August 22, 2019 12:35 pm | AEIdeas

About the author

Mark J. Perry @Mark_J_Perry

Mark J. Perry is concurrently a scholar at AEI and a professor of economics and finance at the University of Michigan’s Flint campus. He is best known as the creator and editor of the popular economics blog Carpe Diem. At AEI, Perry writes about economic and financial issues for American.com and the AEIdeas blog. Carpe Diem

Title IX updates: Clemson closed, new investigations open at Univ. of Minnesota and Rochester Institute of Technology

Here are some updates on my efforts to advance civil rights for all in higher education by exposing the clear double-standard for enforcing Title IX’s clear prohibition of discrimination based on sex, whether it’s discrimination against females (strictly enforced) or males (often not enforced).

1. The District of Columbia Office for Civil Rights (OCR) closed my Title IX complaint against Clemson University after it agreed to open three of its traditionally single-gender, girl-only, no boys allowed programs to students of all gender identities, including several summer STEM camps that I described here. The resolution with Clemson was reported by The College Fix (“Clemson opens female-only programs to everyone to end federal investigation“) and Breitbart (“Clemson Opens Female-Only Programs to Males After Title IX Complaint“).

I congratulate Clemson University for addressing and resolving its past and long-standing practices of illegal sex discrimination, including opening the Project WISE Summer Camp to all genders following a 22-year history going back to 1997 of illegally violating the civil rights of boys in South Carolina who are just as (if not more) interested in a STEM and engineering-focused summer educational opportunity as their female counterparts. But it’s also disappointing that it takes a federal OCR investigation to force universities to address the frequent and ongoing violations of Title IX’s prohibition of sex discrimination that are common at many US universities. Given the fact that most universities have large and growing diversity staffs (150 at Yale, nearly 100 at Michigan), it’s disappointing that external complainants like myself have to do the work of exposing and correcting violations of Title IX’s prohibition of sex discrimination that really should be done internally by universities’ own Title IX and diversity offices.

2. The Chicago Office for Civil Rights has just opened an investigation at the University of Minnesota for three single-gender, female-only faculty/staff awards that I claim violate Title IX’s prohibition of sex discrimination:

• The Mullen/Spector/Truax Women’s Leadership Award is given annually to a faculty or staff woman [no men allowed] at the University of Minnesota who has made outstanding contributions to women’s leadership development. This award honors women, not only for their own leadership qualities, but also for their efforts to develop leadership within others.
• The Ada Comstock Distinguished Women Scholars Award was established to acknowledge and honor the scholarly accomplishments of distinguished women faculty at the University of Minnesota and to offer a forum for them to share their insights and ideas with a campus and community audience.
• Sara Evans Faculty Woman Scholar/Leader Award recognizes women faculty at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities who have achieved significant national and international accomplishments and honors and who contribute as leaders on campus. The award winners will receive a one-time award of $5,000 to support research.

These three female-only faculty awards at the University of Minnesota are very similar to three female-only faculty awards at the University of Michigan-Flint that I successfully challenged and are now open to faculty of all genders.

3. The New York Office for Civil Rights has just opened an investigation at the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) for a dozen different single-gender, female-only programs, scholarships and awards that I claim violate Title IX including the Summer Math Applications in Science with Hands-On (SMASH) Experience for Girls for 8th grade girls only, the SWE Overnight for high school junior female students only, and the Outstanding Graduate Woman Achievement Award that annually recognizes a current female graduate student. Starting for young girls in grade 5 and continuing through high school, graduate school, and to its faculty, RIT offers at least 12 discriminatory, single-gender, female only programs, events, camps and awards that exclude male students and are therefore in violation of Title IX’s prohibition of sex discrimination according to my complaint, and those 12 programs are now being investigated by the OCR.

Based on my complaints, the following 19 universities are now being investigated by the OCR for Title IX violations: University of Michigan, Wayne State, Brown, Rutgers, Georgia Tech, Florida Tech, Boston University, University of Rhode Island, Indiana University, University of Wisconsin-Stout, Michigan State University, Grand Valley State University, Saginaw Valley State University, University of Detroit Mercy, UC-Berkeley, Rice, Duke, University of Minnesota, and Rochester Institute of Technology.

4. Teresa Watanabe, higher education reporter for the Los Angeles Times, wrote an article titled “Women-only STEM college programs under attack for male discrimination” that appeared this week on Tuesday, here’s the opening (italics added:

Female-only science programs, launched by many universities to redress gender imbalance in such fields as computer science and engineering, are coming under growing legal attack as sex discrimination against men.

The U.S. Department of Education has opened more than two dozen investigations into universities across the nation — UC Berkeley, UCLA and USC as well as Yale, Princeton and Rice — that offer female-only scholarships, awards, professional development workshops and even science and engineering camps for middle and high school girls. Sex discrimination in educational programs is banned under Title IX, a federal law that applies to all schools, both public and private, that receive federal funding.

NCFM Award Winner Mark Perry, updates on my efforts to advance civil rights for all in higher education by exposing the clear double-standards based on sex

Tags: discrimination against males, double standard, Mark Perry, title ix, war against men