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Bills Campus Department of Education Discrimination Domestic Violence False Allegations Free Speech Sexual Harassment Title IX

SAFER Act Seeks Sweeping Changes to Redefine ‘Sex’ and ‘Sexual Harassment’

PRESS RELEASE

Rebecca Stewart: 513-479-3335

Email: info@saveservices.org

SAFER Act Seeks to Make Sweeping Changes to Redefine ‘Sex’ and ‘Sexual Harassment’

WASHINGTON / December 12, 2022 – Lawmakers recently introduced the Students’ Access to Freedom and Educational Rights (SAFER) Act in both the Senate and House (1). The bill proposes to codify sweeping changes to the definitions of “sex” and “sexual harassment.”

Definition of Sex

The existing Title IX law, enacted in 1972, was designed to eliminate discrimination based on a student’s “sex.” But the SAFER bill seeks to expand this fundamental term to include sex stereotypes, pregnancy or related conditions, sexual orientation, or gender identity.  Gender identity is defined as “a person’s internal sense of gender, which could be female, male, or another gender.” (Section 101)

To date, two circuit courts have ruled against changing the Title IX definition of sex:

  • On July 15, 2022 a Tennessee District Court issued a Preliminary Injunction overturning the Department of Education’s Interpretation of Title IX to include “discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.” (2)
  • In a November 11, 2022 decision, a Texas District Court ruled in Neese v. Becerra that Title IX does not prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. (3)

Over 200 organizations have gone on record in opposition (4) to proposed changes to Title IX that would expand the definition of “sex,” which would impose devastating consequences on women’s sports (5), promote life-altering sex changes on underage children (6), and have long-term effects on parental rights (7).

Definition of Sexual Harassment

In Davis v. Monroe, the U.S. Supreme Court defined sexual harassment as harassment that is ‘‘so severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive that it can be said to deprive the victims of access to the educational opportunities or benefits provided by the school.’’ (8)

But the SAFER bill proposes a broader definition of sexual harassment that would encompass virtually all sex-related conduct that is perceived as “unwelcome:”

“any unwelcome conduct of a sexual nature, regardless of whether it is direct or indirect, or verbal or nonverbal (including conduct that is undertaken in whole or in part, through the use of electronic messaging services, commercial mobile services, electronic communications, or other technology), that unreasonably alters an individual’s terms, benefits, or privileges of an education program or activity, including by creating an intimidating, hostile, or offensive environment.” (Section 203(i))

Such changes would exact harmful consequences on free speech (9) and open the door for a wave of false allegations of sexual misconduct and domestic violence (10). A former Washington State prosecutor explains the false allegations problem this way (11):

“The Department of Education has put immense pressure on higher education institutions to handle cases to their liking….As a result of this unfair treatment, innocent accused students, staff, and faculty find themselves expelled, fired or facing criminal charges.”

In Orwellian fashion, the bill sponsors make the remarkable claim that the SAFER Act will protect “all” students from discrimination (12).

SAVE urges lawmakers to strongly oppose the SAFER Act.

Links:

  1. https://www.congress.gov/117/bills/hr9387/BILLS-117hr9387ih.pdf
  2. https://adfmedialegalfiles.blob.core.windows.net/files/TennesseeOrderOpinionPI.pdf
  3. https://casetext.com/case/neese-v-becerra-1
  4. https://www.saveservices.org/2022-Policy/
  5. https://www.iwf.org/womens-sports-resource-center/
  6. https://nrb.org/articles/thousands-rally-at-tennessee-state-capitol-to-end-child-mutilation/
  7. https://parentalrights.org/
  8. https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/526/629/
  9. https://speechfirst.org/about/
  10. https://www.saveservices.org/2021/05/pr-40-50-of-campus-sexual-assault-allegations-are-unfounded-revealing-need-for-strong-protections-of-the-innocent/
  11. https://kuhlmanoffice.com/practice-areas/title-ix-defense/
  12. https://www.casey.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/one_pager_safer_act.pdf
Categories
Campus Discrimination Sexual Assault Title IX

PR: Slow Learner? Grinnell College Continues Pattern of Title IX Sex Discrimination, Gets Schooled by Circuit Court Judge

PRESS RELEASE

Rebecca Stewart: 513-479-3335

Email: info@saveservices.org

Slow Learner? Grinnell College Continues Pattern of Title IX Sex Discrimination, Gets Schooled by Circuit Court Judge

WASHINGTON / August 26, 2021 – Circuit Court Judge Rebecca Goodgame Ebinger handed down a Title IX ruling against Grinnell College on Monday, denying the college’s motion for summary judgment on Moe’s Title IX and breach of contract claims. (1)  The recent decision echoes similar sex bias findings from a 2019 ruling by the same judge also involving Grinnell College.

