Because the debate about affirmative action in college admissions is really a debate about racial discrimination, proponents prefer to change the subject -- often by bringing up admission preferences for relatives of alumni, known as "legacies."

Last week Texas A&M, one of the country's largest colleges, decided to drop its legacy program. So have state universities in Georgia and California. Given that alumni preferences have become a favorite excuse to justify racial quotas, supporters of such preferences could find themselves in a real bind if this trend continues.

There is a genuine debate to be had about whether legacy admissions, particularly at public universities using tax dollars, are good public policy. Should the children of some taxpayers be treated more favorably than the children of others? We tend to let the institutions decide what's in their own best interests. But such a debate doesn't belong in a discussion about treating white and black applicants differently.

The comparison ignores, for example, a huge difference in the magnitude of the preference. The difference in average SAT scores between legacies and non-legacies is typically in the single digits; the gap between blacks and whites is around 200 points. There's also no moral equivalence between the two. Legacy programs are race neutral in application and, unlike racial quotas, were not adopted with any sort of discriminatory intent. Racial preferences have the potential to be far more divisive in any society, especially one with America's past and its polyglot future.

Private and public universities grant alumni preferences to help preserve tradition, encourage long-term institutional loyalty and, especially, to raise money. To the extent that such fundraising is used to help finance scholarships for needy kids, the elimination of a legacy program could actually hurt blacks and other minorities who can't afford today's six-figure college tuitions.

Texas A&M's move followed a December 3 announcement that it will also continue not to use race as a factor in admissions, even though Justice Sandra Day O'Connor argued in her recent 5-4 Supreme Court decision that minorities should be held to lower standards for a least another 25 years. Good for Aggies.