To the Editor:
I wish to thank The Herald for its Nov. 30 article, “Brown consistently admits male applicants at higher rate.” This is an important topic for all members of the Brown community to consider.
The article accurately quotes me saying I am “skeptical” of the argument put forth by Dean of Admission Logan Powell holding that Brown’s higher acceptance rate for male applicants is a function of its need to enroll students interested in physical science — not a function of Brown putting a premium on gender balance and thus treating women and men unequally in the admission process.
I would like to provide some context for my skepticism. As the Herald article points out, undergraduate admission processes at private colleges such as Brown are exempt from Title IX. Admission to state colleges and universities is regulated by Title IX, though, and this makes for some useful comparisons. Leading public universities such as the University of California at Berkeley, the University of Virginia and the University of California at Los Angeles also have large, well-regarded programs in science, math and engineering, yet these schools still have higher acceptance rates for women than men. At Berkeley, the acceptance rate is 18 percent for women and 15 percent for men, according to U.S. Department of Education data. At Virginia, it’s 31 percent for women and 29 percent for men. UCLA: 18 percent for women versus 16 percent for men. This makes sense, as research shows that high school girls generally outperform high school boys academically.
I should also point out that — like Brown — Berkeley, UVA and UCLA all received more applications from women than from men in 2015. UCLA actually received 6,000 more applications from women. Yet because Title IX requires UCLA to have sex-blind admission, the greater number of female applicants did not prompt UCLA’s admission office to accept female applicants at a lower rate. Given this, I would suggest that as part of Brown’s upcoming celebration of 125 Years of Women at Brown, President Christina Paxson P’19 and her Ivy League peers should ask Congress to repeal the Title IX loophole for private-college admission.
Jon Birger ’90