In a 2015 case that did not involve Moe, a Grinnell female student accused another female student of non-consensual sexual contact, with the college ultimately finding the female respondent to be responsible. In the recent decision, the judge began by analyzing how Grinnell investigated the 2015 complaint, compared to the current Moe v. Grinnell case:

“[I]n the 2015 case opinion, the adjudicator did not address whether the initial sexual contact between the parties was consensual. [In the current case], the adjudicator considered whether the initial sexual contact between Moe and Complainant 1 was consensual. Also, unlike Moe’s case, the adjudicator did not make findings regarding the uncharged conduct of nonconsensual sexual contact in the 2015 case. Finally, in the 2015 case opinion, the adjudicator credited the female respondent’s testimony that the complainant ‘was an active participant in their sexual activities.’ The adjudicator did not credit similar testimony by Moe.” (Page 22)

On the basis of the different treatment of respondents in these two cases, Judge Goodgame Ebinger concluded:

“In light of differential treatment between Moe and the female respondent identified above, a jury could find the adjudicator’s assessment about Moe’s credibility was based on biased notions as to men’s sexual intent….The adjudicator relied in part on the inferences she drew about the intent behind Moe’s physical actions to assess his credibility.” (Pages 23-24)

Monday’s decision against Grinnell College has a similar fact pattern as a third case that was resolved in 2019, in which Judge Goodgame Ebinger had ruled,

“Doe claims the determination in Complainant #1’s case arbitrarily found Complainant #1’s side of the story more credible and made unwarranted assumptions about Complainant #1 being naïve and sexually inexperienced….The Court concludes Doe has presented sufficient evidence from which a reasonable jury could deduce the determinations of responsibility relied upon by Grinnell to dismiss Doe were based on a biased perspective regarding the behavior of women during sexual encounters.” (2)

Grinnell College has been stoutly criticized for retaining Marsha Ternus to act as its Title IX adjudicator. Scott Greenfield opined in a recent column (3):

“Why, one might reasonably wonder, would Grinnell College, the party school of Iowa, pick someone to be the Title IX sex adjudicator who they knew was flagrantly biased against male students? On the one hand, that’s apparently exactly what they wanted from their adjudicator, a person who would adeptly make sure that the guy would come out guilty. On the other hand, it was almost as if the college was handed someone so impervious to criticism that she was above reproach. So Grinnell College made a big bet by retaining Marsha Ternus, former chief judge of the Iowa Supreme Court, to serve as their Title IX adjudicator.”

SAVE urges college president Anne F. Harris to order a top-to-bottom review of its Title IX policies, procedures, and practices. Given its pattern of illegal sex bias, SAVE calls on Iowa lawmakers to make necessary reductions in its annual budgetary appropriations to Grinnell College.

Citations:

  1. 4:20-cv-00058-RGE-SBJ (S.D. Iowa Aug. 23, 2021. https://kcjohnson.files.wordpress.com/2021/08/grinnell-ii-sj-opinion.pdf
  2. 473 F. Supp. 3d 909 (S.D. Iowa July 9, 2019) Page 927.
  3. https://blog.simplejustice.us/2021/06/03/short-take-grinnells-bad-bet-on-ternus-and-the-cats-paw/
Categories
Campus Discrimination Legal Office for Civil Rights

Complaint: MIT discriminates against males and white people through nearly 30 different programs

JOHN RIGOLIZZO – RUTGERS UNIVERSITY 

‘MIT is apparently either unaware of federal civil rights laws, or it thinks it’s above the law’

A complaint has been leveled against the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for 27 alleged violations of Title VI and Title IX of the Civil Rights Act.

The complaint, authored by University of Michigan-Flint economics Professor Mark Perry, was filed with the Boston-based Office of Civil Rights in late May.

Of the 27 MIT programs cited in the complaint, 24 are alleged to be in violation of Title IX, which protects against discrimination on the basis of sex in schools.

Two other MIT programs are alleged to be in violation of Title VI, which protects against discrimination on the basis of race, color or national origin.

And one program is accused by Perry of violating both laws.

Perry has made a habit of filing Civil Rights complaints against public universities, and has filed 326 of this nature since 2016.

But he noted in an email to The College Fix that MIT’s 27 alleged violations “sets a new record for the greatest number of violations I’ve found at a single college or university.”

The complaint came in at 2,300 words and six pages and Perry said there may even be “additional violations that weren’t uncovered.”

“MIT is apparently either unaware of federal civil rights laws, or it thinks it’s above the law,” Perry told The Fix. “Either way [it’s] a pretty sad indictment of MIT.”

Most of the alleged complaints targeted programs that benefited only women and excluded men, such as scholarships, study groups, career networking, graduate-level groups, educational seminars and similar efforts. Several of the programs cited in Perry’s complaint are for middle and high school female students only.

For the Title VI complaints, one benefitted entrepreneurs who are Black, Indigenous and People of Color, or BIPOC, and another is a professional fund for LGBTQ students of color.

The complaint that listed both Title IX and Title VI is MIT’s Women of Color Professional Fund.

The College Fix reached out to MIT’s media relations department for a response to the complaint, but the department, as well as Director Kimberly Allen and Deputy Director Sarah McDonnell, did not reply to requests for comment.

As for Perry, he told The College Fix that as of this week, he has filed complaints against 326 colleges and universities for more than 1,200 Title IX and Title VI violations, and 158 of those complaints have been opened so for federal civil rights investigations, and about 50 investigations have been resolved in his favor.

Perry’s first victory came in 2016 when he successfully got a women-only study lounge changed to an all-student lounge at Michigan State.

As for MIT, Perry said he expected that MIT would “stubbornly fight” to keep its single-sex, female-only programs.

But instead, he added, MIT should either discontinue their discriminatory practices, convert them to co-educational programs for males and females, or introduce equivalent male-only programs to ensure equal access to the same opportunities and funding.

