Copyright 2002 eMediaMillWorks, Inc. (f/k/a Federal Document
Clearing House, Inc.) Federal Document Clearing House Congressional Testimony
October 3, 2002 Thursday
SECTION: CAPITOL HILL HEARING TESTIMONY
LENGTH: 3002 words
COMMITTEE:SENATE COMMERCE, SCIENCE AND TRANSPORTATION
SUBCOMMITTEE: SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY AND SPACE
HEADLINE: TITLE IX AND SCIENCE
TESTIMONY-BY: MARCIA D. GREENBERGER, CO-PRESIDENT,
AFFILIATION: NATIONAL WOMEN'S LAW CENTER
BODY: STATEMENT OF MARCIA D.
GREENBERGER CO-PRESIDENT, NATIONAL WOMEN'S LAW CENTER
BEFORE THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY AND SPACE SENATE
COMMERCE, SCIENCE AND TRANSPORTATION
OCTOBER 3, 2002
I am Marcia Greenberger, Co-President of the National
Women's Law Center. Thank you for the invitation to appear before you today to
discuss the applicability of Title IX of the Education
Amendments of 1972 (Title IX) to opening up opportunities for
women interested in pursuing degrees and careers in mathematics, engineering and
the hard sciences. We are especially pleased to have this opportunity because
this year is the law's 30th anniversary.
While much
progress has been made in the last three decades, much remains to be done to
ensure that women have equal access and opportunities in all areas of education.
The Center is a non- profit organization that has worked since 1972 to advance
and protect the legal rights of women and girls across the country. The Center
focuses on major policy areas of importance to women and their families,
including education, employment, health and reproductive rights, and economic
security - with particular attention paid to the concerns of low-income women.
Founded in the year that Title IX was passed, the Center has
devoted much of its resources to ensuring that the promise of Title IX becomes a reality in all aspects of education.
Title IX was enacted in 1972 as a broad
proscription against discrimination in any federally funded education program or
activity. It states simply:
No person in the United
States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied
the benefits of or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or
activity receiving Federal financial assistance.1
Title IX applies to most elementary and secondary schools and
colleges and universities. It also applies to programs and activities affiliated
with schools that receive federal funds. It was intended to ensure equal
opportunity for women and girls in all aspects of education - from access to
higher education, to equal opportunities and fair treatment in elementary and
secondary classrooms, to equal opportunities in athletics programs. In passing
Title IX, Congress recognized that it is through education
that women have the means to a better economic future for themselves and their
families. Congress' vision has borne fruit:
thirty
years after enactment of the law, we have more women doctors and lawyers, as
well as women athletes winning medals and trophies - all of whom help defy
gender stereotypes about the interests and abilities of women and girls.
Women and Girls are Underrepresented in Math, Science,
Engineering and Technology.
Despite this progress,
women remain underrepresented in the traditionally male fields of math, science
and engineering. Gender disparities in math and science start small and grow as
students advance in school, with boys outperforming girls on standardized tests
and participating in math and science classes at higher rates in high schools,
and men majoring in math and science at higher rates than women at the
post-secondary level.2 Similarly, at both the high school and post-secondary
levels, female students are less likely than their male counterparts to receive
training in computers and technology beyond the traditionally female areas of
word processing or data entry.3 This underrepresentation is particularly
problematic at this time in our history, when proficiency in science, math and
the information sciences is critical to jobs in a technological society.
While women have made remarkable progress in pursuing
college degrees, they are still underrepresented in the areas of math, science
and engineering -- underrepresentation that grows larger at the master's and
doctorate degree levels. In fact, the only science in which women receive
bachelors' degrees in rough proportion to their presence in the student body is
the biological /life sciences, where women receive 58% of bachelor's degrees and
55% of master's degrees. But even in this field, women lose their majority to
men at the doctorate level, with women receiving only 44% of doctorate
degrees.
And in other fields, the news about women's
participation is worse. For example:
-In mathematics
and physical sciences women are working towards parity with men at the bachelor
level where women receive 47% of bachelor's degrees in mathematics and 40% of
bachelor's degrees in physical sciences. However, women are awarded only 25% of
doctorate degrees in each of these areas.
-In computer
and information sciences, there is actually a downward trend. The number of
women receiving bachelor's degrees in computer and information sciences reached
a high of 37% in 1984, but dropped to 28% in 1999-2000.
-The most disturbing disparity lies in engineering, where women receive
only 18% of bachelor's degrees, 21% of master's degrees, and 15% of doctorate
degrees. (See attached charts.)
