An important point in the article was that these colleges are producing future American leaders. As such, they presumably have a duty to pick based on merit, not on fuzzy factors.
That's not how self-selecting aristocracies are supposed to work, though.
Not to mention that these universities aren't "private" in the real sense of the term. Each one takes in hundreds of millions of dollars in public funds every year. An enormous percentage of this income is indirect costs on grants (as high as 60 or 70% of the total grant at some places and more than 50 at all or most of them). Indirects can be used almost as the university sees fit. This gives them a duty to the public, and admitting dimwitted little Junior because Mummy and Daddy ponied up a donation does NOT fit the public interest.
True, they do take in huge amounts of public money. Whether that requires them to adopt a certain public duty is a matter for interpretation... either by the leadership of the school, or through public policy.
