‘Title IX at 50’ Report Offers Roadmap for the Future

Today marks the 50th anniversary of the signing of Title IX, the federal statute prohibiting sex discrimination in schools that receive federal funding. A new report, “Title IX at 50,” from the National Coalition for Women and Girls in Education (NCWGE), points to the scope, impact, and possible future use of the landmark law.

“A lot of people associate Title IX with remedying sex discrimination in athletics,” said Elizabeth Tang, senior counsel for education and workplace justice at the National Women’s Law Center, which is part of the NCWGE, a coalition of 33 organizations advocating for educational equity. “But that’s only one form of sex discrimination; there are so many others ... Since Title IX was passed in 1972, we have made a lot of progress, but there are still many problems, many challenges that remain.”

The report explores nine areas of gender and racial justice — spheres that, the report’s authors note, do intersect and are being highlighted during what is another politically and ideologically fraught era of debate over, as examples, so-called critical race theory and whether to allow trans athletes to compete against athletes who are not trans. The nine sectors examined in the report are Title IX coordinators; athletics programs; enrollment in and programming for science, technology, engineering and math, and career/technical training; discipline practices that disproportionately effect students of color, those with disabilities, and those who are not heterosexual; LGBTQ and other nonheterosexual students; pregnant and parenting students; gender- and race-conscious programs that were created as affirmative action initiatives to remediate longstanding, systemic discrimination; sexual harassment; and sex-segregated education.

“They’re based on very debunked regressive stereotypes,” Tang said, of that last category, “about the way that girls and boys learn. They’re based on very outdated myths: ‘Boys prefer reading material that is nonfiction or, if it is fiction, it’s adventure-oriented. But girls prefer reading fiction that doesn’t necessarily contain as much action. It supports this idea that boys love logic and action and girls are more passive.”

Such teaching, she added, “is going on today ... In 2018, a New Jersey school district taught their teachers in mandatory training for staff that you should always put girls in a face-to-face seating arrangement that is appropriate for girls but will promote conflict for boys. You can use bright lights and strong language for boys, but if you do that for girls, it creates a stress response. This is totally inappropriate.”

The Association for Psychological Science, she added, has debunked that kind of classroom pedagogy.

The report’s evolving themes are, at least in part, reflected by gender-driven issues of the moment. For example, the reports cumulative recommendations include ones addressing gender-biased dress codes; race-biased efforts to dictate, for example, how Black schoolchildren and Black professionals wear their natural hair; and the presence of school police, including those alleged to have sexually abused schoolgirls, especially Black and brown ones. The most recent in an analysis that has been updated every five years, the report cites what its authors deem to be progress, regress, and stagnancy regarding realms covered by Title IX and offers dozens of recommended actions that can be undertaken by the Department of Education, Congress, the Justice Department, local school districts, and colleges and universities. Among them:

Sexual Harassment

• Comprehensive sex education, including information on consent and reproductive health
• Removing police from schools to protect students from harassment by school police
• Elimination of dress codes, or at least implementation of nondiscriminatory dress codes

Discriminatory Discipline

• Collecting and releasing data on complaints against law enforcement in schools
• Prohibition of corporal punishment
• Eliminating dress codes, which are disproportionally enforced against students of color

LGBTQI+ Students

• Condemnation of state and local governments’ attacks on LGBTQI+ students
• Strengthening of the Office of Civil Rights’ enforcement of Title IX protections for LGBTQI+ students
• Requiring colleges’ and universities’ antiharassment policies to include sexual orientation and gender identity

Pregnant and Parenting Students

• Implementation of policies of excused absences for caregiving responsibilities
• Expansion of data collection on incidents of discrimination against pregnant and parenting students and pregnancy-related harassment
• Expansion of child care assistance for students

Athletics

• Bolstering training for Title IX coordinators
• Increasing compliance reviews by the Department of Education
• Affirming the right of transgender athletes to participate in sports

Gender- and Race-Conscious Programs

• Affirming support for gender-conscious affirmative action programs
• Ensuring that efforts to close the “racial opportunity gap” are gender-inclusive
• Increasing scholarship and other support for women and girls entering fields where they are underrepresented

Sex-Segregated Education

• Ending sex-segregated classes and activities that are based on gender stereotypes
• Where there are sex-segregated programs that are based on a legitimate rationale, making sure transgender students can participate in ways that are consistent with their gender identity

STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) and CTE (Career and Technical Education)

• Providing tools for women in STEM and CTE to combat harassment
• Bolstering recruitment efforts for women in STEM and CTE
• Training educators to create equitable learning environments for women in STEM and CTE

Title IX Coordinators

• Restoring pre-Trump-era guidance for school districts to have a Title IX coordinator at each school
• Increasing the number of Title IX coordinators in K-12 schools
• Establishing an Office for Gender Equity in the Department of Education

“Today, [kindergarten]-through-12 and college students and their allies increasingly demand that educational institutions and policy makers recognize and protect gender diversity and inclusion,” Joel Levin, co-founder and program director of Stop Sexual Assault in Schools, told the Women’s Media Center via email. “This report lays out a detailed roadmap ... to take proactive action against sexual harassment by increasing transparency and ensuring individual and institutional accountability.”

Some of the disparate issues affected by Title IX may not even be on the radar of the broad public, the National Women’s Law Center’s Tang said. Many parts of the conversation “are not part of the national consciousness,” she added. “We’ve made a lot of progress in the last 50 years, but there still so many, many problems that remain. We want the public to be aware. We want policy makers and school administration to be aware. They have an obligation to this law.”