Bias and Discrimination at Stanford’s Admissions Department

The admissions page at Stanford University showcases the diversity of the student body. Diversity has become the primary concern for universities in the United States. Pictures like these are chosen with great care to send a message about the school’s policies and values.

Scroll down the page and we are introduced to the freshman class of 2021. Notice anything particular? All the students who figure prominently are women. Not the majority, or most, but 100% are women.

In the next section we are introduced to Stanford’s graduate programs. Another carefully chosen photo reminds us that diversity is the main concern of the admissions department. Again we see a strong bias toward women.

That is all the pictures you will find on Stanford’s admission page. The text highlights financial aid. A cursory mention is given to academic excellence.

If you click on Class of 2021, you see graphs detailing the composition of the incoming class.

A graph for Gender Balance comes first. Ethnicity comes third. A breakdown can be seen on the chart below. It’s worth noting that Academic Excellence is last. Also worth noting, the admissions department is using a trial version of CanvasJS despite Stanford’s 25 Billion dollar endowment 😏

Diversity is a noble cause but what is really going on in Stanford’s admissions department?

The most striking aspect of the admissions page is that women far outnumber men in the photos. Given the near obsession with diversity and gender in American universities, it is highly unlikely this happened by accident.

Such bias may have been justified in the 1970s when women were the minority on college campuses. However, women are a large and growing majority of University students in 2019. According to the U.S. Department of Education, women comprise more than 56 percent of students and the number will grow to 57% in the years to come.

A recent article in The Atlantic, Why Men Are the New College Minority, draws attention to this growing trend.

The incoming class is 51% female but the pictures chosen to represent the Class of 2021 and graduate programs are almost exclusively women.

You might argue that 51% women mirrors world-wide proportion of men and women. However, Stanford is know for computer science and engineering, majors which women are 5 times less likely to choose than men.

African Americans represent 13% of the population in the United States but only 7% of Standford’s incoming class. It’s laudable that the Admission Department uses images to encourage more Black people to apply.

However, Caucasians represent between 60 and 72% of the US population depending on how you count Hispanics, but only 33% of the incoming class, a clear sign of discrimination.

It is interesting to note that statistics on Academics come dead last, a clear sign that diversity trumps excellence at Stanford.

Stanford is not alone in their quest to favor women and minorities. Examining the websites of other American Universities shows that bias against white men is systemic and institutional in higher education.