Title IX Blog: Education Law

Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Education Law Blogs

OR PHONE (866) 635-1838 for Bankruptcy Help, (866) 635-6190 for Divorce,
(866) 635-2689 for Personal Injury or (866) 635-9402 for Criminal Defense

Find a Local Lawyer

Bankruptcy (866) 635-1838
Divorce (866) 635-6190
Personal Injury (866) 635-2689
Criminal Defense (866) 635-9402

Education Law

Title IX Blog

News, legal developments, commentary, and scholarship about Title IX, the federal statute prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sex in federally funded schools.
By Erin Buzuvis, Sudha Setty, and Kristine Newhall

Post Frequency: 3.4/day

Last Entry: July 16, 2010 at 08:42:00

Supreme Court Will Resolve Circuit Split on Title IX's Preemption of 1983 Claims

Posted on June 09, 2008
The Supreme Court just announced that it will review the First Circuit's decision in Fitzgerald v. Barnstable School Committee. As you may recall from prior posts (see here and here) the dispute in this case was whether the school district responded adequately to the sexual harassment of a kindergarten girl by a third-grade boy who rode the same bus...

S.D. Harassment Case Survives Summary Judgment

Posted on June 07, 2008
In South Dakota, a teacher-student sexual harassment case survived the school district's motion for summary judgment. Consistent with other cases, the federal magistrate rejected the district's argument that other victims' complaints about this teacher in the past did not constitute actual notice of the teacher's harassment of this particular student plaintiff as a matter of law...

V-Ball Coach Weighs in on Lawsuit(s)

Posted on June 06, 2008
The College Volleyball Coach blog has a good post about the Tennessee-Martin case, putting it into context with the other volleyball coach lawsuits we've seen recently at Fresno State and FGCU. Among other fine points, the author surmises that until volleyball coaches have the bargaining power to negotiate employment contracts with "safety nets," like football and basketball coaches have, "Athletic Directors are able terminate volleyball coaches with very little cost...

Oregon Teacher's Retaliation Case Settles

Posted on June 06, 2008
A gender discrimination lawsuit between a teacher and her Oregon school district that we blogged about last fall settled this week for $20,000. The teacher had sued the Salem-Keizer School District, alleging that her after she reported harassment by her fellow teachers, she was retaliated against with unsatisfactory performance reviews...

To access this complete feed in the blog feed reader login or register for free.

Moving forward with women's wrestling at YVCC?

Posted on June 05, 2008
It seems that coaches and supporters of men's wrestling at Yakima Valley Community College are moving ahead with plans to add women to their team in the hopes of saving the men's program which was slated to be cut. [Click on the YVCC tag for past posts on this situation...

Gender gaps in math: A new study says it's nurture, not nature

Posted on June 02, 2008
New research published in the journal Science (subscription required to see full article) finds that any gender gap between boys and girls in math achievement "disappears" in countries with higher levels of gender equity. The research, reported in The Guardian (UK), looked at 40 countries, and found that those nations with equal access to education, as well as other opportunities and support for girls, showed no gender gap in math scores...

HS Golfer Awarded $19K in Discrimination Claim

Posted on June 02, 2008
Remember Lindsey Thomka? She's on the boy's only golf team at Cathedral High School in Springfield, Massachusetts, but in 2005, she wasn't allowed to compete individually in the state tournament for boys golf, despite finishing fourth in the regional qualifier...

More on the Gender Gap in Coaching Salaries

Posted on June 01, 2008
John Wolohan and Laura Bowman's article "Check Swing" (nice!) in the current issue of Athletic Business explores the legal issues surrounding the gender gap in coaching salaries, an issue that has been receiving some press lately.The authors examine the Equal Pay Act's applicability to coaches' salaries using as an example a lawsuit by Cara Hankinson, who sued the Thomas County, Georgia school district to challenge the salary she was paid as the softball coach, which was less than what the baseball coach was paid...

