"controversial legacy" is a correct and usable phrase in written English.
It can be used to describe the ongoing impact or reputation of someone or something that is highly debated or disputed. Example: The controversial legacy of the former president continues to divide public opinion, with some hailing him as a visionary leader while others condemn his actions as damaging to the country's economy.
Vestager will be investigating her boss's controversial legacy.
Mr. Thackeray, who died Saturday at age 86, left a controversial legacy.
Only this week, she vowed to clarify her position on her father's controversial legacy.
He served in this post for three years, handling among other hot potatoes Salvador Dalí's controversial legacy.
This seems a fittingly controversial legacy for someone who loathed the concept of consensus and who often seemed to relish making enemies more than making friends.
As the presidency of Argentina's Cristina Fernández de Kirchner enters its final days, her greatest – and arguably most controversial – legacy project is just getting under way in the remote grasslands of Patagonia.
Within 15 years of her taking tea with Maureen and James Patterson and their three children, some 2 million council houses had been sold in what has become one of the most controversial legacies of Thatcherism.
The tube PPP is one of the most controversial legacies of Gordon Brown's tenure as chancellor due to a complex structure that lets the private sector have considerable influence over a major public asset.
The decision guts one of President George W. Bush's most controversial legacies: a rule that was widely interpreted as shielding workers who refuse to participate in a range of medical services, such as providing birth control pills, caring for gay men with AIDS and performing in-vitro fertilization for lesbians or single women.
The statement said both sides were "gratified with the spirit of cooperation and scientific discussion". Analysts called the agreement an important step forward in addressing one of the most enduring and controversial legacies of the Vietnam War, which ended with a victory by Communist North Vietnam in 1975.
Yet his controversial political legacy, of which the Cultural Revolution is just one example, is growing more, not less, disputed, with time.
