College campus closures and the pivot to online instruction during the COVID-19 pandemic have negatively impacted many students, especially those from marginalized backgrounds. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning, and otherwise queer spectrum (LGBTQ+) college students have been hit particularly hard. The unique challenges they encounter are highlighted by newspaper headlines such as, “COVID-19 Sent LGBTQ Students Back to Unsupportive Homes. That Raises the Risk They Won’t Return” and “A year at home has forced many LGBTQ college students ‘back into the closet.’” A 2021 survey of college students by the Williams Institute at UCLA’s School of Law found that during the pandemic, LGBTQ+ students were nearly twice as likely as straight students to experience housing disruptions and also reported substantially more challenges to learning, such as a lack of reliable internet connection or a quiet place to study.
Unfortunately, the vast majority of U.S. colleges and universities are poorly positioned to understand and address LGBTQ+ student equity in the wake of the pandemic—or at any time—because they do not collect systematic data on student sexual identities and trans or nonbinary gender identities. Unlike federally required institutional data collection on student race/ethnicity and binary gender (male/female) that is used to track equity, there is no mandate to identify LGBTQ+ students in education data. This is particularly problematic given that Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) individuals of typical college age (18–24) are more likely to identify as LGBTQ+ than white people, and are also more likely to confront barriers in higher education. LGBTQ+ identities are rendered invisible for all students. Campuses are thus not well equipped to fully support student equity with an intersectional lens. If colleges don’t ask, they can’t tell what these students experience, much less fix any underlying problems.
Title IX, LGBTQ+ College Students, and (the Lack of) Data Collection
Widespread erasure of LGBTQ+ students at the campus level stems from broader federal policies. President Jimmy Carter established the United States Department of Education in 1980 in large part to provide federal oversight to ensure equal educational opportunity for all citizens. Toward these goals, the department oversees data collection from schools and colleges nationwide, disseminates research and reports on education, and develops and enforces relevant educational policies. The department’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) also engages in “vigorous enforcement of civil rights” to ensure equal access to education through various legal and educational means. The OCR’s mission has evolved along with the nation’s expanding recognition of key areas where the promise of equal educational opportunity is falling short: first including race, gender, and age, but later expanding to include disability status.
Most recently, sexual orientation and gender identity have also been acknowledged as legally protected categories. This year marks the 50th birthday of the landmark legislation promoting gender equity in education, Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972. In summer 2021, OCR gave the Act a milestone birthday facelift with a Notice of Interpretation, clarifying that the law shields LGBTQ+ students from discrimination in educational institutions based on their sexual or gender identities. However, this change appears to be merely cosmetic without a requirement for systematic institutional data collection on sexual identity and nonbinary gender identities.
Legal protections for LGBTQ+ college students ring hollow without data to monitor and enforce them. Together, Title IX and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 mandate that colleges and universities collect and report aggregate data on student gender and racial/ethnic identities to the federal government through the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) using standardized categories. Systematic institutional data collection is a key enforcement mechanism for federal laws protecting civil rights across gender and race in education. IPEDS data are central to producing governmental reports on educational trends over time by race and gender. Research and advocacy organizations also analyze these data to identify and address equity concerns. For example, the Education Trust recently used IPEDS data to illustrate the continued underrepresentation of Black and Latinx students at selective public universities.
The IPEDS data categories also drive, to a large degree, what data campuses collect (or don’t collect) from students, and thus form the backbone of data used to inform both internal and public-facing discussions of equity in student progress and outcomes. Very few colleges and universities that receive federal funds currently collect data on student sexual identities or nonbinary, transgender, or gender queer gender identities. This leaves most campuses largely blind to LGBTQ+ student experiences.
LGBTQ+ Student Experiences: An Incomplete Picture
The void of federal leadership for collecting and reporting data on LGBTQ+ student identities has left a patchwork of approaches to understanding LGBTQ+ student experiences. In the absence of available institutional data, researchers have collected and analyzed other kinds of data that also include LGBTQ+ identities. Qualitative interviews and focus groups are key sources of data on LGBTQ+ student experiences, but such studies can be more limited in identifying causal processes and trends over time. Much of the data for quantitative analysis come from campus climate surveys, such as the National Survey of Student Engagement, as well as from surveys on student health and risk-taking behaviors. Other scholars have collected data from LGBTQ+ college alumni reflecting back on their college experiences, such as the National LGBT Alumni Survey.
Existing research using these types of data highlights the ways that student LGBTQ+ identities matter for shaping a variety of college experiences, from choosing whether and where to apply in the first place to how they experience both social and academic life during college LGBTQ+ identities also impact student likelihood of persistence to graduation and post-graduate plans. Further, there are important intersectional differences in these and other outcomes both within LGBTQ+ subgroups and across race/ethnicity and other dimensions of inequality. While we clearly know a good deal about LGBTQ+ college student experiences, it is important to evaluate the types of data employed, especially in quantitative studies, in comparison to what is often used to look at how student experiences differ by race and gender. By this metric, our understanding of equity for LGBTQ+ college students could be vastly improved.
