USA Today commentary on college admissions bias
I wrote a different angle on the admissions controversy for my former newspaper.
I’m struck by how college presidents view this. I interviewed a few recently from small private colleges that obviously over select men to keep their gender imbalances in check. To them, there was no discrimination involved. Rather, it was just about making their colleges more attractive to men by adding some athletic teams and targeting males in their recruitment. But when I asked about their acceptance rates by gender, they pleaded ignorance.
For an insight into how private colleges view this — we’re not discriminating because we only admit students who can handle the work — read the Middlebury College section of this article.
My piece:
Why men warrant a break on college admissions
By Richard Whitmire
It is hard to imagine that the controversies over how colleges pick their freshmen classes - the admissions “black boxes” that all too often seem to prefer someone else’s child - could get any hotter. But they are.
Topping the list of gripes are “legacy” admissions - the students who get an extra boost because their daddy or granddaddy graduated from that college (and kicked more than a few bucks into the college coffers).
After that comes pick your least favorite sport. If you don’t like the idea of colleges being used as training camps for professional football, you have to wonder why some linebacker with a checkered high school academic career gets the nod over your less athletic child. Don’t think minorities warrant an extra boost? Join the corps of conservative legal advocacy groups who try to maneuver just the right case before just the right Supreme Court. And let’s not forget the annoying habit many colleges have of admitting at least one student from each state. I don’t know whether to be amused or outraged by all the admissions preferences lavished on North Dakotans.
A new wrinkle
Now we have a new reason to be upset at the admissions preferences. The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights recently announced it would investigate whether women have to meet higher admissions standards at many colleges, especially small private liberal arts colleges that have a hard time attracting men.
The question is not whether the admissions bias is happening. (It is.) Rather, it’s whether colleges should be pressured to give it up. Pressure is all the commission can apply. It has no legal powers. But it’s not hard to imagine tremendous pressure arising from high school girls about to learn they face a higher admissions bar.
Despite that, colleges have good reasons to hold firm. Picking a freshman class is what defines a college. Some colleges do that by assessing their applicants’ religious fervor, others their artistic talents. There’s a lot of diversity out there. If colleges think they need a football program to keep donors and students happy, we should not judge harshly. Even the legacy admissions are there for a reason, to keep traditions alive.
Whither the men?
But men? “No one has a persuasive explanation for what’s going on with men,” said Richard Ekman, president of the Council of Independent Colleges, which represents many of the small private colleges accused of discriminating against women. “It just turns out there are more females than males applying. It’s a puzzle where the boys are.”
The source of the “boy troubles” is a mystery for experts to sort out. What’s relevant to these colleges is the many reasons they have for wanting to keep gender imbalances in check. The most important: It’s what both male and female students want.
“For private colleges, admission has never been about a strict meritocracy, but about building a community,” explains Robert Massa, a vice president at Lafayette College in Pennsylvania. “That is why a college in the east may admit a student from Wyoming over a slightly ‘better’ candidate from New York. It’s why colleges admit good but less competitive student athletes or talented musicians. It is why colleges admit students underrepresented in college. Men - white or black or Latino - are underrepresented in college.”
Removing one leg of those preferences, such as men, would ratchet up pressure to remove the rest, which would threaten the diversity that defines our world-class higher education system.
As for guys from North Dakota now applying to college … the world is your oyster.
Richard Whitmire, a former USA TODAY editorial writer, is author of the upcoming book Why Boys Fail (whyboysfail.com).
December 1st, 2009 at 8:29 am
The article is good, but I wish you could have discussed more of the why regarding why schools are motivated to maintain gender balance. The reasons have been cited. From what I’ve read here, there are two primary reasons. First, at a certain ratio, apparently 60/40, the men become very abusive and the women become very unhappy or even develop stress type symptoms. The second is that if there is too high a percentage of women, it starts to negatively affect the number and quality of applicants that the college receives in subsequent years. In this regard, it would be interesting to look at private colleges that have allowed their gender balances to go beyond 60/40 and see what happened at those colleges with regard to those two factors, relative to similar colleges that kept their gender balances more even.
December 1st, 2009 at 12:21 pm
Somehow “gender balance” is acceptable to colleges and universities when it seems to benefit women, but not when it seems to benefit men. That is why admissions policies that try to generate a 50/50 division are hidden or even denied.
It is well known that in situations where one gender predominates in a group, its members compete strongly, maybe even desperately, for the attention of the minority. It also seems to be true that neither men nor women want to go to a predominantly female school, despite the occasional anecdote about a young man who likes to be able to pick and choose among the women around him. What is far more important is that a generation of uneducated men is just as disastrous as a generation of uneducated women.
December 1st, 2009 at 1:19 pm
I fully understand that diversity in a college is good for everyone. And yet, it seems senseless that an academically superior applicant would be denied admission based on gender (or race or anything). When I was rejected by William and Mary in 1983 (female, straight A, Honors, etc.) and my average-student, football-playing male classmate was accepted, I met with the Dean. He flat out told me it was because I was a female. It wasn’t fair, but I can’t say that I think it’s a wrong practice. If only, however, we applied the same practices later in the work place. What do you say 50/50 split for women in leadership positions?
December 1st, 2009 at 2:15 pm
and keep in mind, William and Mary is a public university…richard
December 3rd, 2009 at 2:04 pm
I find this whole conversation interesting, I have a son. I’m Black and did benefit from an array of special programming for gifted and talented minorities, particularly in high school. I presume I had an admission preference for college, but am in denial because I figure they would have no reason to turn me down even if my demographics were less desirable. Now, I went to law school and their was a constant/continuous conversation about whether minority students should receive preferences. No one ever mentioned the possibility that men could be receiving preferences, and I never considered gender preferences outside the context of race. Now, I am so curious whether boys get preferences in law school admissions. There would be a lot of long faces in class if this issue was brought up as regularly as Gratch.
December 3rd, 2009 at 8:10 pm
To Richard:
While you succeed in conveying the main point of your article, there are traces of recklessness when you refer to the preferences given to certain groups. Yes, many schools seek diversity amongst their students, but you must qualify that statement to allow for the fact that some of the students who fall into the categories which receive preference are, in fact, fully worthy of attending their respective schools. As a student at an Ivy League university, I have oft heard from many of my African-American classmates of resentment at how it is assumed they were only admitted due to their race; how ironic it is that a policy designed to erase discrimination only allows for the generalization of all minority students needing extra help to be admitted, an assertion you support in your article. Likewise, although some legacies receive preference in admissions, it is also true that many may have been accepted without legacy status. In particular, as a male from North Dakota, I am deeply troubled by your insinuation that all North Dakotans receive admissions preference. I am not only offended on a personal level (my test scores, extracurricular successes, and academic quality during high school were far above the average admitted student) but also feel that your argument fails to consider that many students applying from North Dakota could fall into another category which receives preference, such as Native Americans. The manner in which the article is currently constructed creates a negative image of North Dakotans for all who read it. For example, if I met a professor who read your article, and I revealed that I was from North Dakota, the professor would instantly doubt my academic qualifications for attendance at my school, an inference directly linked to how you phrase your sentence. (”I don’t know whether to be amused or outraged by all the admissions preferences lavished on North Dakotans.”) If you are going to be regarded as a true expert on the subject, it is your responsibility to recognize the impact of your discourse on the lives of your subjects. A little nuance could go a long way towards rectifying many of my concerns; I hope in the future you consider the potentially unfair effect on those persons whom you write about, yet do not know individually.
John Kenney