Could it be beneficial for me to not disclose my gender/ethnicity in an REU application?

Question

I am an undergraduate in the US applying to REUs in mathematics. Every REU I am applying to through MathPrograms has a section where you can choose to fill out your gender/race, along with a message of the form

The U.S. Department of Education requires [university X] to report on the racial or ethnical composition of its student enrollment. Information on individual students is held in strict confidence. Self-identification is entirely voluntary.

It is not a secret that REUs want to encourage higher participation of minority groups, and indeed the web pages of some programs say things like, "Members of underrepresented groups are especially encouraged to apply."

I am a white male from a suburban area. Clearly this is not going to boost my application, so my question is, could there be much benefit in choosing "decline to answer" on these questions?

Answer 1

I am an undergraduate in the US applying to REUs in mathematics. [...] I am a white male from a suburban area. Clearly this is not going to boost my application

The personal consequences for you of being labeled on your application as a white male are not something that anyone can predict with any certainty. Even assuming that the data are visible to the people evaluating your application (which is probably not the case), the putative effect would depend on things like the individual attitudes of people evaluating your application. These attitudes would be variable and we have no way of measuring them.

Keep in mind that any pile of applications in mathematics in the US is going to contain vast numbers of white males, so even if there were some very strong bias against you, or some extremely aggressive affirmative action program, the result can't possibly be to exclude all white males.

Since the actual consequences of your disclosing your information or not disclosing it are unknowable and probably negligible on an individual level, your guess about those consequences is not a good criterion on which to base your choice.

You might instead want to base this on your political opinions. Reasonable people can be for or against the idea of having the US federal government classify people into racial categories. An example of a reason for: a horrific national history of slavery and oppression, which we could try to undo to some extent. An example of a reason against: race is a nonsensical and artificial construct, and there is no logical way to apply it to people of mixed race.

If your personal utopia is one that lies on one side or the other of this issue, be the change that you want to make.

Answer 2

A 2015 study demonstrates that women that men and women faculty members from biology, engineering, and psychology departments prefer female applicants 2:1 over identically qualified males with matching lifestyles:

Men and women faculty members from all four fields preferred female applicants 2:1 over identically qualified males with matching lifestyles (single, married, divorced), with the exception of male economists, who showed no gender preference. Comparing different lifestyles revealed that women preferred divorced mothers to married fathers and that men preferred mothers who took parental leaves to mothers who did not. Our findings, supported by real-world academic hiring data, suggest advantages for women launching academic science careers.

We also know that African Americans and Hispanics are typically favored over European Americans and Asian Americans in college admissions:

In court papers, Arlington, Virginia-based Students for Fair Admissions said an Asian-American male applicant with a 25 percent chance of admission would have a 35 percent chance if he was white, 75 percent if he were Hispanic and a 95 percent chance if he were black.

Also, there are numerous campaigns worldwide to increase the number of women in STEM, offering scholarships and other opportunities to women that are not offered to men. There are even cases known, where only women are allowed to apply for a specific academic positions, like this Assistant Professor Position for the Vienna University of Technology or these three senior positions at the university of Melbourne. Similar initiatives exist for "minorities" as well.

For these reasons, I would be inclined to not mention race and gender on my applications to REUs in mathematics.

Answer 3

There’s no advantage whatsoever to not declaring. The NSF REU program does have as an official goal increasing representation of underrepresented groups (see official language below), but someone who doesn’t mark anything isn’t helping you meet that goal in a way you can put in a report to the NSF. There’s just no difference whatsoever between marking white and not saying anything at all.

NSF is particularly interested in increasing the numbers of women, underrepresented minorities, and persons with disabilities in research. REU projects are strongly encouraged to involve students who are members of these groups.