(News items are from the Feminist Majority Foundation's Feminist Daily News Wire)

Supreme Court Ruling Strengthens Title IX, Protects Whistle-Blowers

The US Supreme Court ruled March 29 that those who are the victims of retaliation for drawing attention to Title IX violations can sue under the 1972 federal law prohibiting sex discrimination at institutions receiving federal financial assistance for education programs and activities. The court ruled 5–4 in favor of Roderick Jackson, a basketball coach in Alabama who claims that he was fired for complaining that the girls' basketball team was forced to use substandard facilities and equipment and was denied funding equal to that received by the boys' basketball team. Jackson's case was dismissed by lower federal courts, including the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled that Title IX does not allow any specific right to sue over alleged retaliation, only over direct discrimination.

"Without protection from retaliation, individuals who witness discrimination would likely not report it, indifference claims would be short-circuited, and the underlying discrimination would go unremedied," JusticeSandra Day O'Connor wrote for the majority opinion. O'Connor also stated that retaliation against someone who complained about sex discrimination amounted to intentional discrimination on the basis of sex, Reuters reports.

The Department of Justice filed a brief in support of Jackson last year. "Teachers and coaches are often in a much better position to identify sex discrimination and express opposition to it than are the students who are denied equal educational opportunities," wrote US Solicitor General Theodore B. Olson in the brief.

The participation of girls in high school athletics has increased by 847 percent since Title IX took effect in 1972, and the participation of women in college sports has increased 400 percent

Dept. of Education Weakens Title IX Compliance Standards for College Athletics

The Department of Education released a letter March 23 weakening the requirements of Part Three of the three-part test by which colleges and universities measure their compliance with Title IX, the 1972 federal law prohibiting sex discrimination at institutions receiving federal financial assistance for education programs and activities. Essentially the Bush Administration is trying to do by administrative fiat what a Bush athletic commission tried to do more publicly in 2003. Before the election, the Bush Department of Education rejected the commission's recommendations and reaffirmed Title IX. Now, after the election, the Department of Education is trying to quietly, without public notice, weaken Title IX.

Released without advance notice, the letter informed schools with intercollegiate varsity sports that sending an email survey to female students asking them if there are any additional athletic opportunities they would like to have open to them is sufficient to prove that "the school is fully and effectively accommodating the interest and abilities of the underrepresented sex." This is a change from policy guidance released in the past two decades by the Dept. of Education, specifically the 1996 guidelines, which state that multiple indicators such as interviews with students, coaches, and faculty should be used to assess the athletic interests of the underrepresented sex.

Currently young women make up 53 percent of the student body in Division One schools, yet they receive only 41 percent of the athletic opportunities, 36 percent of the athletic budgets, and 32 percent of the recruitment budget.


Harvard Faculty Votes "Lack of Confidence" in President

In an unprecedented vote March 16, Harvard's Faculty of Arts and Sciences voted 218 to 185 to approve a motion expressing a "lack of confidence" in Harvard president Lawrence Summers. A second motion offering a milder rebuke of Summer's comments and "managerial style" was also passed 253 to 137, with 18 abstentions, reports the Associated Press.

Summers has been under fire from women's groups, women scientists, and Harvard faculty members after a speech he gave in which he suggested that women may have less innate ability for math and science than men. J. Lorand Matory, the professor of anthropology and African and African-American Studies who submitted the motion for a vote of no confidence, said that he had only expected about 30 percent of the voters to support his motion, according to the Boston Globe. "This was a resounding statement the faculty lacks confidence in President Lawrence Summers and he should resign," said Matory. "There is no noble alternative to resignation," reports the Associated Press.

Summers officially answers only to the university's governing body, the Harvard Corporation, which has expressed its support for Summers. Tuesday's vote marked the third meeting Summers has had with the arts and sciences faculty since the controversy began in January. Since then, he has also implemented two task forces to examine the hiring practices of Harvard, as well as how the university cultivates women faculty members. "I have done my best these last two months to hear all that has been said, to think hard, to learn, and to adjust," Summers asserted to reporters amidst protestors after the vote. "I will continue to do that," reports the Associated Press.


Report Documents Discrimination at Ivy League Universities

"The (Un)Changing Face of the Ivy League," a report conducted by a graduate student group at Yale University, found that women and minorities at Ivy League schools have made little progress breaking into the tenure track faculty ranks, and are instead becoming a larger part of the growing group of highly qualified but non tenure track faculty and staff. The report uncovered a two-tier system in the universities in which women and minorities are concentrated in unstable, poorly compensated teaching and research positions while the secure, higher status, better paid, tenured and tenure-rack positions are held mainly by white males. Ivy League universities hired 433 professors into tenure-track jobs in 2003, but women received only 150 (34 percent) of these positions. In addition, women gained only 25 percent of the 117 tenured full professorates granted that year.

"It is likely that the sex and race discrimination will continue as long as the hiring and tenure processes remain opaque, secretive and idiosyncratic among and even within universities," said Sue Klein, Ed.D, education equity director of the Feminist Majority Foundation. "This makes it extremely difficult to prove sex or race discrimination under civil rights laws such as Title IX of the 1972 Education Amendments or Titles VI and VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act." The report was endorsed by women's rights, civil rights, and labor organizations, including the Feminist Majority Foundation.