Title IX

Title IX of the 1972 Education Amendments Act stipulates 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” (20 U.S.C. § 1681). Designed to eliminate discriminatory treatment at all levels of education and applying to both students and employees, Title IX paved the way for equal treatment of girls and women in career counseling, vocational training, admissions, athletics, extracurricular activities, and employment and promotion decisions. Title IX also assists in creating a climate of intolerance for sexual harassment and tracking on the basis of gender in educational programs. Though the letter of the law mandates gender equity in educational institutions and much progress has occurred since its initial passage, additional enforcement efforts still remain to achieve gender equity. Title IX has been most successful in responding to and further facilitating a shift in societal expectations for greater gender equity and providing individuals and groups with a limited number of remedies when educational institutions fall short of gender equality.

While Title IX mandates gender equity in all educational programs receiving federal funding, enforcement has been sketchy at best and in the 30-plus years since its passage, no institution has lost federal funding as a result of noncompliance. Persons hurt by institutions' noncompliance have three options. They can file an in-house complaint with the employee designated as the official Title IX officer; lodge a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights (OCR), the federal agency that oversees Title IX; or file a lawsuit. In-house complaints are the least effective and carry considerable risk of social ostracism and other forms of retaliation within the organization for the complainant. Complaints lodged with the OCR also usually result in limited remedies for the complainant, the program, and the larger educational institution. Instead of withholding federal funding, the OCR typically responds to meritorious complaints by admonishing institutions to remedy the discriminatory treatment. Successful lawsuits, however, have the potential both to admonish institutions to remedy discriminatory practices and inflict financial punishment for such discrimination. Since the 1992 U.S. Supreme Court ruling, Franklin v. Gwinnett, which held that plaintiffs successfully demonstrating intentional discrimination under Title IX were entitled to collect compensatory and punitive monetary damages, educational institutions now have significant financial incentive to comply with Title IX. Nevertheless, more recent Supreme Court rulings have the potential to scale back or erase these financial incentives.

Despite these limited enforcement efforts, Title IX has been successful in reducing or eliminating barriers [Page 941]to higher education for girls and women, such as the previously widespread practices of withholding financial aid and scholarships from women, holding women to more stringent admissions requirements than men, and setting sex quotas on women's, but not men's, admissions. As a result of Title IX, women and men now face more equitable admissions and scholarship processes. Despite women's slight majority over men in percentage of earned bachelor's degrees, women still trail men in percentage of earned doctorates and professional degrees. Though women have made considerable inroads as teachers, faculty, and administrators, they are still under-represented in the highest levels of education (i.e., as principals, superintendents, deans, provosts, and presidents), signifying a persistent “glass ceiling” for women. Moreover, women's representation in math and science still lags, due to both blatant and subtle discrimination in these traditionally male disciplines—disciplines that tend to offer greater financial rewards than traditionally female disciplines. The dismantling of affirmative action programs in many colleges and universities across the United States has also negatively affected women's entrance into and advancement in male-dominated disciplines.

...