Girls' High is a living monument to gender discrimination

Article here. Excerpt:

'The Philadelphia High School for Girls -- with its 1,100-plus spaces reserved for academically talented young women -- stands as a living monument to institutional sex discrimination. While former Superintendent Arlene Ackerman repeatedly professed her commitment to "ending inequity" in Philadelphia's public schools, she, incongruously, turned a blind eye to the manifest inequity of the District's operating a special admission, academically superior high school for girls without an equivalent school for boys. In its continued operation of Girls' High, the District is promoting a gender-based double standard of educational opportunity.

Moreover, in denying male students equal educational opportunity, the District egregiously violates federal and state anti-discrimination laws. These include Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, the Equal Protection Clause of the federal constitution and, more significantly, the Pennsylvania Equal Rights Amendment, which has been the law of the Commonwealth for more than four decades. That amendment provides that "equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania because of the sex of the individual." As has been observed by the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania:
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That no other school district in Pennsylvania has a special all-boys or all-girls high school like Philadelphia High School for Girls, without a corresponding, equivalent school for students of the other sex is not surprising. Such asymmetry in educational opportunity is clearly unlawful. As indicated above, the Equal Rights Amendment of the Pennsylvania Constitution flatly prohibits discrimination "because of the sex of the individual" and will not countenance special benefits being conferred by a school district, or by any other governmental entity, based on gender.'