Affirmative Action for Gay Students

[davidinalameda]

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/10/09/gay

At gatherings of admissions officials, there is much talk about students who suffer discrimination or other hardships and how colleges should help them to enroll. But as Greg McCandless noted Friday at the annual meeting of the National Association for College Admission Counseling, there is a group that “people were not talking about” — gay applicants.

While there have always been gay college students, they were invisible in the admissions process in previous generations. College don’t ask students their sexual orientations, but McCandless, associate director of admission at Harvey Mudd College, said that a small but growing number of students come out during the admissions process — raising the question of how colleges should consider that information. Everyone who spoke at a session about gay applicants in the admissions process agreed that the students should not be discriminated against for revealing this information. The more controversial question was whether they should receive the sort of affirmative action boost that some other groups receive at many institutions.

“I think there’s a case to be made” that gay students should receive such assistance, McCandless said, although he acknowledged that the issue was a tricky one.