According to this news story later tweeted by Big Q Ethics, incoming University of California students will be provided the opportunity to indicate sexual orientation in addition to the demographics UC already collects on race/ethnicity, gender, and other characteristics. One significant difference is the UC campuses will collect this data after admission to prevent students from concerns over whether this could impact their admission to one of the 10 UC campuses.
Considering so far only one college (Elmhurst) invites students to indicate sexual orientation on their college applications, this marks a bold step forward toward collecting better data on LGBTQ students in American colleges and universities. The UC system includes over 220,000 students, making it one of the largest systems of higher education in the United States, possibly even the world. If we accept that approximately one in ten Americans identifies as LGBTQ, for the first time ever we could track the progress and retention of around 22,000 students to understand how (if at all) sexual orientation and/or gender identity impact college outcomes. There currently is no systematic way to understand this relationship on such a large scale.
What surprised me was how both the article and Big Q Ethics framed the issue. Both pointed to the fact that yes, making such a change is controversial, but that the greater concern is whether or not collecting such information is an invasion of privacy. Yet the CBS article specifically highlighted how collecting demographic data on sexual orientation and/or gender identity is supported by LGBTQ students and professional staff, and that as long as providing this information is voluntary, most people have no problem with it. So where's the controversy?
To me, there was once a time in American history when asking someone their sexual orientation or their gender identity was invasive and threatening. Of course, then, neither sexual orientation nor gender identity were seen as demographic characteristics--they were (and gender identity still is) considered personality disorders. And colleges were not interested at all in knowing whether their students identified as LGBTQ. Our institutions have changed. And it's about time we started collecting demographic data on sexual orientation and gender identity just as we collect demographic data on several other dimensions of identity.
I am a graduate student representative to UCLA's Committee on LGBT Affairs, and we had a conversation about this very topic in one of our recent meetings. The argument that asking students their sexual orientation is an invasion of privacy is simply a stalling tactic to avoid taking the bold risk of finding out how better we can enhance what we know about our students by expanding our list of demographics. In fact, faculty from UCLA's Williams Institute, the leading research center on LGBTQ affairs in the United States (with the U.S. Census they pioneered studying same-sex couples and families for the first time with the 2010 Census), presented to our committee several ways to ask about sexual orientation and gender identity appropriately. It's tough to be the first, or among the early innovators, but without those willing to step first how do we within the field of higher education move forward?
To me, it comes down to one very important question: What risk are we taking by not collecting adequate information about our students' identities and experiences which could provide more genuine insight into factors impacting their persistence and ways we can better serve them?
Bryce
Follow me on Twitter: @BryceEHughes
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