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A federal district court in West Virginia recently ordered an injunction against single-sex classes at Van Devender Middle School in Parkersburg, West Virginia (for an earlier post about the lawsuit, filed by the ACLU on behalf of a parent, see here).  The court determined that the program at Van Deventer violated the requirement in Title IX's regulations that single-sex programs be "completely voluntary."  This requirement is not satisfied, the court said, when parents can opt out of a program that presumes to otherwise place their child in segregated classes.  Rather, schools must allow parents must affirmatively opt in to such programs to satisfy this provision of the regulations. The court explained:

[B]ecause single-sex classes are, by their very nature, a gender classification, it makes perfect sense to require the parent or guardian's clear and affirmative assent. While a failure to opt out may be a legal substitute for agreement in some other areas of the law, such as membership in class actions, presuming that parents or guardians have enrolled their child in a single-sex class completely voluntarily because they failed to opt out would undermine the purpose of Title IX to prevent discrimination based on gender. 

The court also noted that the fact that parents were not notified of the opt-out until a few days before the beginning of the school year also suggests that parents did not have a real opportunity to volunteer for single-sex classes.

For now the court did not reach the question, raised in the ACLU's complaint, of whether even a voluntary program of single-sex education such Van Devender's would be unlawful under the Equal Protection Clause.  If litigation continues, however, the court would likely address that issue. 

Decision: Doe v. Wood County Bd. of Educ., 2012 WL 3731518 (S.D. W. Va. Aug. 29, 2012).

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• SportsPLUS
• Discrimination/Title IX

View Original Post at title-ix.blogspot.com

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Crimson says:

Ms. Buzuvis and WTS - I've intentionally not responded to most of the Title IX Blog cross-posts here in spite of the fact that Buzuvis doesn't accept comments on her blog. Most of them are certainly deserving of rebuttal.

In that context maybe this site should decide if it want to be about increasing and supporting opportunities for girls and women in sports or if they want to be a forum for Gender Feminists to pitch their worldview. If it's the latter then that's cool, I'll start responding to her Title IX blog cross-posts here.

My personal opinion is that there are more appropriate forums than this to have that dialogue. That said if readers of Buzuvis' posts here actually believe what she's putting up then in the interest of fairness they need to be addressed.

It occurs to me that with all of the challenges women athletes have there is plenty of material out there without providing a forum for gender feminist attorney types like Buzuvis whose political bias is well documented.

Friday, August 31, 2012 at 8:34pm EDT

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