Not necessarily. The law (Title IX ofthe Education Amendments of 1972)
was constructed to be a broad social policy for beginning to correct the
age-old subordination of women, which impairs the democratic nature of
the nation. The law was written to be gender-free: it talks of the
underserved population, which could be either gender. But 99 percent of
local situations, because we live in a world characterized by sexism
against women, reflect that discrimination. So some programs for girls
or women will be judged to specifically remedy discrimination. (But not
single-sex schools/classrooms--those disadvantage the underserved
population.)
What I was talking about is the grossly unequal situation of the girls
in my daughter's middle school basketball team, for example: They had
uniforms that were falling apart, while the boys, who already took the
best practice times and season scheduling, were given full outfits, away
and home, from the funds provided by booster clubs, which are largely
run by parents. It was hardly a question of the girls being lazy--they
worked hard at car washes and so on, but parents and grandparents simply
didn't see them as important and didn't provide the extra funding or
attend their games (well, they couldn't--they were so badly scheduled
parents could hardly make it in time).
Here, the school has a role to play, governed by Title IX: to make sure
that the inequity doesn't persist, at least as strongly, to the next
generation. The idea is to moderate such imbalances, in the same way
poor schools, drawing on poor areas, should have some help from much
wealthier areas. We are, in ideal, a democratic nation, and the notion
that all our ancestral inequities should be visted on the heads of our
children is, thank heavens, fading.
Linda Purrington
Title IX Advocates
lpurring@earthlink.net
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