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[la_profesora]

I am in the process of interviewing for doctoral programs and at one of my interviews I was asked some questions that I know (because I have been a supervisor, and took a course on legal issues for hiring) would have been illegal had they been asked in a job interview.  Specifically, I was asked about my family situation and whether my family would be relocating with me if I started grad school(!)  Does anyone know if the same laws about verboten questions that apply to job interviews also apply to grad school interviews?

[notaprof]

It is not illegal to ask the questions.  It is illegal to base a decision on information gained if someone answers the question.  Having asked the question, it might be harder to prove that the information did not influence the decision either negatively or positively.  Would you be upset if you were chosen because you do have a family, if the school decided that indicated you were grounded, and mature? 

It would not be illegal for the school to not admit you because you got all huffy and ticked off that they asked you the question and they decided they did not like your attitude.  Find a graceful way to answer the question that you feel comfortable with and forget about whether it is legal or not.     

[prytania3]

It seems employers, grad schools, etc. are getting very loose about asking these types of questions these days. I think the reason is that no one wins discrimination suits anymore (except in the case of disabilities), so people are feeling rather free to ask questions that once would have been, if not illegal, certainly off limits, and to base their decisions discriminatingly. It's more from the Bush administration...

[takapa]

A couple of thoughts.  If the admission was also tied to an assistantship or financial aid directly (i.e., the doc spot was there because of funding and would not be there without it) AND that funding was federal (and in most instances state) funding, then yes the question is illegal.  We had an issue here where a faculty member had a U.S. Department of Education grant that funded our grad students.  He had an anti-religious bias and asked questions about religion in the interviews he had with students who had applied to the grant.  Someone complained and the grant was revoked.  The student did not puruse legal action, so the faculty member suffered only minor correction from the administration.  But, the damage was really to the department - we've all had major increases in the reviews of our federal grants even though no one else has a student support grant.

Second, as a person with a disability, I can tell you prytania is correct that disability lawsuits are somewhat more likely to be won than others, but not too often.  The Americans with Disabilities Act is business oriented.  There was a great article in the New York Times about it a few days ago (something about diabetes).  For the interested, look up B.T. McMahon and compant with the national ADA EEOC research study on PsychInfo.  Ineteresting stuff.

[drdirt55]

Illegal or not, asking about family, religion, etc in an interview is inappropriate.  While the question might be innocent, who knows.  I think after a decision has been made - acceptance, offer of financial support, what have you; asking some personal questions to facilitate assimilation of the new student or faculty member is acceptable.  By this I mean, asking about housing needs so information can be sent to the newbie to demonstrate acceptance and facilitate the process of getting the newbie settled and off to the races.

The key is to be able to defend that a personnel decision was made as objectively as possible, with as little subjectivity as possible.