Category: Educational Equality

Judge Overturns Dress Code Requiring Girls to Wear Skirts

~ mcequality

First #LeggingsGate, now this: a judge in North Carolina has ruled against a charter school’s sexist dress code requiring girls to wear skirts, deeming it unconstitutional.The New York Times reports that the ruling was part of a multi-year effort spearheaded by three girls attending Charter Day School in Leland, North Carolina. The students, ages 5, 10, and 14, launched a petition calling for an end to the school’s uniform policy prohibiting girls from wearing pants, arguing (correctly) that it was unfair for their movement to be restricted when the boys were free to move as they pleased.

via Judge Overturns Dress Code Requiring Girls to Wear Skirts

‘Highly Offended’ White Teacher Kicked My 9-Year-Old Son Out of Class for Taking Knee During Pledge

~ mcequality

When my 9-year-old son told me that he had been thrown out of his fourth-grade class for kneeling during the Pledge of Allegiance, I was mildly surprised by his actions, but furious with his teachers.

Their instinctive responses were harsh reminders of how deeply white supremacy is embedded in the classroom. But more important for me in that moment were the shaming and intimidation tactics used against my child.

via ‘Highly Offended’ White Teacher Kicked My 9-Year-Old Son Out of Class for Taking Knee During Pledge

Angelina Jolie’s Breadwinner spotlights Afghan girls’ plight – BBC News

~ mcequality

The Breadwinner, made by Irish film-maker Nora Twomey, is an animation written, produced and directed by women, and adapted from the Canadian bestseller by author Deborah Ellis.
It features the voice of teenage Canadian actor Saara Chaudry as Parvana, an 11-year-old growing up under the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2001.
When her father is wrongfully arrested, Parvana disguises herself as a boy to save her mother and sisters from starvation, as women are unable to leave their house without a male relative.
Although it’s a story for children, it doesn’t disguise the details of life under the Taliban – including what happens when a woman is caught in the street without a burka.

via Angelina Jolie’s Breadwinner spotlights Afghan girls’ plight – BBC News

USC Students Sue School, Campus Gynecologist for Decades-Long Sexual Misconduct

~ mcequality

Last week, Jezebel reported on George Tyndall, the University of Southern California student health center’s primary gynecologist who was allowed to continue practicing at the school despite years of sexual misconduct allegations. Since the 1990s, Tyndall has been accused of making sexualized comments about patients’ bodies while giving exams, photographing their genitals, and racially targeting Chinese patients, among other crimes. On Monday, a class-action lawsuit was filed against Tyndall, USC, and its board of trustees by “a proposed class of hundreds, if not thousands, of women students,” according to attorneys from Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP, a nationwide litigation law firm.

via USC Students Sue School, Campus Gynecologist for Decades-Long Sexual Misconduct

How physics gender gap starts in the classroom – BBC News

~ mcequality

Some progress has been made in encouraging girls to study physics at A-level, according to a report by the Institute of Physics (IoP).
In 2016, 1.9% of girls chose A-level physics, up from 1.6% in 2011.
But that compared with 6.5% for boys in 2016 and 44% of schools in England still send no girls at all to study the subject.
The IoP said physics-based skills were essential for many future careers, from artificial intelligence to aerospace.

via How physics gender gap starts in the classroom – BBC News

The Department of Education Is Investigating Yale University for, of all Things, Discriminating Against Men

~ mcequality

Betsy DeVos’s Department of Education—its civil rights office (OCR) to be precise—is now, get this, investigating Yale University over a Title IX complaint alleging the institution discriminates against men.

The doctoral student who filed the complaint, one Kursat Pegkoz, doesn’t even go to Yale. Independent student newspaper Yale Daily News, which reported the story, writes that Pegkoz is attending the University of Southern California. Pegkoz has reportedly filed similar complaints against two other universities, including USC, and is in no way affiliated with Yale.

via The Department of Education Is Investigating Yale University for, of all Things, Discriminating Against Men

How Technology Ends Inequality – Entrepreneur First – Medium

~ mcequality

There are many good points in this piece, some of them positive, some negative…

240,000,000 Indians use Facebook.
And while Mark Zuckerberg’s bank account contains 10,000,000 times more money than the average Indian’s, his Facebook account works more or less identically.
Quick and cheap distribution goes both ways — it creates financial inequality and experience equality. You can’t pay for a better Facebook experience.

via How Technology Ends Inequality – Entrepreneur First – Medium