ERA’s Student Leadership Board is comprised of 20 high school-aged girls who receive ongoing mentorship from ERA staff attorneys on civic engagement, the legislative process, as well as receiving support and counsel to pursue a career in law. Currently, the Student Leadership Board is assisting ERA with enforcement of Title IX in San Francisco Unified School District. You can buy a Youth Power Ticket securely at events.equalrights.org or call us at 415-575-2388.

With just $175, you will help change the life of a young woman!

Learn more:

• Press release
• NBC’s troubling report which prompted ERA’s investigation
• NBC’s follow-up interview with ERA Executive Director Noreen Farrell
• NBC’s second interview with Noreen, about a related lawsuit detailing sexual abuse of female elementary school students by a teacher

With the assistance of ERA and co-counsel, Professor Bhattacharya filed charges with the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission alleging discrimination based on sex, race, national origin, and sexual orientation.  After receiving ERA’s complaint, Pitzer College reversed its previous position and awarded Professor Bhattacharya tenure.  ERA continues to work with co-counsel from Campins Benham-Baker, LLP to resolve Professor Bhattacharya’s pay discrimination claims.  Professor Bhattacharya alleges that she experienced ongoing pay discrimination from the outset of her employment at the College. She asserts that, despite having four years of prior tenure-track experience, the College placed her in an entry-level pay grade, and has paid her less than male professors with similar experience and qualifications throughout her employment at Pitzer.

According to Professor Bhattacharya: “I am surprised that a college that so strongly articulates a commitment to social responsibility would not be more concerned with investigating and addressing unequal treatment and would not work harder to maintain a fair, consistent, clear, and transparent process with respect to faculty promotions. I hope that changes will be made so that all junior faculty at the institution, particularly women and women of color, are not subjected to what I have gone through.”

ERA is continuing to take on gender discrimination in schools and colleges and the workplace in collaboration with sister organizations across the country, including the American Association of University Women.

The Student Leadership Board was formed with two goals in mind. First, the student leaders would participate in a series of workshops to help them build their skills as individuals and empower their abilities as community leaders; and second, the student leaders would advise ERA’s Title IX and other gender equity work (including outreach and education materials).

The Student Leadership Board would not have been possible without the valuable contributions of several key partner organizations.  Over the last few months, staff attorney Jamie Dolkas has worked closely with key strategic partners to recruit a diverse group of young leaders to participate in the Student Leadership Board.  ERA is a member of the Alliance for Girls, a coalition of a diverse range of girl-serving organizations in the Bay Area, and is working closely with this coalition to strengthen our outreach.  Working with these organizations, ERA recruited approximately 25 student leaders who were nominated for the program. These young women are representatives organizations doing great work to empower young women, including those from low-income families and facing other obstacles.  These include Center for Young Women’s Development (CYWD), Sisters Rising, Turning Heads, and Sojourn to the Past.

On January 24, 2013, ERA held the first Student Leadership Board meeting.  Students were introduced to the program and participated in an interactive Title IX know-your-rights training workshop.  Students learned about their rights under Title IX and how to use this law to combat gender discrimination and bullying in schools, fight for fair access to athletic programs and other educational opportunities, and ensure equal educational opportunities for pregnant and parenting students.

The workshop was a huge success, and the student leaders were very engaged in lively discussions about the major Title IX-related issues that are impacting their schools.  At the end of the workshop, we went around the room and each student identified one issue that they view as the biggest problem when it comes to achieving gender equity in schools.  The Board came up with the following “Title IX Priority List” of the top issues they would like to address in their schools:

• Cyber bullying;
• Victim-blaming;
• Teachers/school officials/adults not taking harassment and bullying seriously;
• Sexual harassment;
• Verbal comments that continue to escalate/intensify over time;
• Educating parents and teachers;
• Rumors as a form of harassment and bullying;
• Gender-based comments (not necessarily sexual);
• How to empower students who are bullied;
• Girl-on-girl bullying;
• Sexual orientation-based bullying, discrimination, and harassment;
• Group bullying/ganging up; and
• Knowing your legal rights and having the law behind you.

On February 11, 2013 ERA held a second Student Leadership Board workshop – a writing boot camp to help build students’ sense of voice and improve their writing skills to empower them to speak out about Title IX-related issues affecting their communities.  This workshop is part of an ongoing blog-writing project that will give students an opportunity to publish articles on ERA’s website.  Students turned in essays at the beginning of the workshop discussing their own experiences of sexual harassment, gender-based discrimination and bullying, and other forms of sex discrimination at school.  During the workshop training, students engaged in exercises to help them identify their unique style and tone as a writer.  They also participated in lively, heated debates about contested Title IX-related issues, designed to help them formulate opinions on these issues and put these opinions into words.  The students expressed a wide range of viewpoints.

We will be working with the students over the next few weeks to continue to cultivate their opinions and put them into writing.  Each student leader will write and edit a blog, and we’ll post many of the blogs on ERA’s website.  We’re excited to hear from our Student Leaders and look forward to showcasing their excellent contributions.  Stay tuned for updates on the Student Leadership Board blog project!

