An Update on My Efforts to Challenge Title IX Violations in Higher Education
December 16, 2019
According to Title IX, universities in the US that receive Federal financial funding are required to enforce federal civil rights laws that prohibit discrimination based on sex, including discrimination against men (see graphic above). But violating Title IX seems to have become part of the DNA of higher education, and universities routinely ignore certain violations of Title IX — those that provide illegal preferences for women and illegally discriminate against men. The less cynical explanation is that universities are unaware that discrimination against male students and faculty is a violation of Title IX, possibly because it’s become so common that it’s accepted and never questioned.
The more cynical explanation is that universities knowingly violate the civil rights of men and provide special preferences and a disproportionate share of campus resources to women because it fits into the leftist dogma that prevails in higher education of social justice, virtue signaling, victimization, feminism, Marxism, group grievances, and group oppression? When the university social justice groupthink is that some genders are more equal than others, then the strategy becomes to knowingly violate federal civil rights laws for the “greater good” of providing power, prestige, and privilege to women as long as possible until those violations are challenged. After all, there don’t appear to be any penalties for most Title IX violations involving discrimination against men, so universities can openly violate the civil rights laws of half of their student body indefinitely until they are challenged, and then make changes to stop discriminating without even having to apologize or incur any costs.
Here are some updates on my ongoing efforts to advance civil rights for all in higher education by challenging violations of Title IX’s prohibition of discrimination based on sex.
1. Adams State University. The latest trend in higher education’s practice of illegally ignoring Title IX’s prohibition of sex discrimination is the increasing frequency of women-only gym hours, women-only training hours, women-only swimming pool hours and other restrictions based on sex for accessing public areas in a university Recreation Center. One reason it’s an illegal violation of Title IX is because there are usually no equivalent male-only hours that would offset the current female-only hours and ensure compliance with federal civil rights laws. In most cases, the illegal sex discrimination applies to just certain areas of a university’s recreation facility for a certain number of hours per week. But in at least one instance, the “gender apartheid” policy applied to the entire recreation facility.
Case in Point: Adams State University, a public university in Colorado, has been illegally restricting access to its entire Rex Activity Center on Monday nights for two hours during most of this year to only “female-identifying and gender non-conforming students, faculty and staff” (see graphic above). Translation: No men allowed for two hours in the university’s Rex Center. And what was the purpose of “Women’s Night at the REX”? To “promote an inclusive and nondiscriminatory environment.” Translation: To promote an exclusive and non-inclusive environment that illegally discriminates against roughly half of the students.
While most college students and faculty are unfortunately afraid to challenge the Feminist-Social Justice-Industrial Complex that is steamrolling over the civil rights of non-female students and faculty in higher education, a student civil rights hero emerged at Adams State University who successfully challenge his university’s policy of illegal “gender apartheid.” The College Fix reports on that rare heroism in today’s article “University ditches ‘Women’s Night’ at gym after male student threatens Title IX complaint,” here’s an excerpt:
A male student at Adams State University complained that he was repeatedly excluded from the campus gym because of his sex. A day later, the Colorado public university told him the weekly “Women’s Night” had ended. It was an unexpectedly fast reversal, though the administration didn’t directly tell student Chris Spears that his threat to file a Title IX complaint against the school had killed the program.
In email correspondence Spears shared with The College Fix, a Title IX official didn’t even wait to meet with him personally before confirming that the Rex Activity Center would no longer maintain “gender specific hours.” Spears got help from the University of Michigan-Flint economist Mark Perry. The professor has played a leading role in various Title IX complaints against universities that partially or wholly exclude men from certain activities and programs.
Spears told The Fix in an email that he was tired of showing up to the gym all year and being told that men weren’t allowed in the space on those evenings when he wanted to work out. After being blocked from workouts on several evenings this semester, the student brought his concern to the assistant director of the gym, who promised to “look into it,” Spears said. He started researching Title IX and stumbled across Perry’s activism.
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Early on Dec. 11, Spears told The Fix that he had reached Perry for help a few hours earlier, after finding his history of activism against no-men spaces. Perry confirmed that Women’s Night was an ongoing Title IX violation and helped him author a more effective grievance letter to Adams State. The student’s response email to Title IX director Ana Guevara Dec. 11 was more formal.
Spears claimed that “this is not a matter of opinion (yours, mine or the university’s), it’s simply a legal matter.” He warned that Adams State’s “federal financial funding” was at risk if it continued to exclude men on Women’s Night or failed to provide “an equal number of men-only hours,” as Stanford University did last year to resolve a similar complaint.
“On the basis of sex, men at Adams ARE excluded, they ARE denied the benefits of working out, and they ARE subjected to discrimination based on their sex,” Spears wrote.
