CA colleges may demand sexual orientation for admission

The Daily Californian's Jessica Rossoni writes (via UWire):

Future U. California students may be asked to disclose their sexual orientation upon accepting an admissions offer to a UC campus.

Recent legislation and efforts to obtain this information were introduced with the goal of improving campus data and resources available for students who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender. However, UC officials say this will not be implemented for the incoming class.

Both the CSU and the UC may request information about a student’s sexual orientation on the Statement of Intent to Register in order to protect students not comfortable with sharing their sexual orientation with parents or guardians.

The Board of Admissions and Relations with Schools, a committee within the systemwide Academic Senate, recommended in January that the UC work to gather this data in an effort to comply with AB 620 — state legislation passed in October 2011 that requires the California Community Colleges and California State U. to collect demographic data on sexual orientation and requests the same of the UC.

Although the UC collects data on ethnic groups, socioeconomic status and other demographic categories to track issues such as retention efforts and graduation rates, Academic Senate Chair Robert Anderson said there is currently no method in place to measure how LGBT-identified students fare on UC campuses.

“We collect data on other groups, and it’s time that we treat LGBT people the same way,” he said. “I think this is a very reasonable aspect of expressing our diversity.”

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