Title IX

“We’ve reaped the fruits of Title IX,” says Theresa Edwards, the U.S. chef de mission for U.S. teams.

Title IX certainly turned out to be the seeds of some pretty incredible fruit. As I sit on my couch (usually eating ice-cream, pie, or something else I bet those athletes have never even seen) watching the 2012 games, I am overwhelmed by the sheer power of Team U.S.A.’s female athletes. I mean have you seen McKayla Maroney fly, literally fly, on her vault? Or Missy Franklin make swimming at 1,000,000 miles per hour – okay, maybe not exactly 1,000,000 – look easy?

London 2012 is the first time that the majority of Team U.S.A. is female, and there is no doubt that thanks is owed to Title IX. In the 1972 Summer Games, the same year Title IX was born, 21% of the American competitors were women. Forty years later the American delegation is a whopping 51% female. Read more »

Yesterday the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Allentown, Pennsylvania School District filed a proposed consent decree to resolve multiple complaints of peer-on-peer sexual assault at Central Elementary School. Specifically, a number of individual plaintiffs alleged that six- and seven-year-old students were sexually assaulted by another student in the boys’ bathroom at Central Elementary School during the 2003-04 school year.

The students alleged violations of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, which bans sex discrimination in schools that receive federal funding. Sexual harassment, including sexual assault, is a type of sex discrimination.

DOJ intervened in a private lawsuit filed by student victims against the district, and conducted an investigation into the claims. DOJ found that sexual assaults had occurred on at least five separate occasions; the district was told of each incident immediately after it occurred, but failed to take appropriate action (and in some circumstances took no action) to prevent further assaults from occurring. Read more »

“I’m on top of the world right now. I still know I can go faster.”

That’s what Dana Vollmer said last night after winning a gold medal and setting a world record in the 100-meter butterfly.

In addition to being an Olympic champion, Vollmer is a big supporter of Title IX, the 1972 law that prohibits sex discrimination in education.

In ESPN’s video, “Title IX Is Mine,” Vollmer says, “Talking with my mom about not having athletic teams even available to her made me realize how privileged I am at getting to have those. Looking at a younger generation, they might not even realize that this wasn’t always available, this isn’t how it’s always been.”

Vollmer isn’t the only Olympian championing Title IX. Last Saturday, Jessica Hardy won a bronze medal in the 4x100-meter freestyle relay. She explains, “As a child, I probably wouldn’t have even had the drive to compete if I couldn’t really go anywhere with it. So getting the chance to go to college, be recruited, swim beyond high school is my life’s dream.” Read more »

Brittany Wenger deserves major props. The 17-year-old from Florida just won the Google Science Fair Grand Prize for creating an app that has an “artificial brain,” which it uses to diagnose breast cancer. While we may not understand how exactly it all works, we are thoroughly impressed.

Wenger’s app uses a “neural network” to, “detect complex patterns and make diagnostic calls on breast cancer.” The app works using data from a “fine needle aspiration,” a type of biopsy. Users can input their test data and the app will identify, with a 99% success rate, if the tumor is malignant. Read more »

Yesterday, Megan Greenwell laid the blame for the decline in the number of female coaches at Title IX’s feet, calling the lack of female coaches “the dirty little secret of Title IX.” This is a classic case of “blame the victim.” Title IX has steadily increased the number of opportunities for girls and women in sports, although the playing field is still far from level.

But the growing opportunities for women and girls in sports are in no way responsible for the lack of opportunities for women in coaching.

Remember: correlation is not causation. As Greenwell acknowledges, now that female coaching jobs are higher-paying and more prestigious they are desirable jobs. Put that together with a hiring process that relies on informal male-dominated networks and voila, no women coaches. Read more »

Pennsylvania recently joined a handful of other states that require schools to publicly disclose gender equity in sports data every year, which will help communities learn more about how their schools are treating girls and boys in athletics. The Equity in Interscholastic Athletics Disclosure Bill requires Pennsylvania middle and high schools to disclose the numbers of athletic opportunities provided to boys and girls, broken down by race/ethnicity, as well as team expenditures, coaches’ salaries, and other gender equity information. The first reports are due November 2013 and will be available on schools’ websites as well as the state Department of Education’s website.  The law is similar to ones on the books in Georgia and New Mexico.