Complaint: MIT discriminates against males and white people through nearly 30 different programs | The College Fix

Categories
Campus Department of Education Department of Justice Discrimination Title IX

BOLD program under investigation for Title IX complaint

By  — Senior Writer, The Ithacan
Published: February 10, 2021

The U.S. Office for Civil Rights has opened an investigation against Ithaca College’s BOLD Women’s Leadership Network after receiving a complaint of a Title IX violation by a University of Michigan professor.

Mark Perry, professor of economics and finance at the University of Michigan, filed a complaint against the BOLD Women’s Leadership Network in August on the basis of sex discrimination. The BOLD Women’s Leadership Network is a leadership development program that awards a two-year scholarship to students who identify as women, particularly those who have been underrepresented in higher education.

Samantha Elebiary, BOLD Program Director at the college, said that she cannot comment on the status of an ongoing investigation but that the college will cooperate with the Office for Civil Rights.

Perry said the BOLD Women’s Leadership Network violates Title IX policy, which states, “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance,” according to the U.S. Department of Education website.  Because the college allows students to apply federal money to their tuition through the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, the college is required to comply with Title IX policy.

The BOLD Women’s Leadership Network is funded by the Pussycat Foundation, which sets the application criteria for participating colleges. The program requires that applicants identify as women, but Elebiary said nonbinary identifying students are not discouraged from applying. Elebiary said students are not required to disclose their gender identity on the application.

President Shirley M. Collado brought the BOLD Women’s Leadership Network to the college in 2017, shortly after she became president of the college. Collado founded the program when she worked at Rutgers University–Newark. Elebiary started working at the college as a residence director in 2017 and began working with BOLD in 2018.

Collado has not responded to requests for comment.

At the All-College Gathering on Feb. 9, Collado said the program has received over $4 million in funding since she brought the program to the college.

“The main goal is to provide that additional professional leadership development to students who identify as women or female and are in their junior and senior year,” Elebiary said.

Perry said he has filed 283 Title IX complaints. A majority of these complaints are against colleges with programs or spaces exclusive to women. He said he has filed complaints against BOLD Women’s Leadership Network programs at Middlebury College, The College of Saint Rose, University of Connecticut and Colby-Sawyer College. The only college that hosts a BOLD Women’s Leadership Network program that he has not filed a complaint against is Rutgers University-Newark.

His complaint against The College of Saint Rose was also opened for investigation by the Office for Civil Rights. The other complaints are still pending investigation.

Perry said he believes the BOLD Women’s Leadership Network is in violation of Title IX because there is not a similar program for men, and men are ineligible for the current program.

“It’s not just illegal, but it seems unethical to have federal civil rights legislation that’s only enforced selectively and with a double standard,” Perry said.

At this time, Elebiary said the college does not have any plans to alter the structure of the BOLD Women’s Leadership Network.

The college hosts leadership scholarships that are open to all genders like the Leadership Scholar Program Award, the Martin Luther King Scholar Program and the Park Scholar Program. The college also offers leadership opportunities to all students through the Student Leadership Institute organized by the Office of Student Engagement. Student-athletes can also participate in the Ithaca College Sports Leadership Academy, a program that coaches its members on developing individual and team leadership skills.

Perry said he believes women do not need special programming for leadership development because they attend college at a higher rate than men. Women earned more than 57% of undergraduate degrees and 59% of master’s degrees in 2018, according to the Center for American Progress.

While women make up 50.8% of the U.S. population, they are still largely underrepresented in leadership, according to the Center for American Progress.

Categories
Campus Discrimination Title IX

Countering Sex Discrimination at UCF

David Acevedo, February 08, 2021

Adam Kissel, senior fellow at the Cardinal Institute for West Virginia Policy and visiting scholar at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, has filed a complaint with the Atlanta Office of the Department of Education Office for Civil Rights (OCR), alleging that the University of Central Florida (UCF) is in ongoing violation of Title IX. Readers should note that the Atlanta Office is one of twelve OCR regional offices in the country and oversees complaints not only in Georgia but also in Tennessee, Alabama, and Florida.

Kissel filed this complaint to bring UCF, one of the nation’s largest universities, into compliance with civil rights law. (His complaint is unrelated to UCF’s persecution of Professor Charles Negy, which NAS has commented on elsewhere.)

Title IX, the provision of the Education Amendments of 1972 that prohibits sex discrimination in educational institutions receiving federal funding, states:

No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance. [emphasis added]

Kissel’s complaint identifies seven UCF programs and scholarship that explicitly or implicitly exclude boys and/or men from participation based solely on their sex. Kissel contends that these programs are therefore in direct violation of Title IX and that OCR and UCF must take action to ensure that the programs conform to federal nondiscrimination requirements.

One such program is UCF’s Science Leadership and Mentoring (SLAM), which “empowers girls [not boys] to be assertive, brave, confident, independent, inquisitive and proud leaders in STEM” and limits applications to “[a]ll girls [not boys] entering 7th grade.” Kissel notes that UCF does not offer an equivalent program for 7th grade boys. He argues that this program expressly denies access to boys and is therefore in violation of Title IX.

Kissel also highlights scholarships that UCF offers or advertises exclusively to women, which violate Title IX according to an OCR clarification from January 2021: “Under Title IX, a recipient is prohibited from advertising or promoting … any scholarship, fellowship, or other form of financial assistance … that discriminates on the basis of sex.” Nevertheless, UCF offers or advertises at least two such scholarships, including the “American Association of University Women/Winter Park-Orlando Branch” scholarship and the “Diaz-McAgy/Total Nutrition Technology Women in Science Scholarship.” Kissel believes that advertising the former and directly offering the latter contradict OCR’s interpretation of Title IX and must be remedied.

Kissel cites several further examples—NAS has posted the full complaint here. NAS believes that Kissel has presented very strong evidence that UCF has committed multiple violations of Title IX law. We endorse his request that the Office for Civil Rights investigate this matter immediately. We also call on UCF to conduct its own immediate investigation and, without federal prompting, to reform its practices to ensure that it does not violate federal antidiscrimination law. UCF should not need external pressure to follow the law.

NAS generally supports equality of opportunity in higher education (and in our republic as a whole) among individual American citizens, and opposes group identity preferences of any sort, whether justified by equity, diversity, inclusion, affirmative action, or any other euphemistic rationale. These preferences rot the effectiveness of higher education—but, more fundamentally, they are unjust. We encourage work such as Kissel’s to ensure that colleges and universities live up to the letter of the law, and we also support all needed changes to the law to ensure that colleges and universities retain no legal permission to discriminate. When the law is unjust, the law should be changed.

Adam Kissel has informed NAS that he sent a courtesy copy of his OCR complaint to UCF’s Title IX office and subsequently spoke with the university’s Title IX coordinator. He assures us that UCF is taking the complaint seriously. We are delighted that OCR and UCF have begun so well, and we hope they will finish as well as they have begun.

David Acevedo is Communications and Research Associate at the National Association of Scholars.

Countering Sex Discrimination at UCF by David Acevedo | NAS

Categories
Department of Education Department of Justice Discrimination Law & Justice Legal Office for Civil Rights Title IX

Department of Education says schools can’t use ‘national statistics’ to justify women-only scholarships, programs

GREG PIPER – ASSOCIATE EDITOR, THE COLLEGE FIX

Don’t give ‘special status’ to outside groups with sex restrictions, either

Largely thanks to the efforts of University of Michigan-Flint economist Mark Perry, schools across the country are facing scrutiny from the Department for Education for offering programs and scholarships that exclude males from eligibility.

His flurry of Title IX complaints indisputably played a significant role in its Office for Civil Rights’ creation of two new “issue codes” last year to track complaints against “single sex campus programs” and “single sex scholarships.”

On Thursday, the Office for Civil Rights went a step further by releasing “technical assistance” on its interpretation of Title IX with respect to such programs and scholarships.

Much of the material is not new to people who follow Title IX complaints and resolutions, and the document explicitly tells institutions that it does not have “the force and effect of law” and is “not meant to bind the public or regulated entities in any way.” (The Obama administration, by contrast, explicitly threatened institutions for not following its nonbinding Title IX guidance.)

But for K-12 schools and colleges that have long acted as if Title IX didn’t apply to activities with the word “girls” in the title, and depictions of only females in their materials, the 11-page document makes plain that it does.

One of the most popular reasons for offering a female-only program or scholarship – supposed underrepresentation – is severely restricted under the feds’ interpretation.

While they can restrict eligibility by sex for “remedial or affirmative action” in “limited circumstances,” schools are still prohibited from using “sex-based quotas.” Even more sweeping, they cannot “rely on national statistics as evidence of limited participation.”

Rather, schools must “clearly articulate why the particular sex-based scholarship or program was necessary to overcome the conditions in its own education program or activity which resulted in limited participation therein“:

As part of this analysis, OCR evaluates whether the classification based on sex was supported by an “exceedingly persuasive justification,” based on a substantial relationship between the classification and an important governmental or educational objective.

Schools targeted with complaints will have to provide “a specific assessment of the facts and circumstances surrounding the scholarship or other program” to OCR. The office will analyze whether the “purported remedial discrimination” has any relation to “overcoming the effects of those conditions.”

It flatly warns schools that their sex-based scholarships justified as affirmative action “may never rely on overbroad generalizations about the different talents, capacities, or preferences of males and females.”

Schools should also be wary of titles for scholarships and programs that are “reasonably perceived” as stating a “preference or restriction” based on sex. Otherwise they must “clearly state in their public-facing communications,” such as websites and recruiting materials, that such preference or restriction does not exist, despite the title.

OCR notes that it has reviewed scholarship applications and “awardee data, disaggregated by sex,” to discern whether schools have “communicated effectively” about their nondiscrimination policies.

Several sections in the question-and-answer format are answered “Generally, no” on the appropriateness of sex preferences and restrictions. One of them is whether schools can even advertise or promote third-party scholarships, such as by listing them on its website:

OCR expects that schools will take reasonable steps to verify that the sponsoring organization’s or person’s rules for determining awards do not, expressly or in fact, discriminate on the basis sex.

The guidance also cautions schools about providing “significant assistance” to third parties that offer “non-funded” advancement programs, such as fellowships, with sex preferences or restrictions.

Such assistance has historically been interpreted to include giving third parties “special status or privileges” not offered to “all community organizations,” such as by designating faculty sponsors or letting parties use campus facilities “at less than fair market value.” Simply listing a non-funded program on its website, however, is not “significant assistance.”

Some of the guidance is highly nuanced, particularly with respect to elementary and secondary schools. But other parts are direct and unambiguous, such as the section on sex-based restrictions on school facilities:

OCR has opened an investigation into whether a university that offered a designated “women’s only” workout space in its gym facilities violated Title IX by restricting that space to members of only one sex.

Read the guidance.

Department of Education says schools can’t use ‘national statistics’ to justify women-only scholarships, programs | The College Fix

Categories
Discrimination Title IX

The year in review: An update on my efforts to challenge Title IX violations in higher education and advance civil rights for all

Blog Post
December 31, 2020
by Mark J. Perry

For the last several years, I’ve been on a one-man mission to challenge the frequent and brazen violations of Title IX’s prohibition of sex discrimination and Title VI’s prohibition of discrimination based on race and color. As Professor Philip Carl Salzman pointed out recently universities regularly engage in a hypocritical, double standard — “inclusion and equity for females, people of color, LGBTQ++ and Muslims; exclusion and inequity for males, whites, heterosexuals, Christians, Jews, and East Asians.” In the Orwellian tradition that is a central tenet of wokeness, some groups are more equal than others on campus, and Title IX and Title VI are enforced only for the preferred groups and not for unpreferred groups. It’s those frequent, flagrant, and routine violations of federal civil rights laws that have motivated me to file hundreds of Title IX (and some Title VI) complaints against US universities for illegally violating the civil rights of the unpreferred groups. Here’s a summary of civil rights advocacy this year.

1. Complaints. In 2020, I filed 190 Title IX complaints (including some Title VI complaints) with the Office for Civil Rights in which I identified more than 750 violations of Title IX’s prohibition of sex discrimination at US universities and colleges. That brings the total number of complaints filed to 270 since the fall of 2018 (for more than 1,000 violations), which I think is the greatest number of Title IX complaints ever filed by an individual (call Guinness?). At some universities like Ohio State University, I’ve identified as many as 20 Title IX violations, and I’m sure I haven’t uncovered all of their violations. Complaints for discriminatory, single-sex programs have recently been filed against Michigan State (Women’s Leadership Institute), University of Chicago (Heising-Simons Summer Program, Deborah Jin Fellowship, Elaine K. Bernstein Fellowship for Women in Science and Booth Women Advance), Harvard (Women’s Leadership Initiative), the College of William and Mary (Women’s Leadership Initiative, Women’s Stock Pitch & Leadership Summit and William & Mary Women’s Mentoring), Georgia State (WomenLead at Georgia State University with the preferred pronoun list I posted about here) and West Virginia University (WVU Women’s Leadership Initiative (WLI) and the M-Power mentorship program for students of color).

2. Investigations. This year, the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) opened federal civil rights investigations at 86 universities mostly for single-sex, female-only scholarships and programs based on my Title IX complaints including Harvard, Syracuse University, Johns Hopkins, University of Minnesota, Middlebury College, University of Virginia, Penn State, Wake Forest, Duke, Yale, and UCLA. That brings the total number of federal OCR investigations based on my Title IX complaints to 121 since January 2019. Partly at least because of that unprecedented number of Title IV complaints for single-sex scholarships and programs, the OCR issued the following statement earlier this year:

OCR has implemented two new issue codes under Title IX for cases received in or after January 2020: “single sex campus programs” (discrimination on the basis of sex in campus programs) and “single sex scholarships” (discrimination on the basis of sex in scholarship programs).

It’s probably the case that in the past there were so few (if any) investigations of single-sex campus programs and scholarships (because they were never challenged) that those rare investigations were classified as “Other.” I’ll take the introduction of the two new “issued codes” as a sign of success and an indication that the increasing number of complaints and investigations for single-sex programs and scholarships has gotten the attention of the OCR to the point that it felt that it was necessary to add two new classifications for investigations. It’s also an indication that universities have violated Title IX with impunity for many decades, and have continued to introduce new discriminatory programs because those violations have gone unchallenged until the last few years. Even tenured full professors have been afraid to challenge the woke “diversity-industrial complex” for fear of being canceled, ostracized, and exiled from the academic tribe.

In (weak) defense of some universities, I heard from an OCR attorney that some universities express surprise when notified that they are being investigated for Title IX violations. They’ve been violating federal civil rights laws for so long (multiples decades in many cases for specific programs), and they see so many other universities violating Title IX that violating the civil rights of half of the faculty, staff, and students doesn’t even seem illegal anymore, even to the large and growing staffs of Title IX officers and other diversicrats (e.g., Ohio State University employs more than 100 “diversicrats”). But in the majority of cases, it’s probably more likely that many universities are aware they are violating Title IX, but just do so with impunity because they’ve never been challenged and because illegal preferences for preferred groups (women and non-whites) are part of universities’ woke missions of social justice. So universities are either ignorant of federal civil rights laws or they think they’re above the law. In either case, it’s a pretty sad indictment of higher education today.

It’s especially troubling because every university and college that receives federal financial assistance (which is every university in the country with the few exceptions Hillsdale College and Grove City College) has to regularly certify to the Department of Education that they are enforcing Title IX and Title as a legal condition of continuing to receive taxpayer dollars. Despite those regular certifications, many (most?) universities routinely violate Title IX, and that is what has motivated me to pursue my civil rights advocacy.

3. Resolutions. Over the last year, the following universities corrected their Title IX violations, either pre-emptively once an investigation was opened or as a result of a Voluntary Resolution Agreement with the Office for Civil Rights at the conclusion of an investigation:

  • Vermont Technical College added two equivalent boy-only STEM programs to offset two girl-only STEM programs
  • Clarkson University converted a girl-only STEM program to a coeducational program open to all genders
  • The University of Central Arkansas opened a girl-only STEM program to all genders
  • Highline College (Des Moines, WA) agreed to stop hosting a discriminatory, single-sex, girl-only STEM program
  • Grand Valley State University (MI) agreed to convert a girl-only STEM program to an all-gender program
  • The University of Rhode Island agreed to discontinue a girl-only chemistry camp
  • Wentworth Institute of Technology (Boston) agreed to stop hosting a single-sex, girl-only STEM summit
  • Marietta College (OH) converted an all-girl STEM summer program to a coeducational program open to all genders
  • The Illinois Institute of Technology agreed to discontinue a single-sex, girl-only computer camp
  • Rutgers University opened an all-girl STEM program to all genders
  • The University of Nevada-Reno opened an all-girl program to all genders
  • Rogue Community College (OR) agreed to discontinue an all-girl STEM camp
  • The University of Missouri discontinued an all-girl summer STEM program
  • Kansas State University opened an all-girl program to all genders
  • The University of Central Oklahoma converted a girl-only summer computer forensics program to an all-gender program.
  • Western Washington University agreed to discontinue an all-girl STEM program or convert it to a coeducational program
  • Oregon State University opened five female-only faculty/staff awards to all genders
  • Duke University signed a Voluntary Resolution Agreement with the OCR to either convert three female-only programs to coeducational programs or discontinue those programs
  • The University of California-Berkeley discontinued a single-sex “Women in Science” program
  • Eastern Washington University agreed to discontinue a female-only leadership academy or convert it to a coeducation program.

MP: Given the success I’ve had so far having my Title IX complaints opened for investigation by the Office for Civil Rights after being reviewed and with many of those investigations being resolved in my favor without losing any cases so far, I’m confident that the remaining complaints under review will be opened for investigation and that the investigations will continue to be successfully resolved in my favor like the 20 resolutions above in 2020. After many decades of violating Title IX’s prohibition of sex discrimination with impunity, America’s universities are finally for the first time being held accountable for violating federal civil rights laws that are supposed to protect the civil rights all students, faculty and staff and not just the civil rights of the “preferred groups.”

The year in review: An update on my efforts to challenge Title IX violations in higher education and advance civil rights for all | American Enterprise Institute – AEI

Categories
Accountability Campus Civil Rights Department of Education Discrimination Investigations Law & Justice Legal Office for Civil Rights

Sex discrimination in Oklahoma higher education

by: Adam Kissel, October 22, 2020

The world record for filing U.S. Department of Education complaints is probably held by an advocate for special education. She has filed thousands of complaints about equal access to education for people with disabilities.

Her newest challenger is economist Mark J. Perry, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, who has filed hundreds of Title IX civil rights complaints about equal access on the basis of sex. He is winning, which often means ending unlawful discrimination against male students. Mr. Perry recently preserved civil rights at the University of Central Oklahoma, which had advertised that “the 2020 Computer Forensics Summer Academy is for high school female students. The application will be unavailable for male students.”

But sex discrimination need not be so blatant to be unlawful. In Teamsters v. United States in 1977, the U.S. Supreme Court noted that discrimination is not limited to direct signs that people will see (like “no boys allowed”) but can include “actual practices” such as how the opportunity is publicized and “recruitment techniques.”

It appears that many programs at Oklahoma colleges and universities are discriminatory and violate Title IX.

Not only might these programs violate federal law, but most of them might also violate the state constitutional provision against preferential treatment or discrimination in public education on the basis of sex.

At the University of Oklahoma (OU), for example, the Halliburton Women’s Welcome program explicitly excludes male students. This educational program provides “an opportunity to get a jumpstart on forming unique connections that will facilitate your success as an engineering or science student” and provides the benefit of “the opportunity to move into the residence halls early.” Under “WHO?” it specifies: “All WOMEN who: have been accepted to OU and will be starting classes in Summer or Fall 2020.” To be clear, OU put the word “WOMEN” in all caps and underlined it.

The restriction in that program is blatant. OU also holds a ONEOK Working Woman Workshop, which claims to be just for women: the mission of the workshop is to provide OU women engineering students “with professional and personal development opportunities that contribute to the preparation of students for career paths in industry and academia.” The name of the program and its mission both make it clear who is wanted and who is not.

OU also appears to discriminate against younger male students. Its Girls Learning and Applying Math and Science (GLAMS) program, to be held online on November 13, states that “Girls in their 6th, 7th or 8th grade year in the spring of this academic year should apply.” The program adds, “African American, Hispanic/Latino, American Indian/Alaskan Native and or First Generation students are strongly encouraged to apply; however, the program considers all applicants.” But boys are clearly unwanted. Photos of the program show 100% girls.

Additionally, OU holds an annual High School Girls Day sponsored by Shell, which similarly limits older boys from participating: “Current high school girls in the 9th, 10th, 11th and 12th grade in the spring of this academic year should apply.”

These four examples are just the beginning at OU and elsewhere.

At Oklahoma State University (OSU), in contrast to OU, the Society of Women Engineers (SWE) explicitly claims to “assist men and women in leadership and professional skills.” SWE holds SWE Day, a hands-on educational program to introduce “high school females” to the college of engineering, only for girls. SWE is primarily a club and does not necessarily represent OSU officially, so SWE Day may be more likely to fall afoul of campus nondiscrimination rules than become a Title IX case.

The University of Tulsa (TU) Department of Mathematics explicitly limits its Tulsa Girls’ Math Circle program “to girls from the Tulsa-area who are in 6th, 7th and 8th grades.” The program’s FAQ specifies that the program is for “Any intellectually curious and highly capable girl who is in grade 6 or above from any school in the Tulsa area.” Although TU is a private institution, it is bound by Title IX and equally in danger of losing federal funds if found to discriminate on the basis of sex.

TU also says it hosts girls (only) on campus for Tech Trek Tulsa, a weeklong program “for girls entering 8th grade.” This program appears, however, no longer to exist at TU. But TU also says it holds Sonia Kovalevsky Day, an annual “all day, all girls, all math” event that has continued into 2020. The partner organization, the Tulsa Regional STEM Alliance, might no longer partner with TU, since its website now says that the Alliance partners with Tulsa Community College (TCC) for this program.

TCC also runs the Mothers on a Mission program for students who are single mothers. This program provides “resources to empower single mothers through powerful speakers, peer collaboration, individual coaching, study help, and leadership training.” It appears that single fathers are not invited, although one line in the description refers to student-parents instead of mothers in particular.

Northeastern State University (NSU) offers a Girl Powered S.T.E.A.M. Workshop that is “centered around girls” ages 6–14. NSU says that “this is an initiative to educate girls in more S.T.E.A.M. areas.” Although the webpage says that “all are welcome,” the initiative is evidently only for girls of those ages, not boys.

Rogers State University (RSU) runs a Girls STEM Camp. Information online is thin, but it appears to be for girls only.

Not only might these programs violate federal law, but most of them might also violate the state constitutional provision against preferential treatment or discrimination in public education on the basis of sex. They also might violate the institutions’ own rules and policies against discrimination. Taking them together, one might see not just an unlawful bias in individual programs, but institutional bias at entire universities and in the public postsecondary system altogether. While Mr. Perry appears to have more Oklahoma work to do at the federal level, the civil rights staff in the state Attorney General’s office may also have some work to do.

The best solution, though, is for the colleges to remedy all discrimination before anyone files a complaint. Individual colleges, the state regents, and the Oklahoma State Department of Education may want to investigate sooner rather than later. Mr. Perry knows what he is doing and is effective in rooting out discrimination.

Adam Kissel is a former Deputy Assistant Secretary for Higher Education Programs in the Office of Postsecondary Education at the U.S. Department of Education. He previously served as vice president of programs for the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, directing the program that defended the fundamental rights of students and faculty members across the country. He holds degrees from Harvard University and the University of Chicago.

https://www.ocpathink.org/post/sex-discrimination-in-oklahoma-higher-education

Categories
Campus Department of Education Discrimination Due Process Executive Order Office for Civil Rights Race Sex Stereotyping Sexual Assault Title IX Title IX Equity Project

PR: Noting the ‘Seriousness of Penalties,’ College Administrators Suspend Trainings that Promote Sex Stereotypes

Contact: Rebecca Stewart

Telephone: 513-479-3335

Email: info@saveservices.org

Noting the ‘Seriousness of Penalties,’ College Administrators Suspend Trainings that Promote Sex Stereotypes

WASHINGTON / October 19, 2020 – In response to new federal requirements, college administrators have begun to stop school trainings and curricular offerings that promote stereotypes based on sex or race. For example, the University of Iowa recently announced a decision to suspend all such trainings, workshops, and programs. Noting “the seriousness of penalties for non-compliance with the order,” the pause applies to all harassment and discrimination trainings offered by the institution (1). Other institutions of higher education reportedly have made similar decisions (2).

Two federal policies are driving the re-evaluation. First, the new Department of Education sexual harassment regulation states that Title IX training activities “must not rely on sex stereotypes.” (3) Second, Executive Order 13950 directs federal agencies to suspend funding for any institution that promotes concepts that “an individual, by virtue of his or her race or sex, is inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive.” (4)

SAVE is urging administrators at colleges and universities across the country to take immediate steps to end trainings and other activities that may promote sex stereotypes. Title IX and other training programs are known to be promoting sex stereotypes in at least seven ways:

  1. Domestic violence: Each year there are 4.2 million male victims of physical domestic violence, and 3.5 female victims, according to the Centers for Disease Control (5). University training programs need to clearly and accurately state these numbers.
  2. Sexual assault: Nearly identical numbers of men and women are victims of sexual assault, according to the federal National Intimate Partner and Violence Survey. Each year, 1.267 million men report they were “made to sexually penetrate,” compared to 1.270 million women who report they were raped (6). But many university training programs utilize data from surveys relying on methodologies that undercount the number of male victims who were made to penetrate.
  3. Annual vs. lifetime incidence: Due to well-known problems with recall and memory retrieval, lifetime incidence numbers significantly undercount domestic violence and sexual harassment incidents, especially less serious incidents that occurred in previous years. University trainings should use annual, “in the past 12 months” numbers, not “lifetime” numbers.
  4. Sex-specific pronouns: In referring to domestic violence or sexual assault perpetrators and victims, many training materials misleadingly refer to the perpetrator as “he” and the victim as “she.”
  5. Examples: Training materials often provide hypothetical examples to illustrate key concepts. Such examples need to highlight approximately equal number of male and female victims.
  6. Imagery: Some university websites feature domestic violence incidents that portray a threatening male standing over a fearful, often cowering female. Such one-sided portrayals are misleading.
  7. Negative stereotyping of men as a group: Some universities offer campus-wide programs that seek to redefine, reform, and/or stigmatize masculinity. University-sponsored courses that promote theories of “toxic masculinity,” “rape culture,” and “patriarchal privilege” are likely to be in violation of the federal ban on sex stereotyping. Such stereotypes serve to undermine principles of fairness and equity for male students.

