House Marks Title IX’s 35th Anniversary with Floor Vote, Hearing

House Hearing

On June 19, the House Education and Labor Subcommittee on Higher Education, Lifelong Learning, and Competitiveness held a hearing on “Building on the Success of 35 Years of Title IX.”

In expressing his support for Title IX, Chair Rubén Hinojosa (D-TX) said, “In 1972, just as Title IX was enacted, women earned merely 28 percent of the bachelor’s degrees in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics better known as the STEM fields. Today, women earn 49.2 percent of the bachelor’s degrees in these fields. Title IX shattered the myth that women and girls were not interested in competing in interscholastic athletics.” However, Rep. Hinojosa cautioned, “Despite these successes, we still have work to do to achieve the promise of full equality and freedom from discrimination that is at the heart of Title IX. There are still gaps in support for women’s athletics, gaps in participation in various disciplines in the STEM fields, and disparities in career and technical education programs. More critically, there is still much to be done to ensure that our education institutions are free from sexual harassment.”

Ranking Member Ric Keller (R-FL) said, “While Title IX affects many aspects of education from admissions to employment, most people associate it with school athletics. Institutions often struggle to comply with Title IX in this arena. While there are three different ways to comply with the law, most institutions attempt to comply with the proportionality prong. I am sure we will hear more about that today. Some institutions also point to Title IX when examining the number of women in math and science.”

After first expressing the organization’s strong support for Title IX, Marcia Greenberger, co-president of the National Women’s Law Center, voiced concerns with the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights’ (OCR) review of Title IX compliance: “OCR is responsible for initiating assessment of Title IX compliance by federally funded education institutions across the country. During the five year period covered by the Center’s review, however, OCR initiated only one compliance review of a school’s athletics program a record substantially below that of the preceding administration. Not only has the number of compliance reviews noticeably decreased over the past six to seven years, the focus of those reviews has narrowed considerably.” Ms. Greenberger recommended that Congress “exercise more oversight over OCR”; “improve the ability to address discrimination at the high school level” by enacting the High School Athletics Accountability Act [H.R. 901]; and take steps to overturn and limit the Department’s Additional Clarification that allows institutions to comply with Title IX by sending e-mail surveys to female students and categorizing the failure to respond to the survey as indicating a lack of interest in playing sports.

In discussing Title IX’s impact on collegiate sports, Eric Pearson, chair of the College Sports Council (CSC), said, “[A]ny discussion of Title IX must first acknowledge the fact that there is a widening disparity between the overall enrollment rates of male and female students in our nation’s colleges and universities…This gender disparity creates very real problems for schools trying to dutifully comply with the current regulations governing Title IX.” Mr. Pearson continued, “The CSC fully supports the spirit of Title IX. We don’t want anyone to be discriminated against on the basis of gender. The CSC takes issue only with how the law has been regulated, or more precisely, we are critical of the proportionality [test] if the gender ratio of its intercollegiate athletes mirrors its undergraduate student enrollment. In most athletic departments, male athletes are the majority, yet most schools have a student body that is majority female, hence the dilemma.” He continued, “Every time someone mentions that a school is out of compliance, whether right or wrong, proportionality is almost always referenced as the measure of noncompliance…Athletic administrators are often praised for pursuing a ‘gender equity’ plan even if it merely consists of the elimination of teams and the limitation of men’s squad sizes. The current environment of Title IX compliance creates incentives to drive male students away from athletic programs, shrink squad sizes, and drop teams entirely.” As a result, Mr. Pearson recommended that “male students also be included in any and all measurements of interest. Through regular student surveys, the athletes would be given a voice of record, and a degree of influence in the process that determines a school’s sports sponsorship. Reforming prong three of the Title IX will create incentives to not only retain programs, but also to add new teams.”

“Sexual harassment has long been a part of the educational experience, affecting students’ well-being and their ability to succeed academically,” said Lisa Maatz, director of Public Policy and Government Relations at the American Association of University Women. She continued, “Before Title IX, there was little remedy for addressing sexual harassment in educational settings. However, legal rulings have conclusively determined that Title IX offers protections from sexual harassment for students and employees indeed, the Supreme Court explicitly recognized sexual harassment as a violation of Title IX in 1992.” Ms. Maatz added that recent Supreme Court rulings in sexual harassment cases “have been extraordinarily damaging for students and have resulted in the dismissal of dozens of harassment claims since the…decisions were issued. They create a perverse incentive for schools and school districts to insulate themselves from knowledge of harassment and provide an inadequate level of protection to students.” Ms. Maatz said that the 2001 OCR policy guidance on clarifying a school’s obligations in light of the Court’s decisions “reinforces the 1997 guidance that schools are responsible for recognizing and remedying sexual harassment” and that “schools are potentially liable for failing to recognize or remedy such harassment.”

Margaret Edith Layne, past president of the Society of Women Engineers, addressed the effect Title IX has had on women in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields, saying, “Women’s participation in STEM fields has increased considerably since Title IX was enacted…Overall, women now comprise nearly 60 percent of all undergraduate college students, and nearly half of all master’s, doctoral, law, and medical students. Ms. Layne continued, “Despite this progress, stigmatizing and stereotyping behaviors regarding girls’ abilities in STEM persist. Attrition along the pipeline still has much to do with a culture that presents obstacles to the success of women and girls. Although the obstacles are becoming more subtle than the overt discrimination of the past, girls continue to receive less attention in K-12 mathematics and science courses; undergraduate women transfer out of STEM fields before graduating because of unsupportive classroom environments characterized by [a] lack of role models, a limited peer group, and outdated pedagogy; and women scientists and engineers earn less and advance more slowly than men in both academia and the private sector. And while some of these differences could result from personal choices, the culture of STEM fields too often creates circumstances that isolate and exclude girls and women, dissuading them from pursuing these careers.”

Rita Simon, a professor at American University and member of the Title IX Commission, said, “[A]s a strong supporter of the principle of equal opportunity for girls and boys to participate in collegiate sports, I strongly urge the collection of systematic information on the interests, desires, and plans of high schools boys and girls to participate in athletic programs when they become university students.” Dr. Simon elaborated on how to conduct surveys, saying: “By systematic information, I mean the sending out of surveys on a regular basis to a random sample of high schools throughout the country. For example, surveys [could] be sent from state universities to a sample of high schools in that state at the beginning of the academic year. The high schools would then distribute the questionnaire to boys and girls who have just entered their senior year. The questionnaire would contain a series of questions on the respondent’s interests and participation in athletics.” Dr. Simon continued, “The completed surveys [would] be divided into two categories: boys and girls. The responses will tell us [the] percentages of boys and girls who participate in athletic programs in high school (the specific sports), and the percentages, by gender, of who would like to participate in athletics at the collegiate level…The questionnaire responses will provide us with empirical data about the overall percentage of boys and girls who are interested in and plan to participate in collegiate sports.” She concluded by saying, “I do not claim that the survey results should determine university policies, but I do strongly urge that the findings be taking into account. The survey results would be the only empirical data that the universities would have about the relative interests and plans of incoming freshmen boys and girls.”

Jack Mowatt, commissioner of the Maryland-D.C. Amateur Softball Association, also testified.