By Dr. Bill Howe
Dr. Howe was the Connecticut State Title IX Coordinator for 17 years.
Throughout my many years as a state Title IX Coordinator, I have interacted with superintendents, principals, and other school administrators numerous times. When discussing some complaints about Title IX violations, the majority were very cooperative. Many times, they were unaware of the law or the situation entirely.
What became evident to me in many situations was that schools are much more knowledgeable and appropriately effective in dealing with issues of racism, but when it came to issues of gender equity, they were much less informed or much less concerned.
When I pointed out the infractions, they were often unaware of the nuance. Girls were often treated much differently from boys. One example that I often use to explain was that back in the “old days,” when children were lined up to go to recess or to the bathroom, they were often lined up by sex, boys in one line and girls in the other. Or, in some cases, they were lined up: boy, girl, boy, girl, etc.
That was often an accepted practice; however, when I asked educators if they would line up children for the playground by putting all the brown and black kids in one line and the white kids in another, would they find that acceptable? School administrators immediately knew that was not appropriate. Because it was discriminatory. I explained that that was also an unacceptable practice when it came to distinctions between boys and girls. I often use this illustration to explain how some complaints are legitimate.
In other situations, discrimination based on sex was practiced because of a different set of values. One example was a complaint from a father about how his daughter was being treated in sports. Interestingly enough, a significant number of the complaints I received about sex discrimination came from fathers. In this one situation, I visited a middle school to investigate the differences in playing fields between the boys’ baseball fields and the girls’ softball field.
In this particular case, a new lawyer with the ACLU came with me because she wanted to know how we interpreted Title IX. As we viewed the situation at the school, it became apparent to us what the problem was. The boys’ baseball field looked like a professional ballpark. They were nicely groomed, had nice bleachers, a scoreboard, and even lights for night games. The dugouts were admirable. Meanwhile, the girls’ softball team had to play in what essentially was an old cow pasture where the field was not even. If a ball was struck over third base, for example, you could see the girl player run towards the ball and actually watch her head disappear down into a gully and then come back up. We had to rule that the girls’ softball field had to be commensurate with the boy’s baseball field.
When the school objected citing costs, I suggested that perhaps the boys play in the cow pasture and the girls be allowed to use the boys’ baseball field. An argument ensued that boys’ baseball and girls’ softball fields were different because of the distances between bases. We suggested that they use movable bases that can be adjusted to match girls’ regulation softball.
The school then offered to have the girls play in a city park that could accommodate softball. Unfortunately, that would require the girls to get on the bus and drive across town to play and then back again, which would be an inconvenience for their schedule.
The school eventually suggested that they could remove the bleachers, the lights, and the scoreboard from the boys’ baseball field to match the quality of the girls’ softball field. I had to tell them that you cannot downgrade or deny one group’s civil rights to accommodate the rights of another. In other words, you can’t make the situation worse for the boys in order for the girls’ situation to improve.
This situation was eventually solved when the school promised to upgrade the girls’ softball field to match the quality of the boys’ baseball field.