Communications of the ACM
Women-Only STEM College Programs Under Attack for Male Discrimination
Women-only STEM programs are under fire.
Credit: The Brown and White
Female-only science programs, launched by many U.S. universities to redress gender imbalance in such fields as computer science and engineering, are coming under growing legal attack as sex discrimination against men.
The U.S. Department of Education has opened more than two dozen investigations into universities across the nation — UC Berkeley, UCLA, USC, as well as Yale, Princeton, and Rice — that offer female-only scholarships, awards, professional development workshops, and even science and engineering camps for middle and high school girls. Sex discrimination in educational programs is banned under Title IX, a federal law that applies to all schools, both public and private, that receive federal funding.
A new study on gender-specific scholarships found that 84% of about 220 universities offer single-gender scholarships, many of them in STEM fields. That practice is permitted under Title IX only if the "overall effect" of scholarships is equitable. The study, by a Maryland-based nonprofit advocating gender equity on college campuses, showed the majority of campus awards lopsidedly benefited women.
In California, for instance, 11 colleges and universities reviewed offered 117 scholarships for women and four for men, according to the survey by Stop Abusive and Violent Environments.
From Los Angeles Times
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