Affirmative Action -- For Men

Whenever I hear someone bemoaning how hard it is these days to get into Harvard or Yale, I tune out. May be it's because my children are still years away from college, but I just find the hand- wringing silly, especially given how many people I know who have succeeded without having attended a "top" school.

But my mind was changed last week when I ran across an article in U.S. News & World Report showing that many universities now are rejecting women at higher rates than men. Facing more applications from women than men, many of the selective, "second tier" universities are trying to achieve gender balance by, in effect, practicing affirmative action. For men.

While in the last year, I had read suggestions that this "gender balancing" was going on, US News, using data from its infamous annual college rankings survey, actually produced the hard numbers. And the statistics are appalling. At the College of William and Mary, admission rates for men were 40 percent in 2006, compared to just 26 percent for women. At Pomona College, the admissions rate for women was an average of 9 percent lower than that of men, while at Wheaton, it was a staggering 21 percent lower, U.S. News found.

What that means is young women who have worked hard to achieve may be passed over by lesser-qualified male applicants -- simply because of their gender. Now, I have been in favor of affirmative action because it has been about leveling the playing field (as well as promoting diversity); but these new admissions practices can benefit men who are white and from families of privilege. Since when has that group been disadvantaged and requiring of an extra leg up?

There are those who argue that there is a "boys' crisis" and cite stats that show fewer boys apply to colleges and, in general, do worse academically than girls. Last year, I attended a New York Times Company Foundation conference for journalists on this issue; after spending five days listening to a bevy of social scientists, educators, and mental health professionals, and deconstructing a few alarmist magazine stories on it, it was obvious to many of us that this "crisis" was yet another media manufactured myth.

Overall, boys' academic performance hasn't declined (in fact, in many instances, it has improved). In addition, more men are attending college than ever before (and still are more likely to earn more and reach positions of power than their female counterparts.) The difference is that women's academic performance and college enrollment are improving at an even faster rate. Some boys -- especially those who are Hispanic, black, or low-income -- are suffering and need and deserve help, but the main issues have to do with race and class, not gender.

To their credit, universities today don't try to argue that men are a disadvantaged group in need of preferential treatment. They tend to defend their admission practices by citing market concerns; neither women nor men want to attend a school in which a majority of students are female, the schools say. Even if that is true (though my guess is students at Vassar College, American University and any other number of schools that are largely female might beg to differ), is the correct and fair remedy to give more privilege to an already privileged group? What about addressing the underlying factors that discourage boys from applying to college, rather than penalizing girls for doing better academically?

In 2003, the Supreme Court ruled, 5-4, that colleges have the right to use race as one of many factors in admissions. But yesterday, the new Justice Roberts-led Supreme Court ruled, 5-4, that it was unconstitutional to use racial guidelines to integrate public schools. Whether that means this new gender balancing would withstand legal challenge is unclear.

I know I'd like to see a group like the American Civil Liberties Union try to overturn it. Because while I still don't believe it matters all that much where you go to college, I do believe in the importance of fairness. Young women already face a world where men, particularly white men, hold the upper hand in the workplace; men earn more and tend to dominate the top ranks of virtually all professions, as well as our government. Must we really add one more advantage to the list?