see this old article outlining CMU’s efforts towards gender equality. All these work came to naught in last couple of years. Why?
I suspect that CMU removed gender identification from applications due to some (misguided) attempt towards affirmative action. That caused this chain of unintended consequences and decreased female enrollment. I still don’t know why it didn’t impact any other schools?
Another hypothesis is potential of toxic environment discouraging new female admits to accept CMU’s admission offer. CDS unfortunately is not by department, so we would never know.
What really bothers me is admissions and leadership has been silent. Clear institutional priorities need to be conveyed otherwise they risk this ratio getting worse before getting better.