Schools ignore Title IX with impunity

Many schools ignore Title IX with impunity, a stellar investigation by USA Today found. In the final installment of its 2022 series of investigations for Title IX’s 50th anniversary, USA Today reported on its year-long study of letters and agreements between the federal Office for Civil Rights and universities in the NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision. (An aside: USA Today deserves a Pulitzer for this series, imho.)

Schools that practice sex discrimination have little to fear from the Office for Civil Rights (OCR), which is charged with enforcing Title IX and other civil rights laws. Too many universities brashly push back against OCR investigations, knowing there will be few consequences, the investigation found.

One important reason they get away with that is the evisceration of the OCR budget under President Ronald Reagan in the 1980s. Those funding cuts never have been adequately restored, even as the number of sex discrimination complaints skyrocketed in recent decades.

According to the article, “Complaints ballooned from fewer than 3,000 in 1981 – when it had nearly 1,100 employees – to a record of nearly 19,000 last year,” when approximately 600 staff worked in OCR. The Education Department is requesting a $30.3 million budget increase in fiscal year 2023 to hire another 101 staff. Meanwhile, Congress this week proposed spending a record $858 billion on the military. Screwy priorities.

Elsewhere

This may be an example of the kind of school intransigence described above: The University of Iowa‘s first court-ordered Title IX monitoring report is a shoddy piece of work, according to a lawyer for women athletes who successfully sued in 2020 after the school cut women’s swimming and diving.

While I’m praising USA Today, I’ll include their story about the Supreme Court turning away an appeal from Michigan State University in a Title IX case. Loads of media covered this story, but only USA Today included the most important aspect. The Supreme Court rejection means that an Appeals Court ruling stands, which said that gauging equity in athletics under Title IX involves not just looking at proportionality by percentages, but numerically. For example, if women are 52% of undergraduates, they should be 52% of athletes. Traditionally, courts have given some leeway, saying that being off that proportionality by a few percentage points is okay, since it’s not an exact science. But the Appeals Court in this case said that even if the percentage difference is small, if the number of women athletes who don’t get to play because of that gap could comprise a team, the school has to offer a team. That’s hugely important information.

The Office for Civil Rights declared that Salem-Keizer School District in Oregon is discriminating against girls in its athletics program and ordered it to take steps to remedy the inequities.

In a promising segue from last week’s 37 Words blog post about Congressional bills that seek to fix some flaws imposed upon Title IX by the Supreme Court, two senators have introduced another bill to do just that. The Clarifying Civil Rights Remedies Act of 2022 clarifies that victims of sex discrimination can use Title IX to sue for emotional harm, which often is the prime immediate effect of sexual harassment and assault, for example. The Supreme Court in April had blocked that remedy in a ruling on Cummings v. Premier Rehab Keller.

Former students at the prestigious Juilliard School of Music, New York accused two professors of sexual misconduct. California State University, Chico suspended a professor who allegedly threatened to shoot two women colleagues who cooperated in an investigation into his sexual affair with a graduate student. A former student at Washington University, St. Louis accused a Nobel Prize-winning economics professor of sexual harassment.

Parents of a University of California, San Diego student who killed himself sued the school, saying their son was driven to suicide by a former crew coach who allegedly mistreated the student for protesting the coach’s decision to keep another student on the team who had been accused of sexual misconduct. Loudon County (Va.) Public Schools‘ mismanagement of two recent sexual assaults is only the latest example in a longer history of failure and betrayal, former students said. Students rallied to complain about inaction by Moorpark (Calif.) College officials following multiple complaints of stalking and other sexual harassment.

A report by the Advancement Project shows that having police officers in schools disproportionately endangers black and Latino students, girls, students with disabilities, and low-income students.

The U.S. Education Department will consider whether access to menstrual period products should be a right under Title IX.

An employee of the Bibb County (Ga.) Public School District sued the district for discriminating against transgender employees in its health care coverage.

On the up side

A federal Appeals Court upheld the right of transgender girls to play on school competitive sports teams and dismissed a lawsuit by four cisgender girls.

This is the kind of thing that makes an author smile: A Princeton University student interviewed me for a paper she’s writing on inequities in Ivy League athletics 50 years after passage of Title IX, for a class on Sports Journalism. A chapter from my book 37 Words was one of the first things they read in class, she said, and it inspired her to explore further. That made my day. If you know of 37 Words being taught in a classroom, or even an excerpt, please let me know!

In a different matter of interest to athletes and historians, the depositions take in one of the most important Title IX lawsuits ever — Cohen v. Brown University — have been posted online for all to see.

Where you’ll find me

Tuesday, February 7, 2023, 7:00 p.m. CT — I’m honored to be speaking at Iowa State University, giving the 35th Mary Louise Smith Chair Lecture hosted by the Carrie Chapman Catt Center for Women and Politics. I’ll meet with students in the late afternoon and speak at 7:00 p.m. in the Durham Great Hall of the Memorial Union. 

*** Would you like to set up an in-person or Zoom session with me for your organization or book club? Reach me through my Contact page.***

You can sit in on my 50-minute conversation about Title IX and 37 Words with Georgia Institute of Technology President Angel Cabrera, part of his “Conversations with Cabrera” series:

More online talks: Check out a video of my 25-minute talk at wonderful Left Bank Books in St. Louis. You can watch my six-minute interview on the Bridge Street morning show on WSYR-TV, the ABC affiliate in Syracuse, N.Y. Or, watch the video of an October 19, 2022 online conversation about Title IX and 37 Words hosted by the University of Texas at Austin’s Center for Women in Law; find it here. 

The Nation magazine published an excerpt from my chapter 5, which introduces Title IX’s application in the movement against sexual violence. I published an article in the Washington Post’s Made by History section, this one on “The true mother of Title IX. And why it matters now more than ever.” The Christian Science Monitor included 37 Words in two articles — a cover story on “Title IX at 50” and a sidebar examining the racial gap among women athletes in colleges. Read about the Supreme Court’s history of curtailing Title IX and other civil rights laws in my article in The Washington Post Made by History section. The Washington Monthly gave 37 Words a fine review — check it out. See other previous appearances and media coverage of 37 Words listed here.

Here are links to order your copy of my book 37 Words: Title IX and Fifty Years of Fighting Sex Discrimination (The New Press, 2022).

#TitleIX #37Words #TitleIX50th