Staff at these top unis were found to favour white students. Then came the threatening calls

When fake emails landed almost simultaneously in thousands of academics’ inboxes at some of Australia’s top universities, they did not immediately appear out of the ordinary.

Their contents were identical – a prospective student seeking out a PhD supervisor – but the names and racial backgrounds of the senders were not.

A new study suggests there is racial bias in how academics respond to students. Credit: SMH

What followed was an “awful” backlash from academics against the then-Sydney University researchers who conducted the experiment.

About eight years after the emails were sent, their research paper, published last month, revealed “clear evidence” of bias against non-white prospective students at Australia’s top universities.

Professor Megan MacKenzie said the response to the project conducted at some of Australia’s top universities was unexpected.

It showed academics at the prestigious Group of Eight universities – which include Sydney University, Melbourne University, UNSW, Monash University and the University of Queensland – responded differently to students named “Melissa” or “Thomas” compared to “Omar” or “Rahul”.

The research found prospective students with non-white names were both less likely to receive any response to the email and also more likely to receive a decline response.

White-sounding names averaged a 7 per cent higher reply rate and a 9 per cent higher positive response rate compared to non-white names.

The biggest disparity in positive response rates was between the names Melissa Smith and Rahul Kumar: the rate of positive responses for the name Melissa was 12 percentage points higher than for Rahul, the authors found.

While the research, published in the International Journal of Education Policy & Leadership, showed “clear evidence” of bias against non-white names, there was a slight pro-female bias.

“Ultimately, this research highlights the predominance of white faculty members at all levels of the university and clear evidence of systemic bias against racialised prospective students,” the study read.

Eighty-four per cent of academics at the universities in the study with a rank of senior lecturer or higher were white and 70 per cent were male, according to the researchers.

The emails in the study, sent to about 7000 academics at the Group of Eight institutions, were written in clear, concise, grammatical English. They indicated the student had completed study in Australia and were sent from a Sydney University email address.

The academics received a follow-up email telling them they were part of an experiment for a research study.

However, many academics were furious about the use of deception and the backlash was swift.

A new study has revealed evidence of racial bias in Australian universitiesCredit: Megan MacKenzie/Benjamin E. Goldsmith/Thomas Wynter

Sydney University – where the researchers were employed at the time – received hundreds of complaints, and the study’s authors said they lost friends and had their careers threatened.

The university, which granted ethics approval before the experiment was conducted, completed an internal and external review of the research processes. Both eventually found ethics protocols had been followed, the study said.

One of the researchers, Professor Megan MacKenzie, now at Simon Fraser University in Canada, said she didn’t anticipate the backlash, which was highly stressful for the then-junior academic.

The nature of the study, which was based on a similar experiment in the US, meant the researchers’ colleagues, managers, heads of school and dean were all part of the experiment.

While some people were supportive, many were not.

“I lost a couple of friends and there were professional colleagues where it had a cooling effect for our relationship,” she said.

“I had phone calls indicating that my name would be remembered if they ever had to review a grant application, so that kind of thing was really awful.”

MacKenzie said universities needed to collect and publish better data on staff and student diversity, and explore how to address inequalities.

“What you have is a vicious circle where students don’t make it into academia because of bias or lack of support, and often students from diverse backgrounds when they get to university struggle to feel like this is their university,” she said.

“Higher education is a really important means of upward mobility for many communities, so it’s important that everyone feels like they are welcome, and it’s a place for them.”

Group of Eight chief executive Vicki Thomson said the institutions were among the most internationalised universities in the world and ranked in the top 100 globally.

“That is what underscores our profile, not a research project based on deceptive emails that looked at response rates and then somehow extrapolated that our academics are racist,” she said.

“Our member universities employ high-quality academics who are committed to research integrity and to providing a quality education to both domestic and international students.”

A Sydney University spokeswoman confirmed the study went through a rigorous ethics review, during which no breaches were found.

“We welcome evidence-based research that addresses issues of bias and discrimination in the workplace and since this study in 2017, we’ve undertaken significant work to increase the diversity of our staff at all levels in a considered and effective way, which is ongoing,” she said.

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