Schools already collect or have this information but are not required to disclose it publicly, which puts the burden on individuals wanting to know more about a school’s sports program to file an open records request and navigate that process. Data bills like the one enacted by Pennsylvania make it easier for parents and students to access critical information to evaluate whether girls are boys are being treated fairly in their school sports programs (see recent article highlighted by our colleagues at the Women’s Law Project, who were instrumental in getting the bill passed).  At the college level, the Equity in Athletics Disclosure Act has been in place since 1994 and has helped identify many problems at colleges and universities across the country. Efforts have been underway for many years to pass a similar federal law that would apply to all secondary schools.

Reuters reports that a new study by University of Texas Medical Branch found that 30 percent of US teenagers are sexting (defined in the study as “electronically sending sexually explicit images or messages”).

The study, published in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, finds not only that nearly one-third of teens are sexting, but also that over half of teens have been asked to send a nude photo.

"Almost all of the girls that were asked to send a sext were bothered at least a little bit and over half were bothered a lot or a great deal, and yet some of them are still sending it," said Dr. Jeff Temple, lead author of the study.

In addition, sexting can become cyberbullying when students forward explicit photos to other students or even the entire school. And in fact, forwarding such images can actually be sexual harassment, and under Title IX schools are required to address harassment that is severe or pervasive enough to interfere with a student’s education or participation in school activities. Read more »

Cross-posted from HRC Blog.

Meet Bobby Brugger, a mother who discovered that her 13-year-old daughter was being bullied and harassed while teachers passively watched. She armed herself with knowledge about Title IX, the federal civil rights law that prohibits sex discrimination—including sex- and gender-based harassment—in education. But when Bobby met with her daughter’s principal, “it became clear that he didn’t really know much about Title IX and didn’t understand what his legal obligations were.” She said that “just bringing up Title IX got the principal’s attention.” 

Bobby’s story is part of a project the National Women’s Law Center just launched in honor of Title IX’s 40th anniversary. “Faces of Title IX” is an online portal featuring nine diverse stories that put a human face on this groundbreaking law and reflect its broad range. 

In addition to protecting students from being bullied or harassed based on sex, Title IX mandates equal opportunities on the playing field, protects pregnant and parenting students from being pushed out of school, and requires that women and girls get equal opportunities in science, technology, engineering and math. “Faces” illustrates how much work remains to fulfill Title IX’s promise.  Read more »

In November 2010, NWLC filed 12 complaints with the U.S. Department of Education, pointing out that twelve school districts across the country were failing to provide equal athletic opportunities for girls, in violation of Title IX. This effort was part of a national campaign, Rally for Girls Sports, to raise awareness about the barriers girls face in in high school sports.

This week, we all had a lot to rally around. The U.S. Department of Education announced that they reached settlement agreements with four of the districts, all of which reported that they were not offering sports opportunities in equal numbers to boys and girls. In Deer Valley, Arizona; Houston, TX; Wake County, North Carolina; and Columbus, Ohio, disparities between the percentage of sports opportunities offered to boys and girls translates into 6,000 lost opportunities for girls to play sports. Read more »

Welcome to this week’s roundup! This has been such a busy week leading up to the 40th Anniversary of Title IX on Saturday. Help us celebrate! Visit our new Faces of Title IX website and our Title IX anniversary blog carnival to read different women’s personal experiences with this milestone law. Want to share a Title IX story of your own? Let us know what it is here!

This week, we also have stories about one blogger’s experience with online sexual harassment and bullying, how Olympics sports commentators don’t give female athletes credit where credit is due, and some updates on the Michigan state representative banned for saying “vagina” mid-debate – read on for more!

Even after 40 years of Title IX, we still have a lot of work to be done to end sex-based discrimination. It occurs on the field, on the job and also on the internet, and many women are the targets of online sexual harassment and cyberbullying. Anita Sarkeesian, pop cultural blogger for Feminist Frequency, was violently threatened and attacked for wanting to cover women’s portrayal in video games in her Kickstarter project the other week.

We’re not the only ones appalled by the vitriol spewed at Sarkeesian over this incident. The silver lining: Sarkeesian You can refuses to be silenced despite the misogyny and violent attacks directed at her – and to us, this is a clear-cut example of bullying, digital or not. Read more »