Should Colleges Ask?

Harvard’s attitude towards homosexuality has changed dramatically over the past century.  In 1920, the University, under the leadership of Abbott L. Lowell, Class of 1877, established a secret court to discover and expel homosexuals within the community.  During the 1950s, Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid Wilbur J. Bender ’27, tried to improve the admission office’s “ability to detect homosexual tendencies and serious psychiatric problems.” Now, sexual orientation is again becoming a controversial subject for elite college admissions officers. The LGBT interest group Campus Pride has proposed adding an optional question about sexual orientation to the Common Application.  Supporters of this movement believe that such a question will better enable colleges to meet the needs of LBGT prospective applicants and would produce a more sexually diverse classes. However, although it has the best intentions, the current proposition is flawed for several reasons.

First, unlike race, gender, or geographical location, by age 18 some applicants are unsure of their sexual orientation.  College admissions committees seeking a diverse LGBT community would have to deal with the possibility that some applicants may not want, or be ready to, identify their LGBT status.  Research shows that only 0.5 percent of teenage males identify as being homosexual, but averages among adults are higher.  Those teenagers, who will eventually join the LGBT community, will remain unidentified during the admissions process.  Other  LGBT applicants might feel pressured to reveal their sexual identity to their family, friends, and teachers before they are ready.  Coming out in college is very common, especially in accepting atmospheres such as Harvard; individuals who wait until college, despite being valid members of the LGBT community, would go undetected and unrepresented.

A related problem is the semantics of the exact question; would it be in binary form—gay or straight?  What about bisexual and transsexual identities?  The Common Application is unlikely to produce a question that is both inclusive and specific enough to be useful.  How could applicants be expected to squeeze something as personal as their sexuality into a tiny box to be checked?

It is also unclear exactly what a sexually diverse class would look like.  Should admissions offices make the class percentages match the national averages? Studies estimating the percentage of homosexual males in the US population range from 2 percent to 10 percent.  However, it is possible that the percentage of homosexual students at a university, such as Harvard, might be higher.  Recent research suggests that homosexual male college students are, on average, more academically inclined and have higher grade point averages than their heterosexual counterparts.

Finally, it would be naïve to believe that people would not lie about their sexual orientation.  Some individuals are willing to do or say anything to get in to an elite college.  But, unlike race, sexual orientation would be easy to fake, as colleges would have no ethically acceptable ways of checking.

Admittedly, the sentiment behind introducing a question about sexual orientation to the Common Application marks an important shift in the right direction. There is a need for queer students to feel more accepted on college campuses.  Many students come from less-than-accepting backgrounds and unfortunately, homosexuality (and the social pressures it engenders) remain correlated with teenage suicide attempts.

Thus, many elite academic institutions have sought to welcome admitted LGBT applicants through special outreach programs; Harvard sets up “queer friendly” hosts for visiting admitted students who request them, and this year, the University of Pennsylvania has been vocal about establishing LGBT recruitment projects. These efforts have been welcome and valuable.

Nevertheless, it would be more beneficial for all involved if students were admitted for their merits and more overt perspectives rather than their choice of bedfellow. If an applicant’s sexual orientation is an important part of his identity, nothing stops him, her, zhim or zer from discussing it. But, attempts to balance a class for sexual orientation—as might be done for other measures of diversity—would be misleading.  Indeed, forcing the issue upon applicants, and then using the information to determine the composition of the admitted class would be unfair and ineffective.

Ryan M. Rossner ’13, a Crimson editorial comper, lives in Grays Hall.