As the editorial board of The New York Times explained today, many schools continue to engage in a “particularly insidious form of wealth-based affirmative action: legacy admissions.”

The children of alumni — who are overwhelmingly white — enjoy a far better chance than other applicants of getting accepted to the nation’s top colleges and universities, which, as this board has argued, constitutes “a form of property transfer from one generation to another.” It has a far larger impact on the racial and socioeconomic makeup of student bodies than race-based affirmative action ever has.

The editorial went on to note that roughly one-in-seven students at Harvard are there at least in part because of a legacy, adding, “Reducing or eliminating this practice could create new opportunities for all kinds of students who normally don’t have a chance of getting into a top school.”

Or put another way, if the country is going to have a conversation about creating an “all merit-based” system, then that conversation should be honest and comprehensive.

It was against this backdrop that Punchbowl News reported last night that several congressional Democrats called on the Justice Department to respond to yesterday’s ruling by filing “legal challenges against any college or university that engages in discriminatory practices — including legacy admissions.”....

I don’t seriously expect a groundswell of GOP support for the idea, but if some prominent voices on the right are sincere about an “all merit-based” system, perhaps this could be an area for bipartisan cooperation?

Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Sunday that it was “shameful” that Supreme Court Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas are so “cavalier” about ethics.

“Well, I think they have the opportunity to write some ethics rules for themselves. And that’s what the chief justice said we can do it ourselves. I see no action being taken there. But nonetheless, that’s what they say,” she said on MSNBC’s “Inside with Jen Psaki.”

“But I give credit to Senator [Sheldon] Whitehouse (D-R.I.), with the majority in the Senate, he is able to point out what needs to be done to have integrity on the court. Integrity on the court. It’s shameful how Thomas, Justice Thomas and Justice Alito, have been so cavalier about their violations,” she added.

When asked what reforms could be taken in response to recent reporting, Pelosi also said there should be term limits for the justices and additional ethics rules they should follow.

With the fate of Harvard’s affirmative action lawsuit in the hands of a judge, a new study stemming from that suit has raised more questions about the role of wealth, race and access in college admissions at prestigious universities.

The study, published earlier this month in the National Bureau of Economic Research, found that 43 percent of white students admitted to Harvard University were recruited athletes, legacy students, children of faculty and staff, or on the dean’s interest list — applicants whose parents or relatives have donated to Harvard.

That number drops dramatically for black, Latino and Asian American students, according to the study, with less than 16 percent each coming from those categories.

The study also found that roughly 75 percent of the white students admitted from those four categories, labeled 'ALDCs' in the study, “would have been rejected if they had been treated as white non-ALDCs,” the study said.

Almost 70 percent of all legacy applicants are white, compared with 40 percent of all applicants who do not fall under those categories, the authors found.

“Removing preferences for athletes and legacies would significantly alter the racial distribution of admitted students, with the share of white admits falling and all other groups rising or remaining unchanged,” the study said.

Sen. Dick Durbin has had enough. After news broke about yet another Supreme Court ethics scandal — this time, revelations that Justice Samuel Alito went on a lavish vacation with a billionaire GOP donor, and failed to recuse himself from multiple cases involving that donor — Durbin, an Illinois Democrat and chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has announced that the committee will vote next month on legislation to create enforceable ethics requirements for Supreme Court justices.

Durbin’s announcement, though well overdue, is a promising sign. The key now is to make sure that any attempt at reforming the court is meaty enough to fix its acute vulnerability to corruption.

The latest case involving Alito should anger anyone who cares about democracy, regardless of where they stand on the political spectrum. ProPublica reports that in 2008 hedge fund billionaire and GOP donor Paul Singer flew Alito to Alaska on a private jet, which ProPublica estimated would have cost Alito over $100,000 if he had chartered it himself. Alito didn’t disclose that gift. He also didn’t later recuse himself from ruling on cases involving Singer’s businesses. .....

But the question remains as to whether measures focused on transparency and the deterrence effect of stigma is enough given what's at stake. Even more robust disclosure of gifts and recusals might not be enough to offset the reality that many justices — both liberal and conservative — take hundreds of privately sponsored trips. The premise of the Supreme Court is that the jurists are supposed to be interpreters and arbiters of the law who draw only from their own study and interpretations — so why are we leaving so many opportunities for them to be feted by powerful moneyed interests and potentially become vehicles for their agendas?

It only makes sense to look at the more aggressive regulatory mechanisms. A New York Times editorial in April suggested that the court adopt “the kinds of gift limits that apply to members of Congress and other federal employees,” while also creating an ethics office similar to the ethics committees in Congress. Whatever the exact remedy, it needs to be strong, and it needs to be chosen urgently. The Supreme Court already has too much power.