame universities. The idea behind the law is that in the next few years, journalists will write stories about the list, creating social pressure for universities to change. In the long run, California might use the statistics to write stronger laws, but only after a few years of collecting statistics to justify more regulation.
This law only applies if a university accepts students who receive financial aid from the state. The easiest way out of this law is to replace state financial aid with more aid from the endowment. California gives about 1200 scholarships a year to students attending private universities, at a maximum of about $10k. That’s $12 million in tuition aid across all private schools. Wealthy universities like Stanford and USC can easily replace this with donations. Smaller private schools will have a more difficult time replacing state money.
The result is that we will not see any changes for at least another five years, and when we do, the changes will mostly impact smaller schools, while wealthy schools easily evade the law.
