Students of color, LGBT students, and students from other underrepresented groups who say they’ve experienced discrimination have more severe mental-health symptoms than their peers, according to a new report.
The finding comes as states direct many public colleges to dismantle identity-based centers and programs that were designed to support those students.
The report, published Friday by the Center for Collegiate Mental Health at Pennsylvania State University, includes data from over 78,000 students who sought treatment at 85 college counseling centers nationwide. Students were asked by counselors if they have faced identity-based discrimination related to a disability, gender, nationality, race or ethnicity, religion, or sexual orientation.
“There’s a profound relationship between discrimination and increased distress, social isolation, and suicidal thoughts,” said Brett Scofield, executive director of the Center for Collegiate Mental Health. The report’s goal, Scofield said, is to raise awareness of that connection.
Nearly 20 percent of students said they had faced discrimination based on at least one of the listed characteristics in the previous six months. Nearly 8 percent said they had faced discrimination based on two or more identities, the report found.
This report should connect dots for counselors on how a student’s identity could relate to mental-health symptoms, said Scofield.
The CCMH determined that counseling centers successfully supported students experiencing discrimination, which was measured by how much students’ symptoms improved after treatment. Still, students who said they had past experiences of identity-based discrimination reported higher levels of distress when they stopped treatment than other students.
It’s critical that if you are a leader who prioritizes mental health, that it’s also equally important to emphasize DEIB initiatives.
“We know that counseling centers are helping to improve those symptoms,” said Scofield. “Counseling centers supporting those students and helping those students improve their symptoms is only one part of the picture.”
Scofield emphasized that discrimination is not a mental-health problem; it’s a societal issue that can affect one’s mental health. In addition to staffing counseling centers, colleges must provide other support services to these students, he said.
“It’s critical that if you are a leader who prioritizes mental health, that it’s also equally important to emphasize DEIB initiatives,” said Scofield. (DEIB refers to diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging.)
At some colleges, however, diversity-related centers and programs are being banned or are adjusting their mission of serving underserved students, to comply with new state laws and directives.
Ryan S. Patel, a psychiatrist at Ohio State University’s counseling center and an adjunct professor, said identity-based resources are important for students. Patel also suggests that campuses create various spaces where open discussions can take place. At Ohio State, he hosts support groups for students to talk with peers about mental health.
“Something that we need to think about on campuses is this idea of civility and respect so that there are fewer instances of discrimination,” said Patel, who’s also an American College Health Association board member.
Campuses should teach students how to engage in civil conversation with people who look different or have different perspectives, to prevent microaggressions and discrimination, he said.
Carlota Ocampo, provost and vice president for academic affairs at Trinity Washington University, a women’s institution in Washington, D.C., that enrolls mostly Black and Latina students, said she has firsthand experience with the cognitive effects of identity-based discrimination.
Ocampo, who is Latine and a psychologist by training, teaches about that connection in her courses.
“There are many aspects of the ways that racism is expressed in our society that can be traumatic,” she said. “When people are experiencing traumas, they can be exacerbated when those traumas are related to the essential identity of the way that a person presents in the world.”
Ocampo said recent events — such as the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling that race-conscious admissions was unconstitutional, the resignation of Claudine Gay as Harvard University’s president, and political controversy around hairstyles — have caused students to worry about society’s perception of their identity.
She attributed some of that uptick to social media, particularly after the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer in 2020.
It was after Floyd’s murder that the Center for Collegiate Mental Health began looking at students’ experiences with discrimination broadly, beyond their interactions with clinicians, said Scofield.
The center’s annual reports have tracked consistent recent growth in anxiety among students seeking treatment at counseling centers. Last year, the prevalence of anxiety concerns remained high but didn’t increase. Over the past 11 years, binge-drinking has become a less-common concern for students seeking counseling.
Although the report only looks at campus counseling services, Scofield believes that many students are also getting mental-health care from external or partner programs.
Like educational resources regarding anxiety, depression, and binge-drinking, Ocampo suggests that colleges continue to focus on training that educates about microaggressions and different cultures. Yet some states have restricted certain kinds of diversity training, too.
