July 11 (Reuters) – With its excellent academic and music programs, Ohio Oberlin College looked perfect for Nina Huang, a California high school student who plays flute and piano and hopes to study medicine or right.
But 16-year-old Huang said he removed the university from its list of applications after Ohio enacted an almost total ban on abortion last month. He now plans to create a wider network for state schools with less restrictive laws.
“I don’t want to go to school in a state where there is a ban on abortion,” she said.
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The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in June to overturn the 1973 Roe v. Wade case that legalized abortion nationwide causes some students to rethink their higher education plans as states they are rushing to ban or reduce abortion, according to interviews with 20 students and university advisers across the country.
While some students have long hesitated to go to schools in places with political tendencies different from their own, recent actions by conservative states on issues such as abortion and LGBTQ + rights have deepened the country’s polarization.
For some students, the restrictions make them afraid that they will not be able to have an abortion if they need to, or that they will face discrimination based on gender differences. Others said they were concerned about facing racial prejudice or being politically ostracized.
“I’m just in high school right now and I’m still figuring out who I am,” said 17-year-old Samira Murad, who will be in ESO this fall at Stuyvesant High School in New York. “I don’t want to move to a place where I can’t be myself because of the established laws.”
It is too early to determine whether these concerns will affect admissions in a measurable way, and evidence from other recent divisive state laws suggests there may be little overall impact.
But after the fall of Roe, college counselors said abortion has taken a prominent place in many conversations with clients, and some went so far as to disprove schools of their dreams.
“Some of our students have explicitly stated that they will not apply to state colleges and universities that may violate their access to reproductive rights,” said Daniel Santos, executive director of the Florida University Counseling Company. Prepory.
“ISSUE OF CONCERN”
Kristen Willmott, a counselor with top-level admissions in Massachusetts, said the students she works with have told her they are removing some of the best schools in Texas, Florida and Tennessee from their application lists because of their laws. restrictive on abortion.
Alexis Prisco, who is entering his senior year at Maryland’s Eastern Technical High School, was scheduled to attend his parents ’alma mater at the University of Washington in St. Louis. Louis, Missouri.
However, she feels cautious after the state enacted a law that effectively bans abortion.
“Now my mother has warned me that I have to be very careful when I apply to state schools with enabling laws,” said Prisco, 17, referring to bans designed to go into effect once the Supreme Court overturned Roe.
The University of Washington declined to comment, but shared a June 24 statement in which university leaders acknowledged the fears and frustration some felt after the court ruling. Oberlin College did not respond to requests for comment.
Several students raised similar concerns about attending college in North Carolina after the state passed a law in 2016 that limited what bathrooms transgender people could use, said Ivy Coach-based councilor Jayson Weingarten. York.
But he said many still chose to attend Duke University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
UNC admissions statistics show that the number of applicants increased by 14% between 2016 and 2017 despite individual student unrest.
Abortion is “a matter of concern for most students, but not something that will deter them from going to one of the most selective schools in the country,” Weingarten said.
Shahreen Abedin, a spokesman for the University of Texas School of Medicine, said the school had not seen a drop in applications that could reasonably be attributed to a state ban on abortions after six weeks came into force. in September.
For Maryland high school student Sabrina Thaler, however, the prospect of attending college in a state that prohibits abortion is disturbing.
Thaler, 16, recalled the question he asked his high school class during a discussion in May after the decision that ultimately overturned Roe v.
“What if I go to a university in a state where abortion is banned and I am raped and then I don’t have the option to have an abortion?”
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Report by Sharon Bernstein in Sacramento, California and Rose Horowitch in Washington; Edited by Colleen Jenkins and Aurora Ellis
Our standards: the principles of trust of Thomson Reuters.