To the Editor:

Re “U.S. Rights Unit Shifts to Study Antiwhite Bias” (front page, Aug. 2):

With the Justice Department moving to challenge affirmative action in college admissions, we would do well to be mindful of important ways in which existing class and financial status benefit certain college applicants, mostly those who are white.

The simple truth is that prosperous communities, good schools and savvy guidance counselors constitute affirmative action for whites.

There is also one deliberate and robust admissions policy used at many colleges that in effect constitutes white affirmative action: That is the preference given in admissions decisions to the children of alumni of the college.

In a previous life, I was an admissions officer at Princeton. That college and others like it openly acknowledged that there was a separate pool for so-called legacies. That remains true today.