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A bill introduced in Congress Wednesday by Democratic lawmakers seeks to end legacy admissions at many U.S. colleges and universities.

The so-called Fair College Admissions for Students Act would amend the Higher Education Act of 1965 to bar institutions of higher education that participate in federal student aid programs from giving admissions preference to applicants with legacy or donor status, a common practice at elite institutions.

The bill was introduced by Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) and Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Oregon) in an attempt to address what they said is an unfair and inequitable admissions process that disproportionately benefits wealthy, white and connected students.

“All students deserve an equitable opportunity to gain admission to institutions of higher education, but students whose parents didn’t attend or donate to a university are often overlooked in the admissions process due to the historically classist and racist legacy and donor admissions practices at many schools across the country,” Bowman said in a statement.

Merkley said the bill would seek to level the playing field for minority and first-generation students especially.

“Children of donors and alumni may be excellent students and well-qualified, but the last people who need extra help in the complicated and competitive college admissions process are those who start with the advantages of family education and money,” he said in a statement.

The bill would allow the education secretary to waive the legacy preference ban for institutions like historically Black colleges and universities, tribal colleges and minority-serving institutions, which admit high levels of underrepresented students already.

Legacy preferences are common among selective colleges; according to the progressive think tank The Century Foundation, three-quarters of the nation’s top 100 national universities in U.S. News & World Report employ them, and nearly all the 100 liberal arts colleges do.

The legacy preference is worth an extra 160 points for children of alumni, researchers from Princeton University found.

Supporters of legacy preferences argue that legacies can help boost an institution’s ability to award financial assistance to low-income students.

Several institutions, including Johns Hopkins University and Amherst College, have ended their practice of legacy admissions in recent years.

Last year, Colorado became the first state to enact a law banning legacy admissions at public colleges and universities. In the wake of the “Varsity Blues” scandal, California didn’t ban legacy admissions but did require institutions whose students receive state financial aid to disclose how many applicants are accepted through the practice.

The Fair College Admissions for Students Act is introduced as the Supreme Court is poised to hear challenges to affirmative action, which also could have implications for many colleges and universities’ admissions policies.

This week, Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards expressed his sympathy for the family of Ronald Greene — who died while in police custody in May 2019 — but he also continuously defended his actions following Greene’s death.

“I have never told anyone public or private that Mr. Greene died in a car wreck,” Edwards said. “I have never asked, directed or otherwise caused anybody to alter, delay, change, modify whatever you want to say about the investigation.”

Edwards’ comments at a press conference in Baton Rouge came after a report that he was notified, within hours of Greene’s death, that the 49-year-old Black man had been involved in a brutal struggle with police. Despite knowing that, the report alleges, Edwards never publicly questioned the police’s much different public story that Greene had died in a car crash.

Edwards said several times during the press conference this week that he will not make any excuses for his actions. He also said that no family should ever have to experience what the Greene family has experienced and continues to go through. “I think we have to acknowledge racism when we see it. I think we have to make sure that we call it what it is,” the governor said.

Edwards denied that he delayed or interfered with the investigation.

“There are implications that I knew more or that one or more of my staff members tried to cover up what happened. I will say that that is simply and categorically false,” he said. “It is sad. It is regrettable that I am here under these circumstances talking about these things. But unfortunately, it is unavoidable. But we can do better. We must do better.”

Last May, the Associated Press published body camera footage of Greene’s arrest. The video showed state troopers punching and using a stun gun on Greene after he crashed his car following a pursuit in northern Louisiana on May 10, 2019.

Greene’s mother, Mona Hardin, claimed Edwards lied about the arrest to the media, and said she is tired of the disrespect.

“This language of us talking about the unfairness that everyone’s all of a sudden attacking John Edwards, it’s another slap in my face that he can say that and in the same breath say he’s sorry, what happened to Ronnie was horrific,” Hardin said. “But at first he made every attempt to take the blame off of his troopers.”

“Everyone has to be held accountable — arrest and jail time,” she said. “I’m talking about serious jail time. We’re not talking about a few months.”

Hardin said the family is still looking for answers from the governor and she will continue to try to get justice for her son.

“I would love for the day that somebody would just say ‘Hey, let’s fix this, enough is enough.’ I would love for someone to put the brakes on this, because if they don’t, when will it stop? When will it stop?” Hardin said. “My son, I miss him so much. And all I can say is I cannot rest and I will not rest until someone pays for his murder. And my son was murdered. He was beaten to death with no mercy.”

The National Archives is preparing to turn over some of former Vice President Mike Pence’s official records to the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, the agency disclosed in a letter posted to its website.

The tranche of records will be turned over by March 3, absent a court order, officials said.

Several senior Pence aides have appeared before congressional Jan. 6 investigators in recent days, including Pence’s former chief of staff Marc Short and counsel Greg Jacob.

Pence’s former national security adviser, Keith Kellogg, has also cooperated with the panel’s inquiry, testifying to investigators about his interactions with then-President Donald Trump on Jan. 6.

Trump, who unsuccessfully attempted to assert privilege over some vice presidential materials, could go back to court to try to stop the panel from receiving Pence’s records.

The Biden White House declined to assert executive privilege over Pence’s records and argued that Trump lacks authority to make privilege claims over his vice president’s records.

“Many of the records as to which the former President has made a claim of privilege in this set of documents, however, were communications concerning the former Vice President’s responsibilities as President of the Senate in certifying the vote of presidential electors on January 6, 2021,” White House counsel Dana Remus wrote in a letter to the National Archives.

To date, the Jan. 6 committee has received 60,000 pages of records, including more than 700 pages of National Archives material that Trump had tried to keep from investigators, according to a congressional aide. The committee has also interviewed more than 475 witnesses.

Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., said Wednesday that the committee could begin holding public hearings in April.