Lara S. Kaufmann, Senior Counsel & Director of Education Policy for At-Risk Students

Lara S. Kaufmann is Senior Counsel and Director for Education Policy for At-Risk Students.  She works on the advancement of women and girls at school and in the workplace. Lara engages in litigation, advocacy, and public education, with a particular focus on improving educational outcomes for at-risk girls, including pregnant and parenting students. Lara co-authored the Center’s 2012 report, A Pregnancy Test for Schools: The Impact of Education Laws on Pregnant and Parenting Students, as well as its 2009 report, Listening to Latinas: Barriers to High School Graduation. Before joining the Center, Lara was a Staff Attorney with the Federal Trade Commission’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, and prior to that she was an Assistant United States Attorney in Chicago. Lara also worked with the law firm of McDermott, Will & Emery, and was law clerk to then-Chief Judge Marvin Aspen of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. Lara is a graduate of the University of Michigan and Northwestern University School of Law.

Expert in: Pregnant & Parenting Students, School Reform & Dropout Prevention, Sexual Harassment & Bullying, Education & Title IX
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My Take

Back to School or Back in Time?

Posted by Lara S. Kaufmann, Senior Counsel & Director of Education Policy for At-Risk Students | Posted on: September 09, 2008 at 04:00 pm

by Lara S. Kaufmann, Senior Advisor
National Women’s Law Center

This year, for many public school students across the U.S., “Back to School” means something different than it used to. A growing number of students in a wide variety of states all over the country will be in single-gender classrooms, separated from their peers of the opposite sex.

Single-sex public school classes are popping up all over the country (some have estimated that over 500 public schools will have single-sex classrooms this fall), and the number has been growing steadily since 2006. That is when the Department of Education revised longstanding Title IX regulations to make it easier for schools to adopt single-sex programs. Why is that a problem? Because Title IX and the U.S. Constitution contain safeguards to ensure that single-sex programs in public schools serve only carefully defined and non-discriminatory purposes, do not perpetuate stereotypes about the interests, abilities or learning styles of either gender, and do not result in unequal educational opportunities. The permissive 2006 regulations fly in the face of these safeguards. And as we suspected, by all reports, many of the single-sex programs being adopted by public schools today are based on harmful stereotypes and do not provide equality of opportunity for the excluded gender (or for those who want to continue learning in a coeducational setting). 

Proponents of single-sex education are telling schools and parents that separating boys and girls in school will improve their education. But these claims are not supported by the evidence. They rely on extreme and overbroad generalizations about the differences between boys’ and girls’ brains and how they learn – for example, that teachers should smile at girls and look them in the eye, but should not look boys directly in the eye or smile at them; and that boys – but not girls – should be given time limits for academic tasks.  In reality, every individual is different. Scientists say that males and females are more alike than they are different. And all of the focus on separation by gender takes attention and resources away from the school reforms most likely to make a difference, like smaller classes, better teachers, and increased parental involvement.

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ACLU Shakes Things Up in Kentucky

Posted by Lara S. Kaufmann, Senior Counsel & Director of Education Policy for At-Risk Students | Posted on: May 23, 2008 at 02:07 pm

by Lara S. Kaufmann, Senior Advisor
National Women’s Law Center

I know that Kentucky is nowhere near an ocean, but the ACLU is certainly making waves there. Earlier this week, the organization filed an amended complaint in a case challenging a school district’s single-sex middle school classes as unlawful and discriminatory. The complaint alleges that the separate boys’ and girls’ classes are fundamentally unequal and violate the Fourteenth Amendment’s equal protection clause, Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, the Equal Educational Opportunities Act, and the state sex equity law. The complaint expands on previous claims brought by a private lawyer against the school district and other entities, and also names as a defendant the U.S. Department of Education, challenging as illegal and unconstitutional the Department’s 2006 regulations encouraging schools to adopt single-sex educational programs.

This is an important case, and we look forward to seeing how it unfolds. Single-sex programs, even with good intentions, tend to be based on harmful stereotypes that limit opportunities for both girls and boys. The Constitution and Title IX contain safeguards to ensure that single-sex programs serve only carefully defined and appropriate purposes, do not perpetuate stereotypes about the interests, abilities or learning styles of either gender, and do not result in discrimination in educational opportunities. Unfortunately, the Department of Education’s 2006 revision of the Title IX regulations – adopted against strong opposition by the public and many experts, including the NWLC – rolled back these safeguards to permit more sex-segregated educational programs based on discrimination and stereotyping, without requiring equality of opportunity for the excluded gender (assuming that equality in separate programs is even possible).

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Unfair Play on Bill for Fair Pay

Posted by Lara S. Kaufmann, Senior Counsel & Director of Education Policy for At-Risk Students | Posted on: April 24, 2008 at 07:57 pm

by Lara S. Kaufmann, Senior Advisor
National Women’s Law Center

Don’t you hate it when a sound bite completely confuses a critical issue? Yesterday the Boston Globe quoted Senator Mitch McConnell (R-Ky) saying the following on the Ledbetter Fair Pay Act: “We think that this bill is primarily designed to create a massive amount of new litigation in our country, and I think that is the reason for the resistance to its passage on our side.”

Senator McConnell is just plain wrong. The Ledbetter Fair Pay Act was not designed to – nor will it – create litigation; it was designed to restore the law to what it was until last May, when the Supreme Court rolled back the long-standing rights of those suffering from pay discrimination. In fact, it is the Ledbetter decision – not the restorative legislation – that increases the likelihood of litigation. Under the Supreme Court’s ruling, people who have even the slightest suspicion that they are subject to pay discrimination will have to rush into the EEOC to avoid forfeiting their claims. They will not be able to take the time to evaluate their claims, negotiate with their employers and look for voluntary solutions to the pay disparity. That’s not a system any employer should welcome. (For more information on the Ledbetter case and bill, click here.) 

Lilly Ledbetter was not looking for a lawsuit. Had she been paid fairly, equal to what the men doing the same work at Goodyear were being paid, we would never have heard of her, and I’m sure that would have been just fine with her. But she wasn’t paid fairly, solely because she was a woman, and her employer successfully hid that fact for much of the time she worked at the plant. In fact, she never would have found out about it had a coworker not left her an anonymous note close to the end of her career. Lilly had a right to try to correct that injustice.

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