University of Tennessee-Martin Sued by Former Volleyball Coach

Posted on May 30, 2008
I read in USA Today that Amy Draper, formerly the head volleyball coach at the University of Tennessee-Martin, has filed a lawsuit challenging her termination as discriminatory and raising other violations of Title IX.Draper's complaint, filed in federal district court, alleges that the University and athletic department officials violated Title IX and other law (including the U...

Spotlight on Summa v. Hofstra University

Posted on May 29, 2008
A while ago, we briefly noted an ongoing sexual harassment lawsuit against Hofstra University. We had only limited details to offer at that time, but we have since received a copy of the complaint filed by plaintiff Lauren Summa (thanks, reader!). We can now provide a more information about Summa's side of the story...

NCAA Releases Figures on Salary Disparities in Coaching

Posted on May 28, 2008
USA Today reported last week that 2006 salary statistics recently released by the NCAA confirms that people men who coach men's sports earn more than people who coach women's sports. And among schools with big time football programs, they earn way more...

Women's Wrestling in Demand at Colleges

Posted on May 27, 2008
Today's New York Times reports on the demand for college wrestling programs for women, driven in part by the inclusion of women's wrestling as an Olympic sport since 2004. The article notes that over 5,000 girls wrestled in high school in the 2006-07 school year, but that only eight colleges offer varsity-level women's wrestling teams, and that three of those eight have started in the last year...

Empirical Study on Gebser's Effect on Sexual Harassment Cases

Posted on May 23, 2008
In 1998, the Supreme Court held in Gebser v. Lago Vista School District that educational institutions could be liable for sexual harassment by its employees only when the institution responded with deliberate indifference to ongoing harassment about which it had actual notice...

Student Argues Against Title VII's Application in Title IX Sexual Harassment Cases

Posted on May 22, 2008
In an interesting Comment in the Maryland Law Review, student Michael Buchwald argues that, owing to statutory differences and contextual differences between education and employment, it is inappropriate to import Title VII's "severe and pervasive" standard for employer liability to harassment cases in the education setting...

AAUW Report Debunks "Boy Crisis"

Posted on May 21, 2008
The American Association of University Women released this study on Tuesday about gender differences in educational achievement. The study, titled Where the Girls Are: The Facts About Gender Equity in Education, examines girls' and boys' performances on national standardized tests and other academic indicators...

FGCU Files A Lawsuit of Its Own

Posted on May 21, 2008
The National Law Journal has this account of Florida Gulf Coast University's efforts to enjoin former general counsel Wendy Morris from releasing information about the university that it claims is protected by the attorney-client privilege. Morris, we've noted, filed suit against FGCU in April, claiming that she was discharged in retaliation for encouraging the President to investigate allegations of Title IX violations within the university...

What people are saying: Arizona State

Posted on May 20, 2008
Even as classes wind down and students head back from whence they came [unless you're on the softball team in which case you're headed back to campus to host a Super Regional (congratulations!)], the discussion at Arizona State over the recent athletic department cuts heats up...

NCAA Releases Report on Athletic Department Profitability

Posted on May 19, 2008
The Chronicle of Higher Education reported last week that the NCAA has released a report on the finances of college athletic departments. The report is notable because it is the first time the NCAA has broken out "allocated" revenue (money the department gets from the institution itself) from "generated" revenue (money that it gets from outside sources, such as ticket sales and private donations) in reporting on the profitability of athletics...

Retaliation Cases Make Page 1 of USA Today

Posted on May 16, 2008
Tuesday's edition of USA Today raised the public profile of several retaliation cases we've followed extensively on the blog. The primary piece focused on the Fresno State plaintiffs -- Lindy Vivas, Diane Milutinovich, and Stacy Johnson-Klein -- whose lawsuits generated multi-million dollar verdicts and settlements in the past year...