Guevara responded the same day, before they could arrange a meeting in person. She said Brian Puccarella, assistant director of recreation and wellness for Co-Curricular Recreation and Engagement, told her that the Dec. 2 Women’s Night “was the last night and there will no longer be gender specific hours” at the gym.
Perry wrote to The Fix that “It was great and very courageous that Chris was willing to address a serious injustice at his university, and get it resolved successfully. Universities get away with violating Title IX’s prohibition of sex discrimination because so few students and faculty are willing to challenge what are obvious and serious civil rights violations.”
Bottom Line: As I mentioned above, it’s possible that Adams State University didn’t know it was violating Title IX because women-only gym hours (along with other forms of sex discrimination) are becoming increasingly common in higher education, probably due to pressure from feminist faculty, staff, and students, and campus women’s groups and centers. Or it’s possible that Adams State knew that its “gender apartheid” policy of restricting the recreation center to women-only was a violation of federal civil rights laws and assumed nobody would be courageous enough to challenge its obvious violation of Title IX’s prohibition of sex discrimination, and it would “business as usual” for as long as possible. But then came along Adams State student Chris Spears, who gets my first annual “Civil Rights Hero of the Year Award.”
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2. Portland State University. In addition to violating Title IX’s prohibition of discrimination based on sex, universities also frequently violate Title VI’s prohibition of discrimination based on race.
Case in Point: The College Fix tells the story about Portland State University’s Title VI violation in the article “Professor asks the feds to investigate public university group that requires members to have ‘color’”:
Do you want to join the Feminists of Color Collective at Portland State University? Your skin needs to have “color,” whatever that means.
A professor at a different university is asking the U.S. Department of Education to open a Title VI investigation of the public university for discriminating against students based on their color, which is explicitly mentioned in the statute. The flyer above makes clear that the collective’s meetings are “sole[l]y” open to students of color, even as the explicitly feminist group welcomes “all genders.”Economist Mark Perry of the University of Michigan-Flint, widely known for filing similar antidiscrimination complaints against public institutions across the country, emailed the Seattle regional office of the department’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) Tuesday morning. He copied The College Fix on the email:
“Portland State University (PSU) is a public university that receives federal financial assistance and is therefore required to enforce Title VI’s prohibition of discrimination based on race and color. PSU is a public university in the state of Oregon and under the jurisdiction of your office. Therefore, I am requesting that the Seattle OCR investigate PSU for violating Title VI for the following discriminatory program as described in the photo of a flyer above that was publicized on Twitter by assistant professor of philosophy at Portland State University Peter Boghossian.
Update: After filing the Title IV complaint against Portland State on December 10, I subsequently supplemented that complaint at the Seattle Office for Civil Rights with an additional complaint of violations of Title IX at Portland State:
On Decemer 10, I filed a Title VI complaint against Portland State University (PSU). I have since become aware of at least four potential violations at Portland State University of Title IX’s prohibition of sex discrimination and I would like to add them to my complaint if you will allow me to do that.
Specifically, the attached master schedule from PSU’s Campus Rec facility (also available online here) reveals that PSU is offering four different women-only programs that illegally exclude men from these events in a public facility at PSU, in violation of Title IX’s prohibition of discrimination based on sex, including discrimination against men. Further, there are no equivalent men-only programs that would serve to legally, fairly and equitably accommodate both sexes in a public campus facility. The four discriminatory programs are:
1. Women-only swim periods for two hours were offered on October 20, November 9 and November 23 this year (see page 5 of the master schedule). During those two hour periods, the swimming pool is open exclusively for only women, non-binary and trans individuals, and men are excluded from a public facility on the PSU campus. There are no equivalent men-only swim periods.
2. Women on Weights is being offered every Monday and Wednesday for an hour from 9 – 10 a.m. in the ASRC weight room and this event is a “non-binary and trans inclusive space; all women are welcome” (see page 9). Men are illegally being excluded from the ASRC weight room during those hours in violation of Title IX’s prohibition of sex discrimination, and there are no equivalent “Men on Weights” events being offered to offset the current discriminatory event.
3. Women-only basketball is offered on Mondays 6-7 p.m. (see page 20) and that program excludes men in violation of Title IX. There is no equivalent “Men-only basketball” hours offered that would serve to legally and fairly provide men with the same sex-specific benefits being provided to women at PSU.
