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To the Editor:

Re “Legacy Admissions Don’t Work the Way You Think They Do,” by Shamus Khan (Opinion guest essay, nytimes.com, July 7):

The convoluted justification for legacy admissions presented by Dr. Khan, a Princeton professor, is both insulting and patronizing to us not born into privilege — i.e., “poor students, students of color, and students whose parents didn’t have a college degree.”

Per Dr. Khan, we receive a boost from attending elite schools because they connect us to students born into privilege and acculturate us “in the conventions and etiquette of high-status settings.”

Wrong. We benefit from admission to elite schools because it signals our accomplishment and our merits to employers — a signaling we need in the job market because we lack the connections that legacy kids have. However, the benefit we receive has absolutely nothing to do with picking up “shared literary references” and the “right” sport.

If indeed acculturation in these “conventions and etiquette” is a byproduct of legacy admissions, then that is even more reason to end the practice. Perpetuation of cultural traits of privilege is repellent and not the place of any university, including an elite one.

Ashwini Jayaratnam
New York

To the Editor:

The author makes an important point that close contact and connection to privilege are a valuable asset that students can gain from elite colleges that accept higher rates of legacy students.

However, if those legacy students don’t go to the elite colleges of their parents, they will still go to college somewhere, especially if they are indeed privileged. This spreading of privileged students among a wider range of colleges and universities is good for all attendees and means that usually underrepresented groups will have the opportunity to encounter privilege outside strictly elite schools.

Nick Kouri
Albany, N.Y.

To the Editor:

Shamus Khan argues that underprivileged college students who attend elite colleges undergo a transformative experience, in large part because they get to rub elbows with students from privileged backgrounds, gaining the cultural capital that helps produce upward mobility.

I have spent my teaching career in the City University of New York, which is regularly ranked as one of the institutions that is most successful in terms of the social mobility of its graduates. We achieve this result without giving a leg up to the sons and daughters of the elite, but by providing our students with the skills necessary for success.

Surely, if we can accomplish this without giving special treatment to already privileged students, so can the so-called elite institutions, with their vastly superior resources.

John R. Bowman
Queens
The writer is a professor of political science at Queens College, CUNY.

The Republicans’ ‘Missed Opportunity’ on the Military Bill

To the Editor:

Re “Republicans Ram Divisive Measure to House Victory” (front page, July 15):

As your article notes, the consideration of the Pentagon authorization bill that was pushed through the House focused almost entirely on debates over Republican amendments designed to limit abortion access, attack transgender rights and undermine efforts to fight racism within the ranks of the U.S. military.

These issues are worthy of debate, but it is a tragedy that the bill passed with inclusion of this hate-driven baggage.

Largely missing from the discussion of defense policy was the near-record $886 billion in Pentagon spending that the bill authorized, or how to craft a realistic strategy toward the challenges posed by Russia and China.

It was a missed opportunity to scale back the exaggerated rhetoric and inflated threats that stand in the way of bringing U.S. policy into line with the most urgent risks we face, many of which — from pandemics to climate change — are not military in nature.

Meanwhile, measures to curb price gouging and Pentagon waste were largely ruled out of order in consideration of the bill, even though misguided spending practices squander untold billions year in and year out. Congress can and should do better.

William D. Hartung
New York
The writer is a senior research fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft.

To the Editor:

We have a recruiting crisis throughout the military, and the Republican solution is to stop inclusion efforts and diversity training.

I remember when the military started diversity training. Leaders were responding to deadly race riots on a Navy ship and Air Force and Marine bases. More recently, trainers have helped defuse racial tension after the George Floyd killing.

If the present-day military can continue to help its members understand their diverse backgrounds, we can have a cohesive, powerful force. Without diversity training, troops will bring society’s raging culture wars into the barracks, with tragic consequences.

Solidarity makes a powerful military; tolerating insurrection and racism will destroy it.

Raymond C. Harlan
Denver
The writer is a retired Air Force major.

Russian Land Mines

To the Editor:

“Vast Fields Full of Mines Hinder Ukraine’s Forces” (front page, July 16) describes how Russian land mines have immobilized Western-supplied armored vehicles, severely slowing the Ukrainian counteroffensive.

For years, as the author of the first legislation anywhere to ban the export of anti-personnel mines, I urged successive U.S. administrations not only to join the Mine Ban Treaty and lead the global effort to stigmatize these horrific, indiscriminate booby traps, but also to invest far more to develop a new generation of mine-breaching technology. That would enable U.S. and allied forces to more rapidly and safely penetrate minefields used by aggressors like Vladimir Putin.

Patrick Leahy
Burlington, Vt.
The writer is a former U.S. senator from Vermont.

Reducing Child Drowning Deaths

To the Editor:

Re “Efforts to Prevent Drownings Falter” (news article, July 8):

As someone who worked as a lifeguard at Jones Beach State Park in New York and has spent decades teaching adults to swim, I believe we should take a household top-down approach to this crisis and nationally target swim classes to adults as well as children.

As the article states, “A parent who has never learned to swim yields an 87 percent chance that a child won’t, either.”

Most of my students grew up in urban areas where swimming facilities and classes were in short supply and had parents who did not know how to swim. We are dealing with a multigenerational problem.

A national campaign to teach adults as well as children to swim would enable families to be more comfortable in swimming facilities and encourage family swim lessons.

Similarly, building more public pools, particularly in urban areas, and providing affordable swim lessons and government-funded CPR classes would greatly reduce the number of children who drown.

Brian Fagan
Lincoln Park, N.J.
The writer is the director of adult swim instruction at the Rutherford Swim Association.

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