These disparities in
the student body are mirrored by similar gender disparities in the employment of
female professors in math, science and engineering. For example, in engineering,
women are only 8.9% of tenured or tenure-track faculty, and only 4.4% of full
professors.4
As Representative Patsy Mink stated in
1971, "discrimination against women in higher education is one of the most
damaging forms of prejudice in our Nation for it deprives a high proportion of
our people of the opportunity for equal employment and equal participation in
national leadership."6
Moreover, while girls the gender
gap is narrowing in mathematics and science at the high school level, girls
continue to lag behind their male counterparts in several key areas. For
example:
Girls score 35 points below boys on the math
portion of the SAT.7
Across all racial and ethnic
groups, males are more likely than females to attain high scores on the AP
biology examination and the AP calculus examination.8
In 1997, girls comprised only 37% of students enrolled in Advanced
Placement (AP) computer science classes across the nation, and in twelve states
comprised less than 20% of the students.9
Girls are
less likely than boys to take math courses beyond algebra II, and boys far
outnumber girls in physics and computer classes.10
II.
This Underrepresentation has Significant Consequences for Women.
The gender disparities in math, science, engineering and technology
have a deep impact on the earning power and career prospects of women. For
example:
Women employed in science are most likely to
work in natural sciences, where they comprise 35% of the workforce. The annual
mean income for natural sciences occupations is $47,790. This is significantly
less than the annual mean income for computer and math occupations -- $58,050 --
or for engineering (including architecture) occupations, $54,060. Women comprise
only 30% of the computer and math workforce and a meager 11% of the engineering
workforce.11
Even where women and men have attained the
same degree level, salary differentials persist.
Women
with a bachelor's degree in an area of science or engineering, earn 35% less
than similarly situated men, and those with a doctorate degree earn 26% less
than their male peers.12
The gap between the median
annual salaries of men and women in science and engineering occupations has
increased over time; in 1999, women earned an average of $14,000 less than their
male counterparts, compared to $10,000 less in 1993.13 (See attached chart.)
Indeed, a 1997 report issued by the U.S. Department of
Education noted several trends that inhibit educational and career opportunities
for women, including women's lower number of degrees in computer science,
engineering, physical science, and math compared with men, and the
underrepresentation of women in jobs in scientific fields.14
III. Women and Girls in Math, Science, Engineering and Technology Face
Persistent Barriers.
This pattern of
underrepresentation at both the secondary and post-secondary levels of education
is directly linked to the continuing barriers that female students face in these
programs. For example, a recent study found that 71% of male teachers believed
that male students were more interested in the mechanics of computer technology,
and were more likely to attribute boys' success in technology to talent while
dismissing girls' success as due to luck or diligence.15
And deficient career counseling in secondary schools has been found to
reduce women's entry into science and engineering at the university level.16
Additionally, some research has demonstrated that in post-secondary programs,
female students transfer out of science, engineering and technology-related
majors more often than their male counterparts, in part due to experiences of
gender bias and low faculty expectations.17
Further,
many of our young women do not enjoy equal access to math, science or
technology-related opportunities because of decisions made by their education
systems about the placement of such opportunities. For example, an investigation
conducted by the National Women's Law Center into educational opportunities for
female students in New York City's vocational and technical high schools found
that none of the four predominantly female vocational schools offer any AP
courses in Calculus, Statistics, Biology, Chemistry, Physics, or Computer
Science, although such courses are provided at the predominantly male vocational
schools. According to our calculations, approximately 67% of male vocational
students, but only 35% of female vocational students, attend a school that
offers at least one math or science AP course. Similarly, the New York City
Board of Education has implemented Cisco Networking Academies, which lead to
industry certification in computer networking, at some of the vocational high
schools, but has not placed this program in any of the predominantly female
schools.18
Thus, a 2000 report of the United States
Commission on Civil Rights found that "[t]hrough lack of counseling;
stereotypical socialization; discouragement; less aggressive inclusion of
parents in designing programs; gender-biased teaching styles, resources, and
testing; and other barriers, girls are steered from math, science, engineering,
and other technical fields."19 Similarly, the Congressional Commission on the
Advancement of Women and Minorities in Science, Engineering and Technology
Development concluded that same year that "[a ]ctive discouragement . . .
