Title IX Violations Alleged at Amherst and Vanderbilt

Last week, Amherst College in Massachusetts and Vanderbilt University in Tennessee were each alleged to have violated Title IX in they way they handled students' reports of campus sexual assault.

On Thursday, six Vanderbilt students filed a complaint with the Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights.  As an example of Vanderbilt's alleged violation, one of the complainants states that the university did not take any action against the student's alleged stalker once they had pressured her into letting the school handle it rather than going to the police. That same day, two Amherst students filed a similar complaint. One of the allegations it contained is that the school responded to a report of rape by admitting the victim to a hospital psych ward while letting the accused student go unpunished. 

While Vanderbilt is a new name on the list of institutions with apparently problematic sexual assault policies and practices, Amherst has been the poster-college for this issue since last fall, when a student editorial accused the college of suppressing reporting by victims and treating accused students with leniency.  Since then, the college has been responding by revising its policies and by hiring a fill time Title IX Coordinator.  I think that OCR will look favorably on these efforts in any investigation and compliance action that might be forthcoming in response to the complaint. At the same time, the agency's involvement will likely help ensure that the changes promised by the college are both substantive and lasting. 

One way or another?

A panel on gender equity and intercollegiate sports held at Vanderbilt University Law School yesterday brought out a Title IX founder, a realist, and a wrestling coach.
According to the AP coverage, the panel discussion focused on "whether the law requiring gender equity in college sports needs to be reformed or is simply being misinterpreted."
I choose C) None of the above. I am not sure why this paradigm is being perpetuated. [Note also that the AP writer is narrow in her description of the law which applies to all aspects of all educational institutions.]
Birch Bayh, former senator from Indiana, and the man who helped write the legislation and get it passed, still believed in the power and potential of Title IX and pointed out to the wrestling coach who cried reverse discrimination, that the greatest loss of wrestling programs occurred in the 1980s when the law was not being enforced and that the sport has seen recent growth in the intercollegiate ranks.
But it was Vanderbilt's Vice Chancellor David Williams who spoke the words no one wants to hear: the problem is football. A woman in the crowd suggested cutting down the number of scholarships football receives to 50. But Williams, noting the big business that is football (and men's basketball), said it would be very hard for any one school to make that decision in the current climate of TV deals and sponsorship packages.
It is clear that something needs to change, but it's much bigger than Title IX.