Higher Education Quick Takes

The battles over Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, the federal law requiring gender equity in education programs receiving federal funds, frequently focus on numbers. This week the College Sports Council, which argues that Title IX is encouraging colleges to eliminate men's teams, issued a new report to advance its cause. As reported by the Associated Press, the report analyzed 19 sports in which men and women both compete and found that women have more opportunities to earn college scholarships. As the article noted, that method of comparison manages to leave out one arguably significant sport in analyzing gender and athletic opportunities: football.

Democratic leaders in the House of Representatives on Wednesday formally introduced legislation to restructure the federal student aid programs and signaled their intention to move with lightning speed to pass it. The Committee on Education and Labor announced that it would take up the $87 billion legislation next Tuesday, and given the strong Democratic majority on the panel, as well as in Congress, passage is assured. The legislation got a strong endorsement Wednesday from the Obama administration, whose student loan proposal the House legislation closely mirrors. On a telephone news conference with Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), chairman of the Education and Labor Committee, Education Secretary Arne Duncan offered his "clear support" for the House bill despite some differences with President Obama's original plan, and said it was fully consistent with the administration's plan's "fundamental principles." While the House bill would not make the Pell Grant Program an entitlement, which would be too expensive, Duncan said the measure's plan to use mandatory funds to ensure that the size of the maximum grant keeps pace with inflation plus 1 percent was a "good compromise." Duncan and Miller also both went out of their way -- in discussing the money the House bill would make available to fund President Obama's proposed $12 billion community college initiative -- to emphasize how the legislation would turn up the pressure on colleges to ensure that they are not just admitting students, but getting them to degrees. Discussing community college graduation rates, Miller said that the "statistics are currently not acceptable to the administration or the Congress," and said the legislation was designed to ensure that "community colleges change and adapt to the needs of our society and our families. That test will be on the community colleges."

The National Collegiate Athletic Association requires members colleges to make sure athletes have health insurance before competing. But an analysis in The New York Times noted that the NCAA doesn't specify the quality or extent of insurance coverage, leaving many athletes surprised and angry that they must handle large bills, without assistance, for athletic injuries. The NCAA has coverage that may be used in catastrophic cases, but many injuries exceed levels of student coverage but are short of catastrophic, the Times found. In addition, the article noted that many students are covered by their parents' plans, but that these policies typically exclude injuries from varsity athletics.

A federal judge has issued an injunction barring the Los Angeles Community College District from using parts of its sexual harassment policy, which are being challenged in court as too vague, too broad, and too easy to use to squelch free speech. The judge's ruling came in a suit by Jonathan Lopez, a student charges that his public speaking professor at Los Angeles City College called him a "fascist bastard" for a speech during which the student read a dictionary definition of marriage and two Bible passages. The suit says that the harassment policy helped lead to his ideas being mocked and rejected by his instructor. The district argued in court that no injunction was needed because the student has since received a good grade and the professor was punished, but the court rejected those arguments. Camille A. Goulet, general counsel for the district, issued a statement in which she said that the district hasn't decided whether to appeal. She added that the district "recognizes and respects the difficult balance that often arises in meeting its commitment to providing an environment of academic freedom, as well as an environment that is welcoming and fulfills the mandate to prevent unlawful harassment."