Sexual preference

Middlebury College in New Jersey recently decided to implement a policy that will give affirmative action benefits to students who identify themselves as homosexual, bisexual or transsexual on admissions applications. And a few other schools, such as Claremont McKenna College and Loyola University in New Orleans, are already considering similar programs. We at the editorial board have two main problems with LGBT affirmative action: First, we do not believe this will really help the cause of campus diversity. Second, we think it will be impossible to enforce, allowing students to exploit the policy by stating they are gay simply to receive special preferences.\nWith all due respect to the discrimination that members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and trangender community face, we agree with Debbie Bazarsky, LGBT Center Director at Princeton, which was named as one of the most accommodating campuses in America for LGBT students by The Advocate magazine, when we say we don't think individuals from these groups face the same deep-seeded economic and cultural barriers that might, for example, prevent members of racial or ethnic groups from going to college. \nBazarsky points out that "there are LGBT students of all ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds." Given this condition, awarding preferences based on sexuality could risk breeding resentment among heterosexual students, creating precisely the opposite conditions from what Middlebury presumably wants. \nHow, for example, is a lower-middle-class straight student going to react upon finding out that an upper-class gay student received special financial aid? If a university can afford to forgo the revenue full-tuition paying admitees might have provided, couldn't it instead put more funds into campus diversity initiatives to help promote dialogue and understanding among its present students? \nIt's as if Middlebury is more concerned with the raw number of LGBT recruits it can report than any substantive progress.\nIn addition, this policy is very hard to enforce: How can an admissions office really prove an applicant's sexual orientation? We believe it is very possible that, for a bit of extra aid, some students might identify themselves as LGBT just to gain an advantage over the competition. Will the school keep track of applicants' hookups and significant others? Will it monitor the "Interested in" category on their Facebook profiles? \nBazarsky said she doubts this possibility because "there is still such a negative association with being an LGBT student that I don't see high school students saying they were gay or lesbian just to give themselves an advantage." We're not so sure. For example, it would be easy for a male applicant to claim bisexuality and then simply argue that he never encountered any men who interested him while in college. There is also the danger that this system could make a mockery of campus LGBT identity, flooding the legitimate community on campus with posers. \nDiversity on campuses should be encouraged. But by creating grounds for resentment among students while threatening the validity of student identity groups, this policy undermines tolerance efforts.