Single Sex Classes and Title IX

On Monday, December 1, the Department of Education, through its Office for Civil Rights (OCR), issued new guidance on the legality of single-sex elementary and secondary classes and extracurricular activities offered by recipients of funding from the Department. 

The thirty-one (31) page guidance, which can be accessed at: http://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/docs/faqs-title-ix-single-sex-201412.pdf, is written entirely in question and answer format.  The Department's Title IX regulations identify the following categories for which a recipient may intentionally separate students by sex:

• Contact sports in physical education classes;
• Classes or portions of classes in elementary and secondary schools that deal primarily with human sexuality; and
• Nonvocational classes and extracurricular activities within a coeducational, nonvocational elementary or secondary school if certain criteria are met.

The guidance focuses primarily on the last exception above, and sets forth in detail the criteria that must be met in order to offer single sex classes.  These include any single-sex curricular activity (such as a class or a field trip) and any single-sex extracurricular activity (such as before-school or after-school activity, lunch, or recess).  OCR does not address interscholastic, club, or intramural athletics in the guidance because extracurricular athletics are governed by separate Title IX regulations.

The basic criteria that must be met to offer single-sex classes under the Department's Title IX regulations requires a two-part justification that demonstrates that each single-sex class is (1) based on the recipient's "important objective" either to improve its students' educational achievement through its overall established policies to provide diverse educational opportunities (the diversity objective), or to meet the particular, identified educational needs of its students (the needs objective); and (2) the single-sex nature of the class is "substantially related" to achieving that important objective.

In addition to establishing a justification for offering a single-sex class, in order to comply with the Department's Title IX regulations, the recipient must:

• Implement its objective in an evenhanded manner;
• Ensure that student enrollment in the single-sex class is completely voluntary;
• Provide a substantially equal coeducational class in the same subject; and
• Conduct periodic evaluations to determine whether the class complies with Title IX, and if not, modify or discontinue the class to ensure compliance with Title IX.

The Department provided practical guidance in the announcement accompanying the regulation, stating that to offer single-sex classes or extracurricular activities, schools must:

• Identify an important objective that they seek to achieve by offering a single-sex class (such as improving academic achievement);
• Demonstrate that the single-sex nature of the class is substantially related to achieving that objective;
• Ensure that enrollment in the single-sex class is completely voluntary (through an opt-in, rather than an opt-out, process);
• Offer a substantially equal coed class in the same subject;
• Offer single-sex classes evenhandedly to male and female students;
• Conduct periodic evaluations at least every two years to ensure that the classes continue to comply with Title IX;
• Avoid relying on gender stereotypes;
• Provide equitable access to single-sex classes to students with disabilities and English language learners and,
• Avoid discriminating against faculty members based on gender when assigning educators to single-sex classrooms.

The document discusses each of these elements, and is worth a study if your District is considering or offers any single sex classes.  It includes many examples and thoroughly explains the 2006 OCR regulations that generally expanded the use of single-sex education and all of the questions that have come to OCR since that time.