Screening out e-mail with Taiwanese IP addresses

Recently a student told me that he sent an e-mail to a professor at a US university to find out more about a program. He received an automatic reply indicating that that professor's e-mail does not accept e-mails with a Taiwanese IP address. I think this student was lucky in that he found out immediately what the professor's position was regarding Taiwan and Taiwanese students. I imagine some Taiwanese students applying to US schools never find out their efforts are being undermined.

This reminds of an older college professor who said that when he was an undergraduate at Harvard, a student could finish an entire semester without the professor ever having revealed his political inclinations.