Vermilion Parish Ends Single-Sex Education

The school board in Vermilion Parish, Louisiana, voted earlier this month to end its single-sex education program at Rene Rost Middle School, which began in 2009. You may recall that in April, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals issued a decision in the litigation over this program, which clarified that the courts would require the school board to have "exceedingly persuasive justifications," consistent with the Equal Protection Clause, if it continued to assign its students to certain classes or deny them from others on the basis of sex. We predicted that such a standard would be difficult for the board to meet, especially in light of the fact that the Rost principal's claims that such classes produced better outcomes were later revealed to be rooted in his own falsified data. However, the reported reason for the school board's decision was a low level of parental support for single-sex classrooms. The school board's decision ends the litigation against Vermilion Parish.

5th Circuit Issues Decision in Single-Sex Education Case

The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a decision today in the case challenging the Vermilion (Louisiana) School Board's decision to institute single-sex classes at Rene A. Rost Middle School. The parent of female students who had been placed in all-girls classes in core subjects sued the school district, challenging the constitutionality of the single-sex classes under the Equal Protection Clause. The plaintiff also challenged the classes' validity under Title IX, which generally prohibits schools excluding students from any class or activity based on sex, but provides a narrow exception for single-sex classes that promote an identified educational objective, are based on genuine justifications, not generalizations and stereotypes, and which provide students the option to select co-ed alternative instead.

The district court had earlier denied the plaintiff's request for a preliminary injunction and allowed the single- sex classes at Rost to continue. Though the district court acknowledged that Vermilion's single-sex classes were justified by experimental data that had been falsified by the principal (an issue that was the subject of this prior post), the court reasoned that because Vermilion's discrimination was not intentional, it did not violate the Equal Protection Clause. It did not consider the plaintiff's alternative argument under Title IX.

Today's decision affirms the lower court's denial of the injunction, reasoning that it is too late in the school year to order an immediate change. Significantly, however, the appellate court corrects the lower court's misapplication of the Equal Protection standard. Rather than intentional discrimination, the appropriate standard is intermediate scrutiny -- when state actors classify based on sex, they must have an "exceedingly persuasive justification" for the classification. Because it's hard to imagine a court concluding that the principal's falsified justification was a "persuasive" one, I think this aspect of the decision makes it much more likely that the plaintiff will prevail on the merits when the question of the constitutionality of Vermilion's single-sex classes returns to the district court. Moreover, the appellate court faulted the lower court for failing to consider plaintiff's argument that the single-sex classes violate Title IX, so this too will provide alternate grounds for the plaintiff to prevail.

The appellate court today acknowledged that if Vermilion Parish curtails its single-sex classes, the litigation will be moot. If it continues, however, the case will proceed and the district court will analyze the constitutionality and statutory validity of its program under the correct standards of Equal Protection and Title IX.

WSJ Reports on Brain Similarities Between Adolescents of Different Sex

Yesterday's Wall Street Journal reported findings of government research that casts doubt on assumptions that male and female brains are significantly different during adolescence. As the article put it:

A common stereotype is that boys develop more slowly than girls, putting them at a disadvantage in school where pressure to perform is starting ever younger. Another notion is that puberty is a time when boys' and girls' brains grow more dissimilar, accounting for some of the perceived disparities between the sexes. Now, some scientists are debunking such thinking. Although boys' and girls' brains show differences around age 10, during puberty key parts of their brains become more similar, according to recent government research. And, rather than growing more slowly, boys' brains instead are simply developing differently.

The article also described research that puts those differences into context:

Dr. Eliot cites a neuro-imaging study from last year that showed the female brain has stronger neuronal connections than the male brain in certain areas, and vice versa. But in general, the study found that the male and female brains show more commonality than difference, Dr. Eliot says. The study, which looks at about 1,100 brain scans, was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Dr. Giedd of the NIMH says his research also showed there are exceptions. In about 10% of the young people studied, boys' and girls' brains were more similar to the brains of the opposite sex than to others' of the same sex. Dr. Giedd says many factors can affect the rate of brain development, including the strength or weakness of testosterone receptors. Testosterone, a hormone usually associated with male traits, is present in both sexes and can help determine how quickly parts of the brain develop that account for typical male-dominated functions.

Because advocates of single-sex education point to such differences to defend the practice of separating boys and girls in the classroom, these findings could be relevant to the legal question of whether such efforts are based on generalizations about sex differences, and therefore impermissible under Equal Protection standards. They could also be relevant to the policy question of whether it makes sense to segregate on the basis of sex, rather than other indicators of learning styles and intellectual development.

Pilot mentoring program ended in PA

From Ms magazine, news that a mentoring program in Pennsylvania has been revamped due to the controversy over its practice of segregation. Homerooms at McCaskey East High School in Lancaster were divided based on race and gender. Though this article says that the mentoring program itself was segregated and only available to some students who met, as part of the program, once a day for a short time as well as twice a month. Rather than abandon the program, however, the school is opening it up to all students.