Bravo, Elmhurst!

Progress in LGBT equality recently took another step forward when Elmhurst College in Illinois became "the first institution to include a question about sexual orientation and gender identity on its undergraduate admissions application." This has generated a lot of attention, as one can imagine, both positive and negative.

Those who oppose this question pose the following arguments (followed by my responses):

• At the age that students are applying for college, many are unsure of their sexual orientation. And? The question is optional. If you do identify as part of the LGBTQ community, or may be questioning your sexual orientation or gender identity, you don't have to answer the question. Also, because equality and acceptance have been advancing recently, more and more students are coming out at a younger age.

• Colleges will try to establish quotas for LGBTQ students, creating an unfair admissions advantage. We all saw how well quotas worked in the past.

• Students may lie on the application to gain admission. I seriously doubt this would happen. Despite all the advances in LGBTQ equality, discrimination and violence still exist in our society. Unfortunately, full equality and acceptance of differences is still to come.

Despite the controversy, officials at Elmhurst are "proud to have so much attention focused on our efforts to build a campus that is diverse, open, and affirming to all students." According to Gary Rold, Elmhurst's Dean of Admissions, "We ask a lot of questions in admissions, so we thought, why not ask about this, too? We are trying to recruit students who are academically qualified and diverse, and we consider this another form of diversity."

Elmhurst may have been the first institution to ask the question directly, but other schools, including Penn and Dartmouth, are mining information from admissions applications to help identify LGBTQ students. Information can be gleaned from activities in high school (such as involvement with the Gay Straight Alliance), as part of a check-off system for interests, or from statements made in admissions essays. The Common Application, despite listing equity as part of their mission, still refuses to include the question on their forms.

But with the question being completely optional, there can be many benefits to including a similar question on admissions applications, including:

• Showing that the institute supports and embraces a broad definition of diversity, including sexual orientation and gender identity, which can be one more tool for a recruiter to use
  
• Connecting incoming students to campus support services
• Determining eligibility for certain opportunities, including scholarships
  

I know that we have struggled with the issue of identifying LGBTQ students on my campus. Many other campus services and student organizations have fairly simple ways of identifying students to target their outreach efforts to. For example, if you're a veteran, it's pretty easy to mine that data from admissions applications. Identifying LGBTQ students isn't so easy. One of the main arguments is protecting the student right to privacy. I get it. Some students may still be in the closet. Some may be relying on parental support to help finance their education. Some may still be living at home and would risk being thrown out if they disclosed their sexual orientation or gender identity.

I would love to be able to identify the LGBTQ and ally students on my campus, for a variety of reasons:

• Sending targeted messages about events and services
• Conducting surveys and needs assessments to help improve our services
• Informing them of opportunities
• Connecting with them socially so that they feel included in the LGBTQ community on campus
  

On an almost weekly basis, I speak with students who had no idea that the office of GLBT Student Services existed on campus, even those students who have been attending for a few years already. With one simple, optional question, students would be able to see the value the institution places on that aspect of their identity, as well as gaining information and access to services and opportunities that they may have overlooked.

The time has come for this question to be asked, and I applaud Elmhurst for raising the bar!