Title IX moves beyond sports to ‘new frontier’ of STEM

Article here. Excerpt:

'Preventing discrimination or exclusion in STEM education is important, experts say, because unequal opportunities may be partially to blame for the traditionally low number of female engineers and scientists.

President Barack Obama’s administration is evaluating what could be included in a Title IX compliance test for STEM and whether it could encompass criteria similar to the “three-prong” test for compliance in athletics, Maatz said.

Under the test, schools can prove compliance by showing a history and continuing practice of expanding athletic opportunities for girls, by proving the interests of both sexes are being met, or by making sure percentages of girls and boys participating in sports are proportional to percentages of girls and boys enrolled at the school.

The idea of applying a proportionality test to student populations in STEM classes scares some educators and at least one women’s group.

“This idea that we would try to create a quota system in the one discipline left where women are not outpacing men shows the enforcement is skewed,” said Carrie Lukas, managing director of the Independent Women’s Forum, a nonprofit conservative research and education organization. “I don’t think Title IX is really fighting discrimination anymore when it comes to women having an opportunity to participate in academic life. That’s a battle that has already been won.”'