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Title IX: Gender Equity in Education: The Unfinished Agenda

March 18-19, 2004, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Summary

Title IX: Gender Equity in Education: The Unfinished Agenda began March 18 with a lively speech by Donna Lopiano, Executive Director of The Women's Sports Foundation. Dr. Lopiano spoke candidly about the inequalities that women and girls face in athletics. She dispelled the myth that Title IX is "ruining" men's sports, and showed how athletic participation for both men and women has risen since the enactment of Title IX. After the keynote, Dr. Lopiano took questions from students, parents, coaches, and other attendees.

The conference continued Friday morning with a panel on sexual harassment introduced and moderated by Professor Linda Wharton.
Deborah Brake, Professor of Law at the University of Pittsburgh, began by discussing how the Supreme Court has only relatively recently set legal standards regarding the inclusion of sexual harassment in Title IX. Professor Brake discussed the legal hurdles facing plaintiffs who are suing for sexual harassment under Title IX, which in some respects offers schoolchildren less protection than Title VII gives adult women in the work place. Nan Stein of Wellesley College continued the panel with a focus on "zero tolerance" policies in schools. She believes the anti-bullying laws passed by several states have de-gendered harassment, bundling everything under the umbrella term, "bullying."

Carol Tracy, Executive Director of the Women's Law Project, spoke about sexual assault on college campuses. Ms. Tracy spoke about the cases of sexual harassment that the Women's Law Project has participated in over the past seven years, and noted that colleges and universities are entirely too lax in regards to sexual harassment policies. Universities desperately need to start educating their students regarding how to access information on sexual harassment.

Eric Pliner, an educational consultant, was the final speaker on this panel, and he focused on the harassment of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender students. Mr. Pliner emphasized that there needs to be more training in this area for teachers and educators. They should be introduced to their legal responsibilities, with an emphasis on how sexual harassment affects the ability to learn. There should also be protection for teachers, so they can report harassment to the administration without fear.

Verna Williams, Professor at University of Cincinnati College of Law, led an animated talk on single-sex education. She noted the intersection of race and sex and posed the question, does single-sex education perpetuate stereotypes? Professor Williams spoke about the history of sex segregation and race segregation. Professor Williams's ultimate question is: is this reform really reform, or racism and sexism rewrapped?
The final panel focused on athletics, and David Cohen, attorney for the Women's Law Project, explained the requirements that Title IX regulations impose on athletic programs. Nationally, 80% of colleges and universities are out of compliance with Title IX; Pennsylvania schools are no exception, although it is difficult to come up with compliance numbers in middle and high schools. Carl Prine, investigative reporter for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, spoke about his survey of Title IX compliance in Western Pennsylvanian schools.

He investigated 129 schools, going through the receipts, yearbooks, and so on, to make sure the numbers matched up. The results: only 14 out of 129 schools were found likely to be in compliance with Title IX. Terry Fromson, attorney for the Women's Law Project, discussed local examples of how Title IX is not being applied in schools.
Sometimes parents and students can take matters into their own hands with success, by rallying support via petition, meeting with the school, filing administrative complaints and so on. Deborah Brake returned to end the panel by speaking about the remaining challenges.

She emphasized the intractable problem of male excess in elite male sports, and how sport needs to be de-linked from masculinity. On a positive note, Professor Brake pointed out that Title IX litigation has been almost uniformly successful.
The conference ended with the panelists remaining to answer questions and engage in discussion with each other and members of the audience.