Middlebury to begin affirmative action for gay applicants

Parents Forum
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<p>sjmom - you put my thoughts down well. I can't figure out what sex has to do with college. (Outside of the very obvious, I mean.) I was under the impression that homosexuality was a private bedroom activity, and did not define a person in any other way and that's why discrimination against them in places like work or school is considered inappropriate. I am suprised to learn that homosexuals have things to offer colleges that other students can't or don't.</p>

<p>But I would also have a concern that discussing what kind of sex a student prefers is now considered an appropriate topic for college applications. What if it backfires, and the gay quotient is met, so someone is cut from the list for sexual orientation? Or if the information gets shared with places that don't necessarily consider it an advantage?</p>

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<p>What's happening is that Middlebury is attempting to reinvent itself. The new strategic plan calls for increasing diversity (in every manner possible), and this is a tangible way to encourage progress toward this goal. The college also just hired a dean for institutional diversity (the former vice president of the Posse Foundation). The master plan also calls for lowering the student faculty ratio, increasing financial aid in the form of grants, and lessening the college's environmental impact. </p>

<p><a href="http://www.middlebury.edu/administration/planning/progress/report.htm%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.middlebury.edu/administration/planning/progress/report.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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<p>It's reminiscent of those essays asking kids to talk about a challenging personal experience, where some kids have to outline parent's divorces, deaths in a family, health issues or whatever. I just think it's no one's business. Also, I would imagine that there are a fair number of 16, 17 and 18 year old kids who are confused about their sexual identity. Asking them to make such a personal issue open to discussion seems detrimental to me. As it is, I'm sure most college admissions offices don't discriminate against kids who are comfortable declaring their sexuality. But it shouldn't be used as a carrot or a stick in admissions. I think it could backfire in terms of student acceptance on campus.</p>

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<p>Really, what people do in their bedrooms should be nobody's business. Middlebury may feel very progressive and welcoming by asking people to self-identify as gay; but what about colleges which might want to discriminate against gays? Would they, too, not have a legitimate reason for asking? </p>

<p>A college can make a group of people by treating those who are there as full members of the community; it can attract students through its curricular offerings (as Yale has). </p>

<p>If I were a student again, I'd ask for special treatment on account of being short. Why not? It's a real disadvantage. And it's quite visible.</p>

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<p>Colleges have long tried to balance their enrollments based on gender. Some of them - Vassar is a prime example - would be 75% women if they didn't provide a different, or "tagged" standard for male applicants. Other colleges, such as Goucher, do the same, but still have been much less successful in enrolling male applicants.</p>

<p>Why is this an issue? These coed colleges assume there is something to be gained by having enough men in the classroom - and enough men for the baseball team, or football team, or for parts in plays, etc. Now, of course, women COULD take the spots on the football team, or play many of the roles in drag, but the colleges have made a judgment that this is not where they want to go. And to attract enough men, for some reason they believe they need a "critical mass", and won't allow the enrollment of men to fall below a certain level, regardless of how highly qualified the women are. (Note I said "highly qualified", not "better qualified", for one of the qualifications in building a class IS having a certain percentage of male students.) </p>

<p>Why is this any different? (Same would hold true for ethnicities.) I'm not suggesting that all colleges should (or will want to) follow Middlebury's lead, but they perceived a problem in their class-building, and have aimed to remedy it. Whether this approach will work remains to be seen.</p>

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<p>Sexual orientation is a very different issue from gender. Those of us who argue that the state has no business intruding into our sex lives should all the more support the idea that colleges have no business asking applicants about their sexual orientation. I don't care that private colleges can do and demand what they like. They can; and so can we express our disapproval. The Midd adcoms may be well-intentioned. It does not prevent them from being well-intentioned fools. And these are the most dangerous kinds.</p>

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<p>mini:
[quote]
But their lives were mostly miserable at college (they will tell you so themselves) because the critical mass of support wasn't there.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I would suggest that there are innumerable "critical masses" missing at small, expensive, northeast liberal arts colleges, which is part of the reason not all kids should aspire to one. </p>

<hr>

<p>arcadia:
There are schools in NESCAC that give merit scholarships, or at least it cetainly appears that way on the US News site.</p>

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<p>Im wondering why this upsets people so much
even though I think the motivation might have come after someone in admissions read an article about how homosexuals are often better educated and higher income than average, and that they saw a way to increase applicants that could give them a boost among families who won't need finaid, schools are always targeting groups to increase applicants.</p>

<p>Some private schools after seeing that males are applying to colleges in smaller percentages than females are giving men a leg up in admssion-other privates with smaller numbers of female applicants give preference to women.
Does that bother people as much?</p>

<p>If you want a diverse class- you want as many groups represented as possible, so that you aren't merely taking the only 5 representatives that applied, but the 5 that best suited the class you were trying to build.</p>

<p>As for the comment that sex belongs in a bedroom- seems terribly confining.
In my bookgroup- that meets once a month- with middle aged- middle class women- you might be surprised how much sex, sexual attraction, relationships, and all the messy stuff comes up- and we read books like "The Gnostic Gospels" and " The Known World". Hardly salacious reading material. :) </p>

<p>On a college campus- where you are lving with, other hormone driven young adults 24/7, eating with/showering/sleeping with-
topics relating to sex, sexual attraction, relationships, boundaries...... are liable to come up quite a bit, unless you just lock your self in your room and only come out to go to class.</p>

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<p>EK:</p>

<p>Oh, come on. By bedroom, one only means that it is a purely private matter. I don't care if sex happens in the bedroom or among the stacks at Widener Library (a favorite spot for Harvard undergrads, it would seem), standing up or lying down or whatever. The point is that it is a private matter that should not be a consideration for admission OR rejection. Because it you make it a consideration for one, what's to prevent other colleges from making it a consideration for the other? What would your argument be then? That it's a private matter? Does anybody remember that the Nazis forced homosexuals to self-identify? </p>

