A study from I. Maupin and Bryan C. McCannon of West Virginia University found that college admissions counselors discriminate against students based on their gender identity.
The study, “Gender Identity and Access to Higher Education,” discovered that there was a “higher response rate for emails which included preferred pronouns, with a response rate increase of approximately four percentage points, regardless of the type of pronoun used.”
To conduct the study, the authors sent emails to admissions counselors at 500 random colleges and universities.
Some of the emails included pronouns such as “he/him,” “she/her,” or “xe/xem.”
“We find that there is, in fact, a greater response rate to messages which include preferred pronouns,” the authors wrote.
They continued, “Further, there is not a difference between treatments where traditional, binary pronouns are used and where neo-pronouns are included. We interpret these results as suggesting that agents of higher education institutions hold a preference for progressively-minded individuals.”
Replies from the admissions counselors appeared to be “more positive” and “friendlier” with the use of preferred pronouns.
A reply to an email using pronouns said, “Hi Morgan, Thanks for your message! The first item we will mail to you is your admission decision. It will be sent electronically and if admitted, also through the mail. Will you have moved by February?”
In response to an email sent without pronouns, the admissions counselor wrote, “I would say you should use whichever one you want to get your mail sent to because we’ll mail your acceptance letter, scholarship certificate, and financial aid package to that address.”
Reporting from The Daily Signal:
The institutions most likely to discriminate tend to be medium to large, based in cities, and have low retention rates and a large proportion of students receiving need-based financial aid. The economists note that by giving pronoun users preferential treatment, admissions counselors make it easier for those applicants to gain admission. In economic parlance, they “decrease the transaction costs” of the application process. Admissions officers’ preferential treatment also has the effect of promoting their institutions to pronoun users above others. If you follow this logic one step further, the end result is that pronoun users will have an easier time getting through the application process and will tend to feel more welcome at a school than non-users will.
