A fiery showdown ignited on "TMZ Live" when we tackled the explosive new California law banning legacy and donor preferences in admissions at private, nonprofit universities ... with the bill's author in the hot seat to discuss the details.
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00:00Why don't you give us the logic behind why you're slamming the door on these legacy admissions?
00:08Education is one of the main ways that people can get ahead in life, whether you're going
00:12from working class to middle class, middle class to upper middle class, or even upper
00:16income, education is one of those key differentiators.
00:20If you are from the top 1% of families in America, you're twice as likely to get into
00:27those schools than anybody else, even when you look at when people have the same grades,
00:34the same test scores, the same extracurriculars, and it's just not fair.
00:37I would have thought that schools would have said, hey, this person had to work their way
00:42through high school, had to help a single mom, that that would have tilted, but what
00:47we realized, actually, that wasn't what was tilting the scales, it was just pure money,
00:51and it was the money that was being donated to those universities, and that's what was
00:55ultimately tilting the scales.
00:56My argument is this, number one, I don't know why the state of California is dictating
01:02what private schools should be doing, but the bigger thing is that if somebody donates
01:08$30 million to the Stanford Medical Center, and that can benefit in so many ways, it can
01:16benefit patients, it can benefit research for diseases, and it can also benefit the
01:21school because they can retain faculty that are being courted by others for more money.
01:29This is the way of the world.
01:31I just feel like they should be transparent.
01:33If you can buy a slot into Stanford or USC for $30 million, why don't you put it in the
01:38admissions page?
01:39That's nowhere.
01:40It's not on there.
01:41They said, here's all this criteria, here's what we look at, but they don't say that,
01:45and I think that's where the disingenuous part is, because they say, hey, come, we look
01:50at everything.
01:51We look at all the holistic students.
01:53We want you to have good grades and work hard, but you know what?
01:56If you got the $30 million, we'll let you in.
01:59I think that's the part that I'm really very concerned about.
02:03Just so we're clear, the intent for the model you have drawn up is, I'm going to give money
02:10purely so a family member can get in.
02:12Yes, other people are going to ... Hold on, yes, other people ... I let you talk.
02:15I got it.
02:16Yes, other people are going to benefit from this, but really, this is so I can get a grandson,
02:22maybe a great grandson down the line that they can get into this school, and they can
02:26better themselves.
02:27Explain it.
02:28That's the intent of that.
02:29Explain athletics.
02:30Explain athletics.
02:31Hold on.
02:32Lots of students get in.
02:33We don't have the grades.
02:34What is the intent of allowing someone a DEI entry?
02:37What is the intent of that?
02:39The intent is to give people opportunities.
02:41To give people opportunities.
02:42Yeah.
02:43They're not the same thing, but they're both ...
02:45Harvey, what is ...
02:47They're both okay.
02:48Harvey, the defense of legacy-based preferential treatment and the quid pro quo that goes on
02:52in these universities is shameful.
02:54It's absolutely shameful.
02:55It may have been the dirty little secret.
02:57You may say life is unfair.
02:58It doesn't have to be that way, and this is gross.
03:01University of Southern California has been called the University of Spoiled Children
03:03for as long as I've been here, and enough is enough.
03:06The school will still get donations.
03:07This parade of horribles that they won't get funding is nonsense.
03:10They will still get plenty of funding.
03:12All right.
03:13Now that we're over the histrionics with things like gross and nonsense and absurd, let's
03:15get down to facts.
03:16Assemblyman Tang made a very good point at the top that education is the way people get
03:20ahead, and that's why we have in California literally the world's best public education
03:25system that is funded by taxpayers at the cost of tens or hundreds of millions of dollars.
03:30That doesn't mean that private educational systems that are not funded ... I get it they
03:34get grants, but they're not primarily funded by the public ... should also not be able
03:40to make whatever rules it wants for its admissions.
03:43It's different than race.
03:44That is constitutionally protected.
03:46But again, they do, because they're taking millions of dollars in state money.
03:52Stanford gets $3 million in Cal Grant money, as USC gets $30 million in Cal Grant money.
03:59That's not a small amount of taxpayer money.
04:02The taxpayers want to make sure that they're espousing state goals, and education from
04:08a state point of view is about educational access, making sure we're educating Californians,
04:13and we're providing the best economic opportunity for the state.
04:16It's not saying that you can't admit people who are children of alumni or children of
04:21donors.
04:22You just can't offer them preferential treatment, and again, these folks have every advantage
04:26in life already.
04:27They go to the best schools.
04:28They live in the best areas.
04:29They get the best ... They can get lacrosse coaches.
04:33They can get coaches to row your boat and tennis.
04:37Even then, they're still twice as likely, even when someone else who didn't even have
04:41any of those advantages can compete with them.
04:43They're saying, those schools are saying, hey, you know what?
04:46The money makes a difference, and so, hey, we're letting the rich kid in.
04:50How do you reconcile what you're saying with the fact that a lot of these schools let athletes
04:55in who don't have the grades, who don't have the SAT scores, and it happens all the time?
05:01I think it's a great question, and I think athletics is going to be one of the next things
05:05that people look at, because everyone thinks-
05:07They're going to ban that?
05:08Yes.
05:10Everyone has to ban athletics-based admissions today.
05:12Everyone thinks about football-
05:13And there we have the problem.
05:15Everyone thinks about football and basketball, but basically, you get athletic scholarships
05:21for crew.
05:22You get athletic scholarships for lacrosse.
05:24You get athletic scholarships for sports that you and I don't even know were offered in
05:29different high schools.
05:31It's another question for down the road.