<p>Now, the greatest issue my S has with his suitemates is messiness (his and theirs). Should that become a criterion for admission since it will have an impact on students relationships with one another? He's "stuck" with them and they with him for the next three years, perhaps longer than the typical college relationships.</p>

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<p>Middlebury is not asking ANYONE about their sexual orientation. They have provided an option for folks to tell them if they choose, just as they do for ethnicity, legacy, etc., etc. </p>

<p>I just don't see the big deal.</p>

<p>"Because it you make it a consideration for one, what's to prevent other colleges from making it a consideration for the other? "</p>

<p>Absolutely nothing, and if they think it "adds value" to the class they are trying to build, they should. (actually, they already do.) And if it makes them better able to compete with Yale, more power to 'em.</p>

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<p>If you think that merely "providing an option" is not a slippery slope, look at the history of boxes for APs. </p>

<p>I come to this issue as a very strong supporter of gay marriage on the grounds that gays should be treated no differently from heterosexuals.</p>

32

<p>mini:
[quote]
I just don't see the big deal.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Of course it's not a Big Deal (relatively speaking anyway), but it's just annoying, to me anyway, because I see it as one more "fake diversity" element at college. Not only that, but I totally agree with Marite about the privacy issue. I think true acceptance of homosexuality involves not having to go on record about who people partner with.</p>

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<p>I would think they are in a better position to ascertain whether the diversity is "fake" or not in achieving their aim of building the best possible class than you or I am. For whatever reason, their data or research seems to tell them that it is real. Whether it works out for them in practice is anyone's guess (building from such a low base is an awful long slog - Yale didn't get to where it is in a day.)</p>

34

<p>The other side of this could just be a ploy to haul in more applications, hoping for lower acceptance percentages.</p>

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<p>(I think I've told the story about how my high school GC used to threaten students who didn't study hard enough with Middlebury....)</p>

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<p>I agree that students shouldn't feel pressured to "come out" in their application essay
However- it will come up on campus
Just as my daughters learning disabilties did not have to be mentioned in her application, we decided it did serve her to do so, because if a school was not going to be able to provide what she needed, it was better to know up front, even if it meant that some schools she might not have been admitted because of that.</p>

<p>Likewise for her homosexuality. Its part of who she is, mentioning it, gave admissions a more complete picture of the challenges she had already tackled. I can understand why a student wouldnt want to mention it though.</p>

<p>I know several adults who are now my age who hid their sexuality from others ( and even themselves) during high school and even college. Its hard to grasp something that some people think makes you * immoral* and even if your community is fairly accepting, it definitely still makes you different. Teens don't want to be different.</p>

<p>Some teens like my younger daughter, do what they can to fit in, including darkening her gorgeous 15 shades of honey blond hair to brown, because most of her friends have brown hair. :(
( I understand though- I have red hair- and even though it was more common than it is now, I hated it because it made me different- but my complexion would have looked odd with any other color of hair)</p>

<p>even though my daughter was apparently comfortable enough with herself and her peers to "come out" in high school, it wasn't until she got to college in a larger environment, including students with disability issues and students who were GLBT ( perhaps even both!) that she really started to bloom socially.</p>

<p>I think this is valuable for anyone- think of how I would have felt if there could have been a group at my high school for redheads- It would have been great! We could have talked about how hard it was to find clothes and makeup that didn't clash with our hair! How we envied those who could tan, and who didn't have skin so translucent you could see their venous system.</p>

<p>I am getting silly, but I think it is important to at least have a small group that you identify with. Until schools had a cohort of blacks on campus, there wasn't impetus to address their "special" needs. Same with women, the disabled or any other group that may have requirements that could benefit others, but wouldn't get addressed on an individual basis.</p>

37

<p>Marite, as usual, has a very sensible objection to Midd's plan. I still think it's exploiting the kids. If Midd can say, "X percentage of our kids are gay" then they feel it's an advantage. But I really don't think it's appropriate to use something like sexual orientation as an admissions issue. I also think it's inappropriate given the age of the applicants. It one thing for a bunch of middle aged people to discuss sexual issues as much as they like -- it's another to make an issue of this for 17-18 year olds.</p>

<p>EK's daughter was comfortable addressing this issue in her applications. But I can imagine that there are kids out there who aren't so comfortable with their identity and yet would feel pressured to use this aspect of themselves in admissions.</p>

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<p>marite- I agree that it is someones choice whether or not they are going to identify themselves in their application as gay ( or black- or 1st gen or whatever might set them apart- although if you apply for aid- they are going to see your income)</p>

<p>I don't see Middlebury as forcing anyone however-
Students don't have to apply to Middlebury- there * are* a couple other colleges out there, and they don't have to mention their sexuality anymore than they have to mention what they think they are going to major in
* perhaps they can just check undecided for every category?*</p>

<p>I do agree that it is a way for Middlebury to game the system- & a school can certainly be known as a supportive place for gays without expecting students to self identify on their application</p>

<p>And re the messiness issue- reslife does ask you to state your tolerance level for disorder as well as noise etc, although if someone flat out states the opposite, I guess that would be grounds for getting a different roommate :)</p>

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<p>"(I think I've told the story about how my high school GC used to threaten students who didn't study hard enough with Middlebury....)"</p>

<p>and were the ones who did not study at all sent to Williams? :)</p>

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<p>Actually, worse. I was the only one who (for years) was ever allowed in. But I don't think anyone from my high school, in those days, EVER went to Middlebury - they were more likely to choose City College of New York.</p>