Title IX, Community Colleges, and the STEM Gender Gap

Title IX, Community Colleges, and the STEM Gender Gap

By Neil Rutledge

The underrepresentation of women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) at the postsecondary level, ranging from associate’s to doctoral degree programs, has remained one of the most pernicious problems in higher education, with consequences that range from the individual to the societal level. To take one example, women still earn less than 20% of bachelor’s degrees in engineering and computer and information science.^[1] This remains the case despite the fact that the Civil Rights Restoration Act of 1987 affirmed that Title IX applies broadly to equity in education, including equal access to higher education, athletics, career education, employment, an equitable learning environment, access to math and science programs, freedom from sexual harassment, fairness in standardized testing, and fair treatment and support for pregnant and parenting teens.^[2]

In recent years a number of strategies have been employed to try to identify the barriers to women entering STEM fields, including societal perceptions, a lack of professional networks and social supports,^[3] and a tendency among some educators to overlook talented young women on the basis of unsupported assumptions about gender. Among the many interventions needed to correct the STEM imbalance, Title IX remains a powerful remedy for removing barriers to women entering STEM fields. The beauty of Title IX is that it is aimed at approaching problems of equity preemptively, meaning that it doesn’t rely on remedial systems like employment discrimination litigation that seek to address harms only after the damage has been done.^[4] That is to say, Title IX aims to proactively create systems and institutional structures that prevent harms to individuals rather than relying on highly-imperfect remedies that address harms only after the fact.

In her paper Harnessing Title IX to Improve Gender Parity in Community College STEM Education: A Case Study,^[5] Famuditimi-Bello explores several potential “points of intervention wherein Title IX provisions could be explicitly harnessed (in a community college setting) to improve STEM programming and institutional support for all STEM scholars and particularly for women.”^[6] She explicitly identifies “four potentially fruitful intervention strategies:

1.    Improving students’ and administrators’ understandings of Title IX

2.    increasing students' awareness of, and accesses to, STEM-mandated academic and technological supports

3.    actively expanding the number of female role models in STEM, and students’ interfaces with role models

4.    enhancing the attractiveness of, access to, and participation in, campus STEM clubs and pre-professional groups”

Famuditimi-Bello notes that “community colleges play an essential role in the STEM education pipeline, especially for women and minorities.” As Famuditimi-Bello notes, “of roughly 25% of biological science, natural science, and physical science majors, 33% of students pursuing master's degrees, and 8% of doctoral degree candidates began their studies in two-year learning institutions.” Given the formative role that community colleges play in these students' paths to the STEM workforce, it is essential that community colleges create and support institutions and mechanisms that ensure that women enjoy equal access to resources that support their success and flourishing.

One particularly compelling model for implementing the third and fourth interventions  Famuditimi-Bello identifies are programs that aim to bring together college students, women professionally active in STEM fields, and girls in elementary and middle school to engage in STEM-related extracurricular programs. These programs provide college students with professional contacts and role models, while serving as role models themselves to girls in elementary and middle school. These are generally before- and after- school programs where elementary and middle school girls gather together to code, experiment with robotics, or conduct science experiments - all in an environment focused on fun and free of the pressures of judgement or grades. These programs were developed, in part, to address a gap in previous efforts to recruit young women into STEM fields; although prior programs were successful at boosting girls’ scores on STEM exams, that failed to fully translate into more women choosing to pursue STEM degrees, as a discouraging number nevertheless lost interest in STEM as they moved through middle and high school. Recent research indicates that the aforementioned programs are effective at ameliorating that interest gap, keeping talented girls and young women engaged as they move into late middle school and beyond.^[7]

And of course the benefits don’t only accrue to elementary and middle school students; the benefits of these programs are threefold: 1) they provide collegiate women with professional contacts, role models, and a sense of community, 2) they help to satisfy a college’s obligations under Title IX, and 3) as discussed, they help address the “interest gap” experienced by some elementary and middle school girls.^[8]

 One need not look far for examples of programs built around some of these objectives. While not directly sponsored by a college or university, Girls Code Lincoln is a local 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that “strive(s) to ignite passion for technology and leadership in young girls with the long-term goal of closing the gender gap in STEM.” The program hosts coding and technology clubs for 4th-9th grade girls that build confidence in a supportive environment while exposing them to role-models in the form of women who have made their careers in science and technology, as well as college-age women pursuing STEM degrees.

By creating programs that proactively address challenges of equity, a variety of methods can be utilized to accommodate a school's obligations under Title IX that have a variety of ancillary benefits - more-fully integrating women into STEM programs is but one example. And when designing programs that address Title IX obligations schools need not start from scratch but instead can draw on the successes of other programs, whether they were developed within the context of Title IX compliance or outside of it.