back
to school on equal terms
Summer vacations are a distant memory, and students
all over the country have packed their book bags
and head back to school. Many young people—and
their parents—don’t realize that a
federal law, Title IX, protects the right of all
students to receive equal opportunities at school,
both inside and outside the classroom.
Title IX prohibits sex-based discrimination under any educational program or
activity that receives federal financial support. Title IX doesn’t just
require equal opportunities for male and female athletes. It applies to all aspects
of education, from math class to band practice.
The primary purpose of Title IX is to give all women and girls equal educational
opportunities and benefits—and in particular, to open doors to colleges
and graduate schools. Before Title IX, many graduate schools had quotas on the
number of women they would admit, and some schools set higher standards of admission
for women than for men. Under Title IX, such practices are illegal.
There are two types of discrimination under Title IX. Disparate-treatment discrimination
occurs whenever students are treated differently because of their gender. This
might occur, for example, if girls are assigned to home economics classes and
boys are assigned to shop class, or if a teacher gives males pamphlets about
careers in construction but does not give the same information to females. There
might be disparate-treatment discrimination in athletics if a high school athletics
program schedules girls in a nontraditional or less popular season, while the
boys play in a traditional season.
Disparate impact is a more subtle form of discrimination that occurs where actions
that appear to be gender neutral actually affect one sex more than the other.
For example, there may be disparate-impact discrimination if a school has a rule
that “students with long hair cannot conduct chemistry experiments.” Such
a rule appears to be gender neutral because it applies to all students, but in
fact it applies to more female students than male, because more females have
long hair. The school might be able to justify the policy if it can show a “substantial
legitimate justification” for the rule. For example, it might argue that
such a policy is necessary for safety reasons. Female students might argue in
turn that safety could be protected to the same extent if students with long
hair were required to keep it tied back during experiments. Similarly, a rule
that students can only play tuba in the school marching band “if a student
can carry a tuba for one hour” might be discriminatory. The rule appears
to be gender neutral because it ostensibly applies to all students, but in fact
it is likely to apply to more female students than male students because female
students are less likely to have the physical strength and stamina required to
carry the instrument for so long.
If you think a school is discriminating between students on the basis of sex,
talk to your lawyer about the steps you can take to make a complaint and seek
redress.
Resources
The ABA Legal Guide for Women contains a chapter
about Title IX, and includes more information about
the steps you can take to make a complaint about
sex discrimination in education.
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