Providing LGBTQ Affiliation on College Applications

           Today in class we started a debate on whether colleges should be allowed to have students identify themselves as LGBTQ. I do not agree with this idea. This question would cause too many problems. Although having the option to identify allows colleges to help these students by providing them with extra help and programs, in reality we would be alienating them more. School officials will not be able to provide the right help to these students. In reality they probably don’t need help, nor do they want to be a spectacle. By identifying them, schools would be pointing them out to all the rest of the student body and making them susceptible to pressure from those who aren’t accepting of the LGBTQ community. This question on college applications would also point out who identifies with a different gender, allowing some schools to deny those students if they wish, or to favor them. This could also create certain favoritism, so that some students may even lie and say they’re a member of the LGBTQ community in order to gain admittance to a certain college. Instead of having these questions, colleges should ignore gender or have a neither gender and not force people to have to identify. Colleges should be looking for personality and intellectualism, and ignore gender. Everyone should be treated as equal.

            I do see why colleges might want to know what their students identify as, but I don’t feel that it is necessary. It might be beneficial to know the statistics and to make them feel welcomed. However, I feel the negatives out weigh the benefits. Students are not old enough or mature enough to know what they really feel and we shouldn’t need to force them to decide.