"Title IX Trickles Down to Girls of Generation Z" reads the headline to this lengthy and really interesting report in the June 29th NY Times about "a new phase in the evolution of Title IX," lawsuits seeking "facilities and services that would be comparable" to those provided to boys. Some quotes:
These suits are often initiated by fathers like Johnson, who are part of what is known as the angry-dad phenomenon among people involved in Title IX matters.Deeper into the story:"The fathers tend to get more riled up," said Sam Schiller, a Tennessee lawyer, who with his partner, Ray Yasser, has been involved in more than 30 Title IX lawsuits. "The fathers have already experienced the benefits of a full high school athletic experience. Then they have a daughter and she goes to high school and they can't believe she isn't being treated like they were."
While the familiar battles over Title IX take place at colleges and universities, the battleground has been extended to high schools and middle schools. It is not only lawsuits that have become more common. At the federal Department of Education, the agency responsible for enforcing Title IX, the number of complaints involving sex discrimination in high school and even middle school athletics has outpaced those involving colleges by five to one since 2001.
"High school is where the Title IX action is," said Bob Gardner, the chief officer of the National Federation of State High School Associations. "The colleges get all the attention, but Title IX isn't about the nation's elite college athletes. It's about providing a grass-roots gateway to sports that benefits millions."
Colleges and universities are required by federal law to disclose all pertinent data on how they are treating and financing their athletic programs for men and women, but public schools' athletic departments have no disclosure requirement. So there is no data to assess the true level of gender equity nationally in high schools, middle schools or elementary schools.Posted by Marcia Oddi at June 30, 2004 08:36 PMMonitoring compliance is left to local school boards, activists, the courts or the Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights, which generally investigates after it receives a complaint. It does conduct periodic independent compliance reviews. * * *
A large percentage of high schools, perhaps even a majority, are still not in compliance with Title IX, said the leaders of several state high school athletic associations. At the same time, many state sports executives said they thought there has been tremendous progress.
"In one generation, we've gone from powder-puff basketball games to a competitive, beneficial, broad-based sports environment for girls," said Dorothy McIntyre, who recently retired after more than three decades as the executive director of the Minnesota State High School League. "But it was not accomplished without a lot of blood, sweat and tears. There were a lot of boys coaches slamming their fists on the table and a lot of girls coaches slamming their fist back and saying: 'I'm not going to take this.' "
And yet, while Title IX issues tend to be divisive at the collegiate level, many officials insist that many of the problems are resolved amicably in high schools. For example, it is unheard of for a high school to cut a boys team to help achieve gender equity, something that has become commonplace in colleges.