No one deserves a seat at Harvard, but only some people are supposed to feel bad about the one they get.

Last month, the Supreme Court ruled that race-based affirmative action violated the Equal Protection Clause, spurring a news cycle about the admissions advantages conferred on certain people of color. The preferential admissions treatment that racial minorities received is just one bonus among many, however. A new study from the economic research group Opportunity Insights quantifies the advantages of wealth in higher education: The ultra rich are much likelier to gain admission to elite colleges than anyone else, even when controlling for academic success. Put another way, if you take a room full of 18-year-olds with the same SAT or ACT score, those from the top 1 percent were 55 percent more likely to be admitted than middle class applicants. Those from the top 0.1 percent are 150 percent more likely to get in.

For decades, underrepresented minorities have faced accusations of unearned access. The implication of these resentments has always been that some people who deserve to go to Harvard have had their spots “taken” by Black, Latino, and Native American students who, absent efforts to tip the scales in their favor, would never have been granted admission. But no one “deserves” to gain admission anywhere. No university can construct a perfectly meritocratic system. How should an admissions program distinguish among tens of thousands of standout students fairly? Is publishing a best-selling novel more important than a perfect GPA? If a student with a mediocre GPA but a perfect SAT score explains their academic deficiency by pointing out that they were taking care of their sick parent, is it reasonable for an admissions officer to consider them more “meritorious” than a student with perfect grades and scores?

[Annie Lowrey: Why you have to care about these 12 colleges]

Any method of distinguishing among such applicants is inherently subjective, and any of the traits, acquired skills, or backgrounds that help push students over the edge could be considered “unearned advantage.” But none of those carries the stigma that race-based affirmative action does. The whispers of affirmative action never leave the people of color who enter into elite spaces; they become the targets of resentment for the unfulfilled ambitions of their fellow students and, later on, their colleagues.

A 1995 dispatch from The Washington Post highlights these resentments: “They talk about a glass ceiling for women and minorities. There’s a glass ceiling for middle-aged white male managers too,” a 52-year-old worker living in Georgia tells the reporters. Another man aptly addresses the zero-sum nature of the conflict: “Why should I suffer so they can have a better chance in jobs or anything for that matter.”

Or take this monologue from The West Wing’s C. J. Cregg about why she’s “the wrong Democrat” to defend affirmative action: “After my father fought in Korea, he became what this government begs every college graduate to become. He became a teacher. And he raised a family on a teacher’s salary, and he paid his taxes and always crossed at the green. And any time there was an opportunity for career advancement, it took him an extra five years because invariably there was a less qualified Black woman in the picture. So instead of retiring as superintendent of the Ohio Valley Union Free School District, he retired head of the math department at William Henry Harrison Junior High.”

C. J. thinks her father hit a glass ceiling put in place by a “less qualified Black woman,” a common villain in these stories of stunted careers.

Affirmative action is an albatross, whereas other forms of unearned privilege are, if anything, a sign of belonging. Most legacy kids don’t try to hide their ancestral claims; they are proud of them, and so are their parents, who come to campus decked in university apparel. A Class of ’87 cap screams status far more loudly than an earnest Proud Parent of … T-shirt. Nor do the kids who row crew or play lacrosse conceal their participation in these résumé-padding pastimes. Later on in life, they eagerly share that they once rowed for Stanford.

This isn’t just about the top 1 percent or even 10 percent. In a system that requires subjective discrimination, no one is objectively best qualified. Men have a much easier time getting into elite schools than women. According to The Harvard Crimson, 51.5 percent of the non-international students in the class of 2018 came from New York, New Jersey, California, or Massachusetts. Living in the United States is a form of unearned privilege as well; a genius in Ethiopia is less likely than the rich failson of an American lawyer to gain admission to one of our universities. It is perfectly legitimate for Americans to want our institutions to discriminate in our favor, but let’s not pretend, then, that this is some fine-tuned exercise in picking the best and the brightest. The point is that we accept some forms of unearned advantage but not others. Born the son of a Harvard-educated lawyer who lives in Massachusetts? Fine. Born Black? Unacceptable.

In 2022, the linguist John McWhorter, who opposes both racial and legacy preferences in admissions processes, wrote in The New York Times that “however unfair it may be, legacy admissions do not reflect on white students or white people, broadly speaking, in the same way [as affirmative action does on Black people].” McWhorter skips right over why even as he refers to legacy preferences as an “embarrassment” for universities.

[Richard V. Reeves: The shame deficit]

But preferential treatment for legacies and the elite isn’t embarrassing. The reason that race-based affirmative action is not treated the same way as all of the other unearned advantages is because of the presumption that racial minorities don’t belong in elite spaces. Elite people belong at Ivies. So do men. So do Americans. So do people who play water polo. So do flute players and the children of alumni. The unearned advantages we accept are the ones we have already decided are acceptable characteristics of the elite.

Could the Supreme Court’s decision finally convince the general public that the Black students who are admitted belong? I doubt it. Jon Wang is one of the students who joined the plaintiffs in their successful effort to end race-conscious admissions. He blames affirmative action for his rejection from a number of schools. Among them: UC Berkeley. That university has been legally prohibited from considering race and ethnicity in admissions since the late 1990s, a change that significantly drove down admissions of underrepresented minorities across the University of California system.

The sooner we accept that no one deserves to be an elite, the better. Should a handful of private institutions benefiting from billions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies and tax breaks and other public monies get to select our political, economic, and cultural leaders behind closed doors? Sure, it’s better if they do so without employing harmful racial stereotypes. Better still if they stop putting their thumbs on the scale for the top 0.1 percent. But fighting over the appropriate racial composition of the future white-collar lawyers and corporate consultants of America only legitimizes the enterprise to begin with.