agonyaunt | Ask a Manager: Will having an anti-gay religious school on my resume hurt me?

When I was an undergraduate student, I went to a religious school. They’ve been in the news for their anti-LGBTQ policies, including kicking someone out because they are gay and forcing an undergraduate student to go to conversion therapy. I obviously didn’t think about this when I was 18 applying for schools, and the school’s actions doesn’t reflect my beliefs. (For what it’s worth, I’m about five years removed from college.) Will this school hurt my chances of employment in the future?

It depends on the school and its reputation for academics. There are plenty of religiously affiliated schools with strong academic reputations (think Georgetown, Duke, Wake Forest, etc.). But there are a handful with terrible academic reputations because they’re known for anti-intellectualism and for valuing religious teaching over critical thinking (think Liberty University, Oral Roberts, etc.) From your description of events, it sounds like it’s probably the second category — in which case, yeah, it does risk being an issue. Employers can’t legally discriminate based on religion, but it happens anyway … and some will be skeptical of the quality of the education a school in the second category provided and/or will worry about how you’ll handle working with people different than you.

On your resume, lean into work accomplishments to outweigh that as much as you can, and make sure that in your interviews and cover letter you’re coming across as … well, the opposite of what people might be concerned about (so, for example, open-minded, inclusive, and rigorous in your thinking). If you happen to have done, say, volunteer work for racial justice or LGBTQ rights, including that kind of thing in a Community Service section of your resume could also help counter potential concerns.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I nearly was LW. I had to get into Harvard to avoid being sent to Eastern Nazarene University (you haven't heard of it because it's smaller than Liberty U, but no less fundie). I could not have articulated this at seventeen (and I wouldn't've admitted it aloud except maybe to my best teenage friends, lest my parents hear and beat me with a Bible) but not only did I not think my psyche could survive 4 years of Fundie College but I didn't want Fundie College on my record/resume/etc the rest of my life, for exactly these reasons.

Unlike LW I had already been thinking my way away from fundamentalism, but I was lucky -- I had read books and been given education that opened mental doors to me. (Thank you, Mary Renault, and also to my first group of friends in 3rd grade, who were all Jewish.)

The discussion has the usual "if you, Jewish Lesbian*, do not hire a fundamentalist who will spew abuse at you every day that is religious discrimination and BAD" stuff in it, but it also has a lot of advice to the LW about ways she can signal she is not a fundamentalist anymore.

*: There is someone in there calling herself Jewish Lesbian Hiring Manager and I love her.

Oog, yeah. I confess, I might have problems hiring someone who graduated from the Wheaton College in Illinois (as opposed to the liberal former women's college of the same name in Massachusetts) because I went to grad school with someone who told me stories about attending that school and her own fundie nature is, in retrospect, very twitch-making (especially the part where she and her parents shamed her gay brother who was dying of AIDS by emptying their bank accounts to pay off the credit cards he'd purposely run up post-diagnosis and, you know, keeping him from contacting his dying lover, etc etc etc). Liberty U might be a complete no-go. This is one reason one should -- after at least the first job -- drop one's education to the end of the resume.

Wheaton College, IL is a good example of a school that is both fundamentalist and strong academically (US News #61/223, National Liberal Arts Colleges). Duke and Georgetown are terrible examples! Both maintain loose church affiliations, but I doubt anyone associates a degree from either school as suggesting anything religious. Would an employer balk at a Wheaton grad? Some might.

I agree with AAM that the big problem with a school like Liberty University is that it doesn't strike a balance between academics and religion. If the academics are terrible, that will be a problem for employers. Same issue with scammy for-profit schools.

Edited 2021-08-10 19:25 (UTC)

Duke and Georgetown are terrible examples!

Notre Dame is probably a better example— strong academically, but (at least in my experience) more indicative of someone's religious background than Georgetown. Although, not-so-fun fact, Georgetown policy doesn't allow condoms to be sold or distributed on campus, Because Catholicism.

This was my thought exactly. My wife went to ND and still calls it "catholic disneyland" It has a STRONG education AND a STRONG religious aspect.

Pepperdine is probably the protestant equivalent: yes fundamentalist but also academically rigorous.

They're church of Christ affiliated, which has 3:1 odds on a student going there to further entrench themselves in the cult vs to get away from their family, with a smaller number just there for the education.

Absent any indication that the Pepperdine alum is not a fundamentalist, I would not move them forward in the hiring process.

Aren't most private universities in the US technically church affiliated? So loosely that the students don't even know about it? I legit think it's almost ubiquitous.

I'd distinguish between good schools that really are still are more than a little affiliated (eh. Brigham Young, Boston College, Yeshiva, Notre Dame) and the ones that it's basically down to the founding story (nearly every other private non-profit university or college in America).

Yeah, most were church founded, but, frex, BYU is religion-controlled in a way that Yale no longer is. (BYU is also hella racist but that's a side discussion.)

Right, that was my point. LW clearly isn’t talking about a university that maintains a loose church affiliation like Duke. A more useful response would have contrasted schools with a strong religious affiliation and strong academics (Notre Dame, Wheaton) with those that sacrifice academics in favor of pushing a religious ideology (Liberty).

This is actually something I hadn't though of. I went to a christian university, but i has a fairly innocuous name (think: Western University) so I hope that mostly hides the fact.

The uni actually also made me go through conversion therapy while I was there. So that was something. Happy to be an atheist now.

The uni actually also made me go through conversion therapy while I was there.

OMFG that's horrible. I'm so sorry that happened to you.

I am so, so sorry. That was my nightmare when I was younger. I am so sorry you were forced to live it.

holy shit I am so, so, so, sorry.

I am so sorry.

Assuming the LW got their degree from an accredited university:

They need to get out in the community and do some activist work, now, preferably with an eye toward leadership roles. Then they need to position that experience above their education.

Alternately: grad school at a secular or effectively secular institution.

Ask a Manager: Will having an anti-gay religious school on my resume hurt me?

I'm more sympathetic to LW than you might expect

Re: I'm more sympathetic to LW than you might expect

Re: I'm more sympathetic to LW than you might expect

Re: I'm more sympathetic to LW than you might expect

Re: I'm more sympathetic to LW than you might expect

Re: I'm more sympathetic to LW than you might expect

Re: I'm more sympathetic to LW than you might expect

Re: I'm more sympathetic to LW than you might expect

Re: I'm more sympathetic to LW than you might expect

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject