Ms. Magazine Reports on the Women’s Law Project and Charlotte Murphy

Molly Duerig, WLP Intern

It’s been forty years since the passage of Title IX, a crucial piece of legislation that prohibits sex discrimination in federally-funded educational programs.  Although we’ve come a long way, cases continue to pop up that prove we still have a good deal of work to do before we obtain gender equity.

Last month, Ms. Magazine featured a story about eleven-year-old Charlotte Murphy of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.  Charlotte was distraught last year when her public elementary school disbanded the girls’ basketball team for a season due to lack of funding.  Then she learned that the boys’ basketball team would continue to operate as normal that season.

Charlotte was upset about the school’s decision.  However, unlike most people, she chose to speak up and call attention to the school district’s mistake.  She wrote a letter to the Superintendent of Pittsburgh Public Schools, Dr. Linda Lane, explaining that her school violated Title IX and asking for a meeting to discuss the situation.  Senior Staff Attorney Susan Frietsche of the WLP Pittsburgh office prepared Charlotte for the meeting.  Charlotte’s tenacity and her collaboration with the WLP resulted in a new policy that permits elementary schools in the Pittsburgh Public School District to sponsor a boys’ basketball team only if they also sponsor one for girls. The policy also requires equal treatment for both teams.

Charlotte won her battle and is once again able to play basketball at her school.  This year, there were girls’ basketball teams at 14 elementary schools, up from 3 in previous years.  While Charlotte and her team didn’t win, she was grateful to be given the chance to play just like her male peers.  As Erin Buzuvis, Western New England University law professor and Title IX expert, explained,

If the last 40 years are any indication, Title IX’s success is due to the eternal vigilance of the law’s supporters, who continue to defend it through the political process and in the courts. This vigilance must continue in order for the law to address persistent sex discrimination, and to guard against unwarranted sex segregation.

On the 40^th Anniversary of Title IX, WLP looks forward to future successes for gender equity.  We congratulate Charlotte Murphy for her spirited advocacy!

Visit our website to see a video of Charlotte discussing why she chose to speak up and why she thinks Title IX is so important.

Report Released on the 40th Anniversary of Title IX

Nikki Ditto, WLP Intern

As a member of The National Coalition for Women and Girls in Education (NCWGE), the Women’s Law Project is pleased to share NCWGE’s report celebrating Title IX’s 40^th anniversary.  NCWGE is a non-profit made up of over 50 organizations dedicated to ensuring equality in education. The report gives a comprehensive look at all that has been accomplished since Title IX was adopted and all that remains to be done. The goal of the report is to “help give educators, parents, students, and lawmakers a better understanding of Title IX’s impact and challenges that remain in many areas of education.”

The report covers Title IX’s role in school athletics, as well as other crucial issues. It outlines six main areas that the act affects and impacts including “athletics; science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM); career and techni­cal education; sexual harassment; single-sex education; and the rights of pregnant and parenting students.” The report offers an analysis of the change that has occurred in each area over the last 40 years, and also provides suggestions and solutions for addressing the equality gaps that remain.

Title IX was passed as a portion of the Education Amendments of 1972. It states 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.

Title IX is best known for its impact on high school and collegiate athletics. It has helped to open doors for female athletes to equal participation opportunities and to equal treatment of male and female teams. However, its reach and importance extends far beyond sports. Title IX impacts the education system as a whole and is meant to ensure equality in all areas of education.

The report found that while much has improved in terms of gender equity in education since 1972, much of Title IX is not fully implemented or enforced.  For example, pregnant and parenting students still struggle to have full and equal access to education, and their needs are often ignored (pg.55). Girls are still underrepresented in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields (17). Sexual harassment is still prevalent across all grade levels, and often keeps students from fully participating in school (37). Many public schools still have sex-segregated classrooms based on faulty scientific research and stereotypes (47) Thankfully, Title IX provides students with a legal basis for challenging the inequalities they continue to face.

The Women’s Law Project has played a role in helping to enforce Title IX throughout the state of Pennsylvania. We supported more stringent and regulated handling of sexual assault cases at Penn State. We have also worked against discriminatory single-sex programs and schools in order to ensure equal access to educational opportunities for children. The WLP has fought for the rights of female students and athletes in a number of cases thanks to the passage of Title IX.

Through this report, the National Coalition for Women and Girls in Education “seeks to inform the continued search for policies that will promote equal educational opportunity in all of these areas,” (2). The report lays out what must be done to establish truly equal access and to continue to improve the situation for women and girls in schools across the country. NCWGE suggests five overarching areas that must be addressed, including “awareness, enforcement, transparency, coordination, and funding” (6), as well as policy changes that effect each area of interest.

On the 40^th anniversary of Title IX, it is important to recognize the ways in which Title IX has shaped the last 40 years and how it can be better implemented in the future. Title IX’s passage did not change the world or America’s public education system overnight, and there is still work to be done. We are happy to celebrate this anniversary by looking at how we can continue to make public schools more equal for all students.

ACLU Launches “Teach Kids, Not Stereotypes” Campaign

Liz Weissert, WLP Intern

In May 2012, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) announced the launch of their “Teach Kids, Not Stereotypes” Campaign. To initiate this campaign, the ACLU sent letters to various public school districts across the United States including Florida, Maine, West Virginia, Mississippi, and Alabama demanding that they “end single-sex programs that rely on and promote archaic and harmful sex stereotypes.”  In addition to sending these letters, the ACLU is investigating single-sex schooling programs in Wisconsin, North Carolina, South Carolina, Washington, Massachusetts, Indiana, Idaho, and Illinois through the filing of public record requests. The ACLU states that, “single-sex programs are not only unfair; in many cases they are illegal.”

Single-sex education programs often rest on the misguided notion that boys and girls are neurologically different and thus have different learning styles.  There is no scientific basis for this theory, which rests on stereotypes about boys and girls. The National Coalition for Women and Girls in Education (NCWGE) found in their recent report Title IX at 40: Working to Ensure Gender Equity in Education that “many single-sex programs claiming a basis in research are in fact based on claims that amount to little more than repackaged sex stereotypes.” The NCWGE further concludes that “despite assertions to the contrary, separating students by sex has not been proven to improve educational outcomes.”

Indeed sex-segregation itself perpetuates harmful gender stereotypes.  In a Washington Post article, “The Case Against Single-Sex Schooling”, Rebecca Bigler and Lise Eliot discuss the harmful effects of some single-sex schooling programs:

Gender segregated classrooms are detrimental to children in several ways. First, research in developmental psychology has clearly shown that teachers’ labeling and segregating of social groups increases children’s stereotyping and prejudice. […] Classroom assignment based on gender teaches children that males and females have different types of intellects, and reinforces sexism in schools and the culture at large

The NCWGE report includes a full chapter on single-sex education which explores the “potentially harmful” aspects of single-sex education based on gender stereotypes. These single-sex classrooms can be detrimental to the learning of all students. As the NCWGE explains, “assuming, for instance, that boys need active, loud environments focused on abstract thinking skills and girls need quiet activities that emphasize concrete thinking makes it less likely that the classroom will meet the varying learning needs of all students.”

The Women’s Law Project (WLP) has long been involved in challenging unlawful single-sex education in Pennsylvania public schools.  In 1983, in partnership with the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania (ACLU-PA), WLP accomplished the admission of girls to Philadelphia’s prestigious Central High School, which had long been an all-boys school. Most recently in 2011, WLP, again with the ACLU-PA, successfully opposed Pittsburgh Public Schools’ experimentation with gender-segregated schooling at Westinghouse Academy. WLP joined an amicus (“friend of the court”) brief filed in a lawsuit challenging the implementation of single-sex classrooms in a Louisiana school district, in concert with the Education Law Center, the Public Interest Law Center of Philadelphia, and the ACLU-PA opposing the creation of a boys’ charter school in the Philadelphia School District, and objecting to the Philadelphia School District’s conversion of neighborhood schools in North Philadelphia to single sex schools.  

More information on the Women’s Law Project’s activities concerning single-sex schooling and gender discrimination in education can be found on our website.

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New York Times Reports on Dating Violence in Young Teenagers

Nikki Ditto, WLP Intern

An article published last week in the New York Times addresses the problem of dating violence among young teenagers, including those who have not yet entered high school. According to a report by the Centers for Disease Control, teen dating violence remains a significant problem, and the behaviors can begin to appear in teens as young as eleven and twelve.  

Studies that emerged over a decade ago showed that the group most at risk for dating violence and sexual assault was girls age 16 to 24. This report helped to increase funding and prevalence of programs aimed to educate teenagers about healthy relationships. While these programs have made an impact, reports show that they may not be starting early enough to catch the dangerous behaviors before they start.

A study conducted in 2010 by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation surveyed 1,430 seventh graders from eight middle schools across the country. The study found that three-quarters of the students had been in a relationship. One in three had already experienced psychological dating violence, and one in six had experienced physical violence.

Thankfully, this information has encouraged the development of new programs and resources that provide early intervention and instruction. These programs target middle school students, as well as their parents, in the hope that they can teach warning signs and good decision making early. While the reports and the new early intervention programs recognize that males and females can be both the abuser and the abused, women and girls are still disproportionately the victims of dating violence.

Psychologically and physically abusive relationships that begin in the early teenage years can cause long-term patterns of abuse that continue into adulthood.We discussed the adverse health effects of intimate partner violence in our report, Through the Lens of EQUALITY: Eliminating Sex Bias to Improve the Health of Pennsylvania’s Women. While the report focuses on adult women, teenagers are at risk as well.

The New York Times article was released as Congress debates reauthorizing VAWA. This is the first time since the bill was passed in 1994 that reauthorization has been challenged, and support has been divided along party lines. In this year’s reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), the age limit for participants in programs funded with federal grant money has been lowered to eleven. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has also given $1 million grants to each of 11 schools nation-wide in order to establish programs in middle schools that educate students about healthy teen relationships. More than ever, funding and education are needed to help to stop intimate partner violence, and protect and provide services for victims.

Female Stereotype Threat Hurts Women, Economy

Guest Blogger: Elizabeth Wingfield, Former WLP Intern

In an article for WeNews, Rosalind C. Barnett and Caryl Rivers demonstrate that girls still internalize stereotypes about female performance in math and science, making them less likely to pursue careers in those fields. While the percentage of women in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) careers is rising, according to Barnett and Rivers girls need to hear earlier that there are no innate gender differences in math and science if we want to eradicate stereotype threat (“that confidence-killing burden of anxiety”) and therefore see more women  in STEM careers.

Barnett and Rivers report that a 2009 study found “that middle school girls did less well on a math test when told that boys generally did better in math than girls. Even girls who denied they held a belief in girls’ inferiority did poorly. Without the negative information, they score nearly as well as men.” Girls have proven their ability to compete with their male counterparts by taking the top prizes at Google’s first science fair and taking roughly the same number of math and science courses in middle and high school as boys. However, girls still hold a disproportionately low percentage of STEM undergraduate degrees, particularly in engineering. Even those women who do hold undergraduate STEM degrees are less likely to work in a STEM career than their male counterparts. Barnett and Rivers blame stereotype threat for this disparity.

The lack of women in STEM occupations is a “brain drain” that the US cannot afford. According to “Rebecca Blank, acting deputy secretary of the Commerce Department…the lack of women in STEM is harming U.S. ability to compete in the global innovation marketplace.” But, “fortunately…a team led by psychologist Anthony Greenwald at the University of Washington discovered that although girls in the early grades see math largely as a male preserve, they haven’t yet made the connection that ‘because I am a girl, math is not for me.’” These findings suggest that if girls are assured early enough that they are not innately worse at math because of their sex that they will be more likely to pursue jobs in STEM fields later on since they will be less likely to suffer from stereotype threat.

You can read the entire article here.

Georgia Anti-Sex Trafficking Law a Step in the Right Direction

On July 1, a Georgia bill mandating more compassionate treatment of victims of sex trafficking and harsher punishments for perpetrators will officially become law.  The law will increase the penalty for sex trafficking to up to 20 years in prison for those trafficking adults and up to 50 years for those trafficking minors. The law will make it so survivors of sex trafficking who are engaged in a legal proceeding will be treated “as victims, not criminals, by offering them recovery under the state crime victims fund and an affirmative defense when coming forward.”

The new law aims to help protect adult as well as child survivors of sex trafficking but focuses on survivors who are minors, dictating “a 25-year minimum prison sentence for coercing sex from anyone under 18.”

The law hopefully represents a growing recognition of the need to end domestic sex trafficking, an issue that has not received a lot of support in the past compared to sex trafficking in other parts of the world.

There’s support for “girls in India or Thailand, girls from fractured families, who have endured abuse, who are very vulnerable, who have been lured or kidnapped into being trafficked for sex,” says [the founder of Rebecca Project for Human Rights Malika Saada] Saar. “But girls from those same situations from American circumstances are not recognized as victims; they are cast down as bad girls making bad decisions.”

Unfortunately, the problem of sex trafficking minors in the United States is a growing one. This is possibly due to an increasing market demand “fueled in part by the larger society’s hypersexualization of young girls. ‘The commercial sex industry has ceased to be an industry of adults,’ says Saar. ‘It’s about buying girls. You talk to any pimp. He wants young girls; young girls make more money for him. Demand that exists is for very young girls.’”

The law received praise from anti- sex trafficking advocates such as Renee Kempton, the Atlanta ambassador for Stop Child Trafficking Now (SCTN).  She says she “like[s] a lot about the bill,” especially

the fact that the victims can claim an affirmative defense when they come forward…A lot of girls are scared to come forward and this creates a safe haven for them to do so. This also helps deter the Johns and pimps because they all thrive on fear. They get her to think she has no one but him. The way this law is written, it provides a safe place for girls to share information with authorities because they are usually controlled by fear.

Kempton said “the Governor’s Officer of Children and Families issued a report which estimated that 490 adolescent girls get trafficked in the state of Georgia per month, “ and though the exact number is unknown, the U.S. government estimates “thousands of men, women, and children are trafficked to the United States for the purposes of sexual and labor exploitation.” Given the upsetting number of victims of sex trafficking in the U.S., Georgia’s new law may be considered a small step in the right direction. To find out about Pennsylvania legislation to help end sex trafficking in our state and to find out how you can take action, click here. To learn about a proposed bill that would to help eradicate sex-trafficking in Pittsburgh specifically, click here.

“If You Didn’t See the Ponytails, She Would Have Fit Right In:” Women and Sports

Recently the New York Times reported on the successes of female wrestlers in state competitions.  The article highlighted the recent Vermont State Champion in the 103 weight class, Rachel Hale. Hale defeated male competitors to become Vermont’s first female state champion and the nation’s third. Gender has now become an issue in this heavily male-dominated sport.

Still, the number of female wrestlers remains comparatively small. In most states, high school girls compete against boys, who far outnumber them with more than 270,000 national participants. The issue of gender differences is a subtext in the rough contact of these matches.

There is this pervasive notion in male-dominated sports that women are unfit to compete against boys because they are physically not suited for the sport’s rougher aspects. Detractors focus on the fact that they are women, and not their talent. This has not only been present in wrestling (in Iowa a young man recently refused to wrestle a female opponent citing religious and personal reasons), but also in baseball. Justine Siegal was the first woman to pitch in a major league batting practice, and has been present on the collegiate and professional coaching scene.

“If you didn’t see the ponytails, she would have fit right in,” said catcher Paul Phillips, one of the players who took swings off Siegal’s pitches. “She did great.”

These strong gender issues cloud women’s successes in sport, and further perpetuate the notion that women will always be a step below men. We only hope that more people can see female athletes like Rachel Hale’s coach, Scott Legacy. After her victory he remarked:

“I’m old school,” Legacy, 47, said of having a girl on his wrestling team. “This is new to me. But she’s a great kid. I see her as a wrestler, not a female.”

Spread the Message: Love Your Body

In the United States, 10 million women and girls suffer from anorexia and/or bulimia, 81% of 10-year-olds are afraid of being fat, and young women who have anorexia are 12 times more likely to die than other women their age.

Often advertisers objectify women for the sake of selling alcohol, furniture, luggage, or just about anything. In Jean Kilbourne’s book “Deadly Persuasion: Why Women and Girls Must Fight the Addictive Power of Advertising,” she claims that “advertising is our environment.” Although many people claim to not be influenced by advertisements, the average American views more than 3000 ads in one day.

In addition to objectifying women, the NOW Foundation blames the cosmetic and advertising industries for promoting images of airbrushed “perfect” women which in turn affects the self-esteem of women and girls. Education Vice President Erin Matson says that the unrealistic portrayal of a woman’s body is only naturally possessed by less than five percent of women.

“Let’s Talk About It,” a project of NOW Foundation’s Love Your Body Campaign, has received thousands of posters for the Love Your Body contest every year. You can send the posters as e-cards to anyone in your life who needs to hear the message that their body is beautiful just the way it is.

This year, coinciding with National Eating Disorder Awareness Week, NOW has upped the ante by featuring videos in addition to posters. Currently you can submit your own video or watch others like Matson talk about their failures and successes while learning to love their body.

Matson encourages people to submit their videos:

Your voice might be the one that reaches a girl or woman who is struggling with her self-image. And together, the more videos we create, the more we become part of the solution.

Learning to love your body and encourage others to do the same is part of the puzzle. Commend yourself and those around you on their personality, humor, and achievements. After all, as a winning poster from Love Your Body suggests, you can’t buy self-esteem.

Senate Bill 890 Passes PA Senate Unanimously – Contact Your Rep Today!

The Pennsylvania Senate approved Senate Bill 890 by a vote of 48-0 on Tuesday, giving a boost to this key legislation that would help parents, students and gender equity advocates determine whether Commonwealth middle schools and high schools are treating girls and boys equally in athletics programs.

SB 890 is similar to the federal Equity in Athletics Disclosure Act, which requires colleges and universities to annually report basic information about their athletics program, including the number of male and female participants and financial and coaching information. The EADA was passed in 1994 and has been a great tool for gender equity advocates to assess how colleges and universities are treating women’s sports programs.

Currently, three other states – Kentucky, Georgia and New Mexico – have legislation like SB 890 on the books.

This legislative session is rapidly drawing to a close, however: only eight session days remain for the PA House, and any legislation that isn’t passed by the end of the session will die. Earlier this year, the House Education Committee approved the House version of the bill, HB 2061.

This is common sense legislation that simply requires schools to disclose basic information to parents, students and community members. You can help advance gender equity in Pennsylvania’s schools by contacting your state representative today and telling them that you support HB2061 and SB890. Visit the legislature’s website to find your representative, or contact the Women’s Law Project and we’d be happy to assist you. You can find talking points on the legislation here (PDF).

During the 2008-09 school year, there were 24,794 fewer athletic opportunities available to female high school students than to male high school students in Pennsylvania high schools. And taken as a whole, female student athletes in Pennsylvania get fewer opportunities to play high school sports and are given inferior equipment, uniforms, fields, facilities, coaching, publicity, scheduling, and transportation than male athletes. The time to act is now.

Don’t let the clock run out on equality!

Chatham University Will Hold Q & A Session with Gubernatorial Candidate Dan Onorato

Update: Please note the new time and day for this event!

The Pennsylvania Center for Women, Politics and Public Policy will hold a public forum with Democratic gubernatorial candidate Dan Onorato on Wednesday, September 29 at 2:30 PM. The forum will focus on the potential impact an Onorato administration would have for women and girls throughout the Commonwealth. Audience members will also have the opportunity to ask the candidate questions.

Dan Onorato currently serves as Allegheny County Executive and previously served as county controller and on Pittsburgh City Council. During his time as County Executive, he signed an ordinance passed by Allegheny County Council that bans discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression in employment, housing and public accommodations countywide.

This is a great opportunity for Pennsylvania residents to discuss what might happen for women and girls if Onorato is elected governor in November. Its especially crucial to consider this issue, as women are half the population yet Pennsylvania ranks 47^th out of the 50 states in both women’s representation in government and in terms of women’s overall political participation.

You can RSVP for the event on Facebook or at Chatham’s website.