4. Women-only indoor soccer is offered on Tuesdays from 6-7 p.m. (see page 20) and that program excludes men in violation of Title IX. There are no equivalent “Men-only soccer” hours offered that would serve to legally and fairly provide men with the same sex-specific benefits being provided to women at PSU.In violation of Title IX, these four discriminatory women-only no men allowed programs outlined above offered by Portland State University clearly do discriminate against men based on their sex, they do exclude men from public facilities based on their sex, and PSU does deny men from receiving the benefits of these exclusionary programs based on their sex at a university that receives federal financial assistance. I am requesting the Seattle OCR investigate Portland State University for its four women-only programs listed above that illegally discriminate against men in violation of Title IX.
Also, as mentioned above there are no men-only programs at PSU that would serve to provide men with the same opportunities in a public facility that are now being provided exclusively to women. Unless PSU is willing to introduce equivalent men-only programs to comply with Title IX, it would seem that PSU should suspend these discriminatory, women-only programs to bring the university into compliance with Title IX’s prohibition of sex discrimination, including discrimination against men.
3. General Title IX Update. To date, I have filed complaints of sex discrimination against 75 universities that I allege violate Title IX and three complaints of race discrimination against universities that I allege violate Title VI. Based on those 78 Title IX and Title VI complaints, more than 30 federal investigations have been opened by the Office for Civil Rights against universities including the following: Boston University, Brown University, Clemson University, Duke University, Florida Tech University, Fordham University, Georgia Tech University, Grand Valley State University, Indiana University, Iowa State University, Kettering University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Michigan State University, Ohio State University, Rice University, Rochester Institute of Technology, Rutgers University, Saginaw Valley University, Texas Tech, UC-Berkeley, University of Central Arkansas, University of Detroit-Mercy, University of Michigan, University of Minnesota, University of New Hampshire, University of Rhode Island, University of St. Thomas, University of Wisconsin-Stout, Vermont Technical College, Wayne State University, and University of South Carolina.
Several of those investigations have been successfully resolved, including the following:
a. Clemson University agreed with the Office for Civil Rights to resolve its Title IX violations by converting three single-sex, girl-only programs to co-ed programs that are now open to students of all genders:
1. Previous: Clemson University’s Project WISE Summer Camp is a one-week gender-discriminatory residential single-gender, girl-only camp held annually since 1997 in June and is described as “a fun-filled academic summer camp for girls [only].” Eligibility is restricted to “young women [only] who will enter 7th and 8th grade in the 2019-2020 school year.” The next Project WISE Summer Camp is scheduled to take place June 23-28, 2019.
Resolution: The program is now gender-inclusive and co-ed, and the Project WISE website has been updated to now say “Project WISE is a STEM-based, engineering focused summer camp at Clemson University for students entering 7th or 8th grade in the summer prior to the start of the school year!” and “*Project WISE is available to all qualifying students regardless of their gender or gender identity.”
2. Previous: Clemson University’s STEM Connections is described as “an excellent opportunity for elementary, middle, and high school girls [only] to make the connection between engineering and science and their lives.”
Resolution: The program is now co-ed and the website has been updated to now say: “STEM Connections is an excellent opportunity for elementary, middle, and high school students to make the connection between engineering and science and their lives.”
3. Previous: WISE Choice brings top performing female students [only] interested in the STEM fields from around the state together for a one-day visit to explore majors in engineering and computer science at Clemson University.
Resolution: The program is now co-ed and the website has been updated to now say: “Sneak Preview [new name] brings top performing students interested in the STEM fields from around the state together for a one-day visit to explore majors in engineering and computer science at Clemson University.”
Note that Clemson University’s illegal, single-sex, girl-only “Project Wise Summer Camp” has violated Title IX’s prohibition of sex discrimination for more than 20 years and has never been challenged until this year. No apology, no fine, and no consequences for 22 years of civil rights violations.
When discriminatory programs like Clemson’s are allowed to violate the civil rights of half the eligible population for more than two decades without being challenged, it’s not surprising that other universities assume they can violate Title IX with impunity and without being challenged, and often motivates them to introduce discriminatory single-sex, female-only programs like girl-only summer STEM camps.
b. The University of Rhode Island recently resolved my Title IX complaint with the OCR by agreeing to discontinue its illegal single-sex, girl-only Chemistry Camp, which was operated for the last seven years with impunity and without being challenged as a “weeklong chemistry camp for Rhode Island girls [only] in grades 6-8.” No apology, no fine, and no consequences for the University of Rhode Island’s civil rights violations.
Bottom Line: Given the successful resolutions so far of 16 Title IX and Title VI violations at seven universities, and the stated intention by the Office for Civil Rights to have consistent Title IX enforcement and resolutions among its 12 regional offices, I predict the following: Continued civil rights victories in the next year as the 30 open investigations of Title IX violations get resolved by the OCR and the more than 40 cases of Title IX violations currently being reviewed by the OCR are opened for investigations.
Jura Civilia Victoria!