It’s the latest effort in a growing push against legacy admissions, the practice of giving admissions priority to the children of alumni. Backlash against the practice has been building in the wake of last week’s Supreme Court’s decision ending affirmative action in college admissions.

Lawyers for Civil Rights, a nonprofit based in Boston, filed the suit Monday on behalf of Black and Latino community groups in New England, alleging that Harvard’s admissions system violates the Civil Rights Act.

“Why are we rewarding children for privileges and advantages accrued by prior generations?” said Ivan Espinoza-Madrigal, the group’s executive director.

[Why were we penalizing children for the sins of past generations before SFFA v Harvard? They will argue that the outcomes of legacy admissions create system racial disparity, which is rather amusing given their previous cheerleading of affirmative action, which is an explicitly racial policy. I’m no fan of legacy admissions, but it seems pretty clear that they aren’t unconstitutional or illegal in and of themselves. Social pressure might be enough to force Harvard and other Ivy League universities to end those admission policies, but it seems doubtful that federal courts will find any role in this fight. And the plaintiffs probably realize it, too — but it will allow them to claim unfair treatment when the legal effort fails. — Ed]