Dive Brief:
- Prospective graduate students who are white males are most likely to get attention from faculty members, according to a new study from the Social Science Research Network.
- Compared to the faculty response rate for white men, the most-discriminated-against category was Chinese women, followed by Indian men and Indian women.
- Humanities professors were the most responsive group in the study, responding to 75% of the prospective grad students who were not in the white male category, Inside Higher Ed reported.
Dive Insight:
The study surveyed more than 6,000 faculty members, sending them letters expressing interest in their programs from fake prospective grad students and asking for a 10-minute discussion. The only differences in the letters were the names of the fake students, which were created to indicate white, minority, and male or female identities. Public university faculty were more likely to respond equally to white men and women and minorities than those at private universities. Broken down by academic disciplines, professors in fine arts were the only group that responded more to women and minorities than to white men. The faculty members that were the least responsive to women and minorities, compared to white men, were business professors.