It's the Harrison Bergeron method of pursuing equality. Instead of pulling up the disadvantaged, the advantaged are artificially limited. Prejudices and handicaps limiting the disadvantaged (in this case, prejudices against women who negotiate) are considered to be unchangeable facts of life; correcting those prejudices is not even considered.
I think that instead of disallowing negotiation at all, we could look to university job courses (the ones that currently teach resume and interviewing skills) to teach negotiation skills and techniques. It would be something that any student could find valuable. Not only would it make young people entering the job market more comfortable with the idea of negotiation, but it would make people on the company side of things more familiar and comfortable with the notion of women negotiating (correcting that prejudice, instead of accepting/ignoring it as the Bergeron-solution does).
If that proves unsuccessful, then less "personal" negotiation processes could be explored before the idea of negotiation was written off entirely. Perhaps sending a form letter with every offer letter saying something along the lines of "I'm sorry but I have to decline [position] because I've received a better offer of [$] from [company]" could work. Some sort of more forumalic approach to negotiation that reduces the human element (and therefore hopefully, the opportunity for human prejudices to manifest. I think that it is best to combat the prejudices however, not work around them).
A course on resume, interview, job search, and negotiation skills should be available on every college campus, but I have no idea how many schools offer it. When dealing with students and entry-level candidates, it seems they are often getting very poor (mostly dated) advice from peers, parents, and career counselors. This type of course would be incredibly valuable to new graduates.
I don't know about negotiation skills, but I know that interview/jobsearch skill courses were required at my university at least. Seems sort of like the bare minimum that a school could to do boost post-graduation employment.
Much of at least the interview portions of those courses involved splitting off into groups and grilling each other for several hours a quarter. The idea was to help people get over the jitters and feel comfortable bragging about themselves to others. I think that at least in that capacity, the course was effective.
Some people did not take those courses seriously, but that was likely because my university was heavily a co-op/internship school, so everybody taking those courses junior/senior year had already had dozens of interviews (1-15 each round, with up to 3 rounds for each co-op cycle, and either 2 or 3 co-op cycles. Granted interviews for extended internships are not quite the same as regular interviews, lacking most negotiation particularly).
I think that instead of disallowing negotiation at all, we could look to university job courses (the ones that currently teach resume and interviewing skills) to teach negotiation skills and techniques. It would be something that any student could find valuable. Not only would it make young people entering the job market more comfortable with the idea of negotiation, but it would make people on the company side of things more familiar and comfortable with the notion of women negotiating (correcting that prejudice, instead of accepting/ignoring it as the Bergeron-solution does).
If that proves unsuccessful, then less "personal" negotiation processes could be explored before the idea of negotiation was written off entirely. Perhaps sending a form letter with every offer letter saying something along the lines of "I'm sorry but I have to decline [position] because I've received a better offer of [$] from [company]" could work. Some sort of more forumalic approach to negotiation that reduces the human element (and therefore hopefully, the opportunity for human prejudices to manifest. I think that it is best to combat the prejudices however, not work around them).