Future academics may face discrimination based on their names: Study

In a recent article for The Conversation, Megan MacKenzie (Simon Fraser University) and Benjamin E Goldsmith (Australian National University) discuss the findings of a recent study that found that future PhD students may face discrimination before they even begin their studies. The researchers sent emails posing as fictitious students requesting a meeting with a potential PhD supervisor at Australia’s top research universities. Emails were identical apart from the senders’ names, which had been tested to be associated with different genders and ethnicities. The researchers found that emails from white-sounding names averaged a 7% higher reply rate and a 9% higher positive response rate than non-white sounding names; there was also a slight positive bias in favour of inquiries appearing to come from female students.