The most interesting bit of the NY Times story that Charlotte blogged about earlier today is the following line comment from the Department of Education’s Russlynn H. Ali:



“Title IX protects against sex discrimination,” Ali said. “Traditionally, the underrepresented sex in institutions of higher education has been women. That is changing.”


It sounds so obvious, but I’m pleased to see that OCR is taking such demographic changes into consideration as they look at Title IX complaints. This is something that the court system has lagged behind on. Courts have consistently interpreted “underrepresented sex” to mean “women.” Check out the section on court history in this IWF policy brief on Title IX to get info on Kelley v. Board of Trustees of University of Illinios, a key case from the 1990s that helped start such a trend. If demographic trends continue, the notion that women are underrepresented will have to change. In fact, you could argue that we’re already to that point. Women represent the vast majority of college students. There have been more NCAA women’s teams than men’s teams since 1995. Yet when the Title IX ax falls, it continues to fall on men’s teams like the track and cross country folks at the University of Delaware.


On a happier Title IX related note, I’m pleased to point out that men’s gymnastics has been reinstated at Cal. Congratulations to all involved.