Title IX Bush policy reversed; Joe Biden thinks it’s a big fucking deal

Joe Biden
Scott Applewhite/AP
You gotta love a VP who is that enthusiastic about giving girls and women opportunities to engage in sports.
Joe’s joy was captured at an announcement this week that the Department of Education will repeal a policy enforced during the Bush years which allowed schools to use a survey as a tool to prove a lack of interest in women’s sports within federal compliance to Title IX. In other words, a lack of response would mean a lack of interest, therefore a lack of programs. (Because we all know how much people just love to do surveys.) EdWeek reports:

Schools have three ways to comply with Title IX: Match the proportion of female athletes to the proportion of women on campus; show a history of increasing sports for women; or prove the school has met the interest and ability of women to participate in athletics.
Before 2005, the third option required districts and colleges to use multiple indicators to assess athletic interests and abilities. The new letter informs institutions that survey results alone cannot justify an imbalance in women’s sports.
It’s unclear how many schools used the survey as a measure of federal compliance and what the impact was, since schools aren’t required to state which of the three Title IX compliance standards they are using, said Neena Chaudhry, senior counsel for the National Women’s Law Center, a nonprofit organization based in Washington.
There aren’t any statistics to show opportunities for women were denied, but Chaudhry suggested it was a possibility.
“Why wouldn’t they use this policy?” she said. “It’s an easy way out.”

So this is good news. (At least Joe certainly thinks so.)

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