As a Jewish American, the biggest question I have is "How does any college/institution know that I (or my children) are Jewish?"
We don't have a particularly Jewish last name, have some Irish mixed in with an Eastern European background, etc - without putting "Fluent in Yiddish" and "President of Temple Beth Sholom" on a resume, I don't see how anyone would ever pick us out from the crowd as being Jewish.
I can see how it would be easier to discriminate based on race, country of origin, or gender, than religion, that's all.
"How does any college/institution know that I (or my children) are Jewish?"
First - it would have been easier some decades ago. Just look at the neighborhood you're from, your last name (and check the mother's maiden name as well). I believe many applications would also have explicitly asked the question as well. And also, generally, and for better or worse, in many cases one can pick jews out of an arbitrary group of people with the same ease as picking black people or asian people. Being jewish is not simple a religious identification. While people endlessly argue this point, being a jew is a combination of an ethnic, religious, national, and cultural components. Most people in the US simply see it as a religious identification, which just isn't nearly the whole story.
They may not be able to guess whether you in particular or your children are Jewish, but if I can guess your name from your sex, zipcode, and birthdate, I'm pretty sure that there will be many markers of that major a part of your life to someone who examines you at any depth looking for those markers. A major marker will probably be, for example, the lack of any markers of any non-Jewish group, i.e. you're not an obvious Catholic, Muslim, Protestant, etc.
Of course, as a black American, I'm jealous that that's the biggest question that you have.
This is true, its the infamous "Fifth point" on many different IDs (they had a system internal passports to keep people in check). It was really easy for any official to discriminate if he wanted to and hard not to when its the policy.
The USSR wasn't "politically correct" in the modern Western view of the word. The party line and the state policies were fact in fact sometimes wildly discriminatory.
Those ethnic issues are a big reason USSR broke up.
We don't have a particularly Jewish last name, have some Irish mixed in with an Eastern European background, etc - without putting "Fluent in Yiddish" and "President of Temple Beth Sholom" on a resume, I don't see how anyone would ever pick us out from the crowd as being Jewish.
I can see how it would be easier to discriminate based on race, country of origin, or gender, than religion, that's all.