Henin and Sorenstam Retiring

Posted on May 15, 2008
Tennis star Justine Henin and golf star Annika Sorenstam both recently announced their retirements. The story was covered today on National Public Radio's Morning Edition, with the commentary that although the sports of tennis and golf will miss these two athletes, the advent and success of Title IX has ensured that there is no dearth of exceptional women athletes coming up through the ranks in these two sports (or a host of other sports, I would add).

NYT Profiles Women's Football

Posted on May 14, 2008
Women play football. If you didn't know that, read yesterday's New York Times.In fact, there are more than 80 tackle football teams for women, all across the country. Many are affiliated with either the Independent Women's Football League or the National Women's Football Association...

Arizona State budget issues lead to cuts

Posted on May 14, 2008
In an effort to fully fund and support its student-athletes and sports teams, ASU has decided to cut three sports: men's tennis, wrestling, and swimming. ASU had been carrying 22 sports--quite a few for a big-time DI program. Now they are down to 20 (they are keeping men's diving which had been combined with the swim team)...

Vaughn Joins Lawsuit Against FGCU

Posted on May 13, 2008
It is only our good taste that keeps us from keeping a little thermometer icon in the corner and raising the mercury every time someone files a gender discrimination lawsuit or complaint against Florida Gulf Coast University.The Trial Lawyers for Public Justice announced yesterday that former women's golf coach Holly Vaughn has joined Jaye Flood's pending lawsuit against FGCU...

The media support that Title IX doesn't really need

Posted on May 13, 2008
We comment on quite a few editorials that invoke Title IX. And we let, believe it or not, many just go by with a sigh and a shrug.But our very patient colleagues at the John Curley Center for Sports Journalism at Penn State have poured through three years worth (2002-2005) of editorials on Title IX in a recent study on how writers discuss and frame the law and its application...

NYT on Girls and Sports Injuries

Posted on May 12, 2008
The New York Times magazine devoted its main story this week to the rate of injuries for girls playing sports such as soccer, and how the injury rate is startlingly higher than that of boys. It's a long and interesting article that offers a lot to discuss, and this blog post is just a starting point for discussion of the piece and the issues that it raises...

Coeur d'Alene High Schools Violate Title IX

Posted on May 11, 2008
Last fall we noted that OCR had reopened an investigation against the Coeur d'Alene (Idaho) school district after an anonymous complainant came forward with new evidence to support a previously dismissed claim of Title IX violations in athletics. We said, "the administrators in Coeur d'Alene seem confident this new information will not alter the initial finding of compliance...

McCain gets another "fact" wrong

Posted on May 10, 2008
Not much attention is being paid to John McCain's campaign these days. But occasionally we get to hear about some misinformation the Republican candidate for president has been perpetuating, usually involving some confusion over Iran versus Iraq. But this time he's really done it:The U...

PA whistleblower revealed

Posted on May 07, 2008
A few weeks ago I wrote about the then-anonymous Title IX complaint against Central Bucks School District in Pennsylvania. The superintendent, Robert Laws, was somewhat confused over who would do this and why.Well all has been revealed. Robert Landau filed the complaint alleging inequities in facilities, practice and game scheduling...

OCR Investigation Clears Scotts Valley

Posted on May 06, 2008
In December we noted that the Office for Civil Rights was investigating alleged Title IX violations at Scotts Valley Unified School District in California. An anonymous person had complained that the high school was violating Title IX by providing female athletes, including softball players, with inferior equipment, facilities, scheduling and coaching...

Researchers Find Rampant Peer Harassment

Posted on May 05, 2008
The New York Times reported last week that more than a third of middle- and high-school students may be victims of sexual harassment by their classmates, according to a new study in the journal Sex Roles. The researchers also determined that sexual harassment takes an even stronger "emotional toll" on students than bullying -- a more visible and frequently-occurring form of peer abuse...

Previous | Next

Related Law Bulletins

New Baptist Covenant Blog
Last week, I pointed to the New Baptist Convenant website, now onl...

The Mexico Trucker Blog
I've written before about the perceived problems with relaxed rest...