Institutional data are the gold standard for accurately understanding student experiences. Unlike campus climate and health surveys, institutional data are available for the full student population (not just those who opt to respond to the survey). Because LGBTQ+ students are a relatively small group on some campuses, those relying on survey data are often unable to fully consider how intersections between race, class, gender, and sexual identity (along with other dimensions) shape LGBTQ+ experiences. Institutional data better allow for these types of analyses. In addition, rather than relying on student self-reported academic outcomes (such as their GPA, college completion, and major), institutional data allow researchers to obtain more reliable records from student transcripts. While I commend researchers for breaking new ground and attempting to paint a picture of LGBTQ+ experiences (indeed, I’m conducting research with some of these types of data myself), the picture could be more complete.
Ending Erasure of LGBTQ+ Students
Institutional data serve as both a symbolic and actual resource for equity and inclusion on campuses. So it is not surprising that starting in 2015, the University of California (UC) system made data collection of student applicants’ sexual identities and inclusive gender identities central to its efforts to support LGBTQ+ student equity, in spite of there being neither a state nor a federal requirement to do so. A small number of other campuses have followed suit. Just last year, the Common Application (or Common App), which 900 U.S. colleges and universities accept, expanded its gender options for students (male, female, or specify an “other” gender). However, it declined to add questions about sexual orientation.
These developments are certainly a step in the right direction and allow for a fuller picture of LGBTQ+ student experiences, since they lead to data on the full student population (rather than a subsample). However, in my study (with colleagues Nella Van Dyke, Natasha Hagaman, and Hala Alnagar) using focus group interviews with LGBTQ+ college students on two UC campuses, we found that, while many opted to come out as LGBQ+ on their application, a sizable portion feared doing so because they worried that their parents (who can view their application if they are minors) would find out. As such, institutions using application data to understand their campus’ LGBTQ+ population should recognize that they are capturing students who are already out but are likely missing those who come out during college.
In my current research with various collaborators, I am analyzing admissions, transcript, and financial aid data from multiple UC campuses to understand how LGBTQ+ identities intersect with other dimensions of inequality to shape student experiences and outcomes. Without giving away the key findings of this work in progress, our early results help illustrate the value of analyzing data on the full population of students. In particular, we see that in spite of stereotypes that LGBTQ+ students tend to be more white and advantaged than straight students, those who came out on their applications are actually more likely to be first generation, Pell Grant recipients, and BIPOC than the broader student population. We also show important intersectional variation in academic outcomes within LGBTQ+ student subgroups and across race/ethnicity and gender. Having large enough samples to disaggregate is key to intersectional analyses that is necessary for understanding student equity, and most existing data do not provide this opportunity.
There are unique challenges campuses face trying to capture student LGBTQ+ identities during a phase in their life course when these identities may be in flux. In the case of the UC, students can update the sexual and gender identities they provided on their application in the campus data system after they matriculate (through the same interface they use to update their phone number or primary address). However, there is no effort to publicize this opportunity or actively encourage the students to do so. In addition to collecting data on LGBTQ+ identities in the first place, campuses also need to develop data collection practices that better match the dynamic nature of student identities.
The erasure of LGBTQ+ people in society—and within educational institutions—is nothing new. Campuses don’t need to wait for the federal government to act in order to better “see” LGBTQ+ students on their campuses. Adding questions about sexual orientation and gender identity to their applications is a critical first step, but should also be accompanied by efforts to systematically update student identities as they change. To allay student privacy concerns, campuses need to clearly communicate with students about why the data are being collected and how the data will be protected and used. Faculty experts, advocacy organizations, and institutional research offices should also play a role in helping guide these decisions based on existing academic knowledge, institutional data practices, and trends in LGBTQ+ identities.
Ending erasure of LGBTQ+ students is synergistic with broader strategies to democratize access to institutional data (login required to access the article) to enhance equity for all students. In order to fully extend the promise of equal educational opportunity to LGBTQ+ college students, the federal government must also add sexual identity and expanded gender to required IPEDS reporting categories. This would ensure comparable definitions which allow for comparisons across multiple geographic locations, types of institutions, as well as trends over time. As recently as 2017, an IPEDS technical review panel convened to discuss changing how it collects data on gender and adding questions on sexual identities. The panel declined to make any changes, in large part due to the lack of federal requirement to do so. The panel also expressed concern about privacy issues due to the relatively small number of LGBTQ+ students, in spite of the fact that the data are never publically reported at the individual level and privacy protections are already in place for using the data. Evidence on the increasing share of adolescents and young adults who identify as LGBTQ+ highlight the growing urgency to understand this population of college students. Recent analyses of the Gallup Poll found that 20 percent of Generation Z young adults (born 1997-2003) of traditional college age identified as LGBTQ+.
While the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted some of the unique experiences LGBTQ+ students have as they navigate college, it has not created them anew. Campus leaders—and the US Department of Education—are not fulfilling their responsibilities for ensuring equal educational opportunity unless they take affirmative steps to make these experiences visible.
Any opinions expressed in the articles in this publication are those of the author and not the American Sociological Association.
