On Minding the Campus, Russell Nieli (author of an excellent book on the damage that racial preferences have done, Wounds That Will Not Heal) has an essay on the related subject of legacy preferences. He addresses the arguments of those who claim that such preferences are unconstitutional, as well as the counter-arguments of those who think that it’s a good thing to prefer students who have family ties to the school.
I think the legal arguments are pure bunk. I also think that the case in favor of legacy preferences is just as feeble as the case for racial preferences. Colleges ought to drop both.