On March 21, 2007, the Northeast Ohio Chapter hosted an Attorney-Law Student Networking Hour at Fat Fish Blue. The event followed a discussion, also hosted by the chapter, entitled “The Open Secret of College Admissions: Is Gender Balancing Constitutional?,” featuring Karla Bell, Adjunct Assistant Professor of Law at Case Western Reserve University School of Law.

In April of 2006, the Dean of Admissions at Kenyon College acknowledged in an op-ed in The New York Times the open secret of college admissions: male applicants receive a preference. Today, female college applicants make up more than half of the pool, and many college admissions professionals concede they have stronger credentials than their male peers. However many colleges, fearing the stigma of being perceived as “too female,” are carefully gender balancing their admissions and suppressing the number of women in the student population. The practice is defended on a variety of grounds, ranging from ensuring that educated women have appropriate marriage partners, to compensating males for a perceived failure to encourage them in elementary and secondary education. The social issues alone are volatile, but what about the law? What do Supreme Court precedents tell us about whether this practice is constitutional? In this discussion, Professor Bell spoke to these and related issues regarding gender and the admissions process.