For example, the University of Texas offers a program titled “MasculinUT.” The program’s website states that concerns about sexual assault and interpersonal violence justify the “need to engage men in discussions about masculinity as one tool to prevent violence.” (7) The university does not offer a similar program directed at females, thereby creating an unlawful stereotype of male perpetrators and female victims.

Some universities teach courses that feature the American Psychological Association report, “Guidelines for Psychological Practice with Boys and Men.”  (8) The accompanying APA article made the stereotyping claim that “traditional masculinity — marked by stoicism, competitiveness, dominance and aggression — is, on the whole, harmful.”

To date, the SAVE Title IX Equity Project has submitted 20 complaints to the federal Office for Civil Rights for non-compliance with regulatory requirements for Title IX training materials (10).

Links:

  1. https://diversity.uiowa.edu/regarding-executive-order-13950?utm
  2. https://blog.aspb.org/policy-update-uneven-implementation-of-executive-order-on-race-and-sex-stereotyping/
  3. https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/docs/titleix-regs-unofficial.pdf 45(b)(1)(iii)
  4. https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/executive-order-combating-race-sex-stereotyping/
  5. https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/pdf/2015data-brief508.pdf Tables 9 and 11.
  6. Lara Stemple and Ilan Meyer. The Sexual Victimization of Men in America: New Data Challenge Old Assumptions. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4062022/
  7. https://deanofstudents.utexas.edu/masculinut.php
  8. https://www.apa.org/about/policy/boys-men-practice-guidelines.pdf
  9. https://www.apa.org/monitor/2019/01/ce-corner
  10. http://www.saveservices.org/equity/
Categories
Discrimination Title IX Title IX Equity Project

Yale SOM under DOE investigation for alleged sex discrimination

Yale University is being investigated by the Office for Civil Rights within the United States Department of Education for allegedly violating Title IX by running women-only programs at the Yale School of Management.

According to a complaint filed by Mark J. Perry, an economics professor at University of Michigan, Flint, the Yale SOM discriminates against men on the basis of sex by excluding them from applying for several executive education programs created solely for women. In an Oct. 13 letter from the DOE obtained by the News, the department’s Boston office for civil rights notified Perry that they would open an investigation into his complaint. University officials said that the University recently received the complaint and declined to comment.

Officials from the DOE confirmed to the News that the OCR opened an investigation into the University on Tuesday for possible discrimination but declined to provide additional information about the case, citing its ongoing status.

“OCR is opening the following legal issues for investigation: Whether the University discriminates against men by excluding them from applying for the (1) ‘Women’s Leadership Program,’ (2) ‘Women’s Leadership Program Live Online,’ (3) ‘Women’s Leadership Program Online’ and (4) ‘Women on Boards’ executive education programs within the University’s School of Management, which are only available to women, in violation of Title IX,” the letter stated.

The letter said since Yale receives federal financial assistance from the Department, the OCR can investigate it pursuant to Title IX, which establishes that “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.”

SOM spokespeople declined to comment on the school’s use of federal funding.

This is not the first time Yale has come under investigation from the DOE. In February, the department opened an investigation into the University’s alleged failure to report foreign funding.

Perry told the News that he has filed 237 complaints alleging Title IX violations in higher education. He stated that around 100 of his complaints have resulted in civil rights investigations, and, out of those, 30 had resolutions in his favor.

“My goal is to advance civil rights and Title IX for all (and not just some) in higher education expose the systemic sexism that is tolerated and promoted at hundreds of colleges and universities in the US,” Perry wrote in an email to the News.

Perry said that most “sex-specific, single-sex, female-only” programs violate Title IX unless a university offers equivalent male-only programs. He alleges that since Yale SOM excludes men and denies them from these program and their benefits, Yale is discriminating against men based on their sex as they deny men the same educational opportunities offered to women.

There are three ways to resolve Title IX violations for sex-specific programs, Perry told the News. If the OCR finds that SOM’s programs do violate Title IX regulations, SOM will have to discontinue its single-sex programs, open the programs up to all genders or create equivalent male-only programs.

After spending more than 25 years in higher education as a professor, Perry said, he became increasingly aware of what he calls systemic sexism in higher education. Starting around 2016, he claims to have started “a one-man mission to expose what are not just illegal violations of civil rights laws, but are what [he thinks] are violations of basic principles of social justice, fairness and equity.”

“Title IX enforcement has been applied selectively for decades,” Perry wrote, “and it is my goal to end the double-standard for enforcement and protect the civil rights of all students, faculty and staff in higher education, not just some students, faculty and staff.”

A total of 549 men and 399 women enrolled in SOM for the 2019-2020 academic year, according to the University’s Office of Institutional Research.

Julia Brown | julia.k.brown@yale.edu

Julia Bialek | julia.bialek@yale.edu