Tuesday, December 02, 2008

Pittsburgh schools will do Title IX audit

I thought we had written about this before, but apparently there are a lot of Title IX issues in Pennsylvania public schools--so it's easy to get confused.
In what appears to be a collaborative effort, the nine schools in a Pittsburgh school district will start an internal Title IX audit. Issues of discrimination (no specifics though) against female student-athletes have been known since 2001 investigation by a local newspaper.
The schools will work with a Title IX expert as well as the Women's Law Project (their presence makes one believe that district administrators did not just wake up one morning and decide to do this of their own volition). Though it should be noted, as a WLP attorney has, that the schools are doing this audit even though there is no litigation pending. This in itself is impressive--no matter the impetus--given that so many schools turn a blind eye or engage in some heavy denial even when faced with lawsuits and a mountain of evidence of discriminatory treatment.
The audit will last about two weeks. No word on when reports of the findings will be released.