contribute[s] to girls' lack of interest in [science, engineering and
technology] careers."20
Women faculty members also face
barriers at their institutions. A recent study on the status of female
professors in science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) drew
national attention when the university publicly acknowledged discrimination
against women faculty. In 1994, tenured women faculty in the School of Science
at MIT formed a committee to investigate whether their individual experiences of
veiled discrimination represented a broader framework of inequality.21 The
committee's report relied upon and analyzed data and interviews conducted with
women faculty and department heads.22
The report found
that tenured women faced "patterns of difference," evidenced by consistently
lower salaries than their male peers, unequal access to resources and persistent
exclusion from any substantive power at MIT.23 The report also revealed a
correlation between these "patterns of difference" and the tenured women's
consistent reports of feeling excluded, disempowered, "invisible" and
"marginalized" within their departments as their careers progressed.24 According
to the report, "as of 1999, there ha[d] never been a woman department head,
associate head, or center director in the School of Science in the history of
MIT." 25
Unfortunately, despite evidence of the very
real barriers that women and girls continue to face in these fields, gender
stereotyped arguments about the abilities and interest of women and girls
persist. Allegations continue to be made today, for example, that males
outnumber females in doctoral degrees in fields such as physics and engineering
because their spatial and mechanical aptitudes are superior to those of women,
and that sex hormones are the cause of these differences between males and
females.26 These types of arguments have also been made repeatedly in an effort
to deny women equal athletics opportunities, where critics of Title IX have asserted that women are less interested in sports
than men. However, as Congress and the courts have consistently recognized, Title IX was enacted in order to remedy discrimination that
results from stereotyped notions of women's interests and abilities and the law
must be vigorously enforced to eradicate those discriminatory assumptions.
IV. Title IX Enforcement is Critical to
Eliminating Barriers.
As this information demonstrates,
vigorous enforcement of Title IX is necessary to ensure that
discrimination on the basis of sex is stamped out. The Title
IX regulations, promulgated in 1975, require federally funded education
programs to take a variety of steps to prevent and address sex discrimination.27
In particular, education programs may not discriminate in recruiting,
counseling, admissions or treatment of students. For example:
Programs must ensure that counseling is not discriminatory and does not
steer female students away from non-traditional areas, such as math and
science.
Programs must designate an employee to ensure
Title IX compliance and to investigate complaints of sex
discrimination.
Programs must implement and disseminate
a written policy prohibiting sex discrimination, with a process for filing
grievances.
Importantly, the Title IX
regulations require that if a program finds that a particular class is
disproportionately male or female, that program must make sure that this is not
the result of sex-biased counseling or the use of discriminatory counseling or
appraisal materials.28
Thus, math, science, engineering
and technology-related programs have an affirmative obligation to review their
own practices and remedy discriminatory practices that lead to
underrepresentation of women in these areas.
The
Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights (OCR) is recognized as the
primary enforcement agency under Title IX. However, OCR
has a mixed record on Title IX compliance and
enforcement activities relating to women and girls in math and science
education. For example, a recent review of OCR's activities indicated that few
of OCR's Title IX cases have evaluated female students' access
to and participation in science and math.29
Moreover,
it is unclear whether OCR is providing adequate technical assistance in this
area. In April 1996, OCR released a "promising practices" document regarding
access for women and minorities to math and science programs, to help school
districts with an underrepresentation problem devise ways to ensure equal
educational opportunity.30 It is unclear whether OCR continues to make this
document available to education programs today as it conducts technical
assistance, or whether the underrepresentation of women and girls in math,
science, engineering or technology programs is a priority issue for the
office.
With its enforcement powers, OCR can
effect great changes, but this requires resources and a greater commitment to
enforce Title IX in all areas of education. Compliance reviews
and other enforcement measures are needed to ensure that schools and
programs are meeting their obligations under the law. In fact, OCR could be
asked to undertake compliance reviews to determine the causes for women's lower
participation in math and science, which decreases even more at the
post-secondary level, and to take action to eliminate all forms of sex
discrimination. Indeed, in a related area, in June 2002, the Center filed 12
Petitions for Compliance Review with each of the regional offices of OCR,
requesting full investigations of the sex segregation in high school vocational
and technical programs in specific states.31
It is our
hope that OCR will conduct full investigations and remedy any discrimination
that has resulted in barriers to full educational opportunity for young women in
these programs. Similar requests for compliance reviews of math, science,
engineering and technology programs could generate beneficial results.
In addition to proactive compliance reviews conducted by
OCR, any student or interested group may file a Title IX
complaint with the federal government to challenge discrimination in math,
science and engineering programs. Individuals whose rights under Title IX have been violated may also be able to bring a federal
lawsuit against the education program or institution.
Conclusion
While there has been progress made
over the last 30 years under Title IX, many battles still must
be fought to eradicate sex discrimination in education and enable women and
girls to realize their full potential. Women and girls continue to face
unacceptable barriers in the nontraditional fields of math, science, engineering
and technology. These barriers must be eliminated, and strong enforcement of Title IX is necessary to open up the door to equal
educational opportunity. After 30 years of this important law, we still fall
short of the educational landscape that the late Representative Edith Green and
former Senator Birch Bayh envisioned when they sponsored Title
IX - namely, complete elimination of the "corrosive and unjustified
discrimination against women" in education. As long as math, science,
engineering and technology remain hostile fields for women, we will not have
realized Title IX's promise.
We must
recommit ourselves today to making the letter and the spirit of the Title IX law a reality across all areas of education.
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