While the case, Mansourian v. Regents of the University of California, continued long after the graduation of Arezou, Christine and Lauren, the women racked up a series of victories for Title IX culminating in the settlement of the case in February 2012.

In August 2011, the three women scored a major win after a three-week bench trial on the issue of whether UC Davis violated Title IX when they were students. A federal district court in Sacramento found in their favor, ruling that UCD dropped more than 60 intercollegiate sports opportunities for women without replacing them – soundly defeating the University’s claim that it had been expanding opportunities for women to satisfy Title IX.

Other legal milestones included a landmark win at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals which rejected the imposition of procedural hurdles to Title IX suits challenging athletic participation inequities and creation of a fund that has awarded over $70,000 in grants to developing female athletes on the UC Davis campus. More information about the legal victories here: http://www.equalrights.org/media/2012/MansourianPressReleaseFinal.pdf

Shortly the lawsuit was filed, women’s wrestling made its Olympic debut in 2004 and today thousands of girls now participate in wrestling across the country.

Christine: “All we ever wanted was to represent UC Davis in sports. We litigated this case for nearly 10 difficult years and missed that opportunity. It should not have to take that long to achieve justice, but we are happy that the lives of many young women attending UC Davis after we did have benefited and will benefit from our fight for Title IX.”

Lauren: “The case paved the way for so many girls who wanted to wrestle or participate in other non-traditional sports. For that, we are proud.”

Arezou: “I have fought for women’s rights in college athletics for the past 10 years and the change it has brought for the future of women athletes has been worth the battle.”

“Without NBC’s investigation into many Title IX issues and concerns how would we know about half of what’s going on in bay area schools?” Noreen Farrell, with Equal Rights Advocates told the Investigative Unit.

ERA has also filed a request for information from Evergreen, asking for proof it’s following Title IX. She is still waiting for answers.

“What I would advise a school district that has faced these horrible allegations is that they should be upfront doing everything to make sure students feel safe, parents feel confident and that members of the public feel confident,” Farrell said.

“For educators to stick their heads in the sand about sexual abuse of minors and the application of Title IX is a real problem.”

“Picking up on a recent investigative report by the NBC Bay Area Investigative Unit, the nonprofit Equal Rights Advocates (ERA) is requesting that 100 Bay Area schools offer evidence of compliance with Title IX, the federal law that makes it illegal for any educational outlet receiving federal funding to discriminate on the basis of gender. . .ERA executive director Noreen Farrell says that is “troubling that 40 years after [Title IX’s] passage, we are still seeing these kinds of problems” and that the failure of some schools to live up to Title IX’s mandates “really sends this message to girls that…protecting you from sexual harassment isn’t important enough to us.”

Full article is here.

According to Title IX, schools must follow a series of basic regulations (including appointing a Title IX coordinator who investigates discrimination and harassment complaints), but an NBC Bay Area investigation revealed such rules may be ignored in local schools.

To read more about ERA’s efforts to get to the bottom of the allegations, read our press release here.

The action follows on the heels of a troubling report by the investigative unit of NBC Bay Area on October 30, 2012, which revealed widespread ignorance of and non-compliance with basic requirements of Title IX among 200 Bay Area schools, including its requirement that schools designate a “Title IX coordinator” to receive and investigate and act upon sex discrimination and harassment complaints. The investigation reveals that principals at some Bay Area schools were unaware of Title IX and could not identify the school’s Title IX coordinator or if the school even had one. See the complete NBC Bay Area video report: “Bay Area Schools Ignoring Title IX?”

Equal Rights Advocates Executive Director Noreen Farrell commented: “Ignorance of Title IX’s basic requirements by school leaders forty years after its passage is shameful and it is hurting girls. Equal Rights Advocates hears from students and parents across California and the country who don’t know their rights, and have no idea where to turn when they face sexual harassment or other discriminatory treatment at school.”

In response to the disturbing results of the NBC investigation, Equal Rights Advocates is filing formal Public Records Act requests with over 100 school districts in the Bay Area requesting documents that evidence or describe their efforts to comply with Title IX, including the identity and contact information for their Title IX coordinators, any written policies and procedures relating to compliance with Title IX, documents relating to Title IX training programs, and the districts’ responses to any Title IX complaints that have been filed over the last three years (redacting any personal information to protect the privacy of those who are involved.)

“Our goal in collecting this information will be to identify gaps in Title IX compliance and to encourage San Francisco Bay Area school district officials to take immediate steps to bring their districts into compliance,” said Farrell. ERA Legal Director Jennifer Reisch added: “ERA intends to enforce Title IX. Millions of girls depend on it.”

About ERA: Equal Rights Advocates (ERA), founded in 1974, is a national civil rights organization dedicated to protecting and expanding economic and educational access and opportunities for women and girls. Through its campaign approach—incorporating public education, legislative advocacy, and litigation—ERA seeks to assist women and girls throughout a life-long continuum: ensuring equality in their educational experience, combating sex discrimination in the workforce, and advocating for workplaces hospitable to working families. To learn more about ERA’s work, visit www.equalrights.org.