May, 13 2014, 03:15pm EDT
ACLU Files Federal Complaint Challenging Single-Sex Class Program Rooted in Stereotypes at Florida's Second Largest School District
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights calling for a federal investigation into Hillsborough County Public Schools in Florida, stating that the district's single-sex classrooms program violates Title IX.
TAMPA, Florida
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights calling for a federal investigation into Hillsborough County Public Schools in Florida, stating that the district's single-sex classrooms program violates Title IX. The complaint, with evidence primarily from information discovered by ACLU requests under Florida's public records law, states that the district's program is based on stereotypes and discredited notions about how boys and girls learn and develop, and that the District has misled parents about how sex-segregated classrooms were working in the district.
Hillsborough County Public Schools is the second largest school district in Florida and one of the ten largest school districts in the United States. Since 2009, the District has provided sex-segregated classes in at least sixteen schools - including one high school and fifteen elementary schools - as well as operating two exclusively single-sex middle schools. The complaint states that the justification for such a program was based on sex stereotypes and discredited notions about "biological differences in boys and girls that affect learning."
"The Hillsborough School District has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxpayer funds to implement a hidden curriculum promoting the theory that boys and girls are so fundamentally different that they need to be taught using radically different teaching methods," said Galen Sherwin, Senior Staff Attorney of the ACLU Women's Rights Project. "The truth is that every student learns differently, and our public schools should not be in the business of making crude judgments about children's educational needs based solely on whether they are a boy or a girl."
In an accompanying letter to the Florida Department of Education, the ACLU argues that the need for both federal intervention and a full state investigation on single-sex education is all the more urgent in light of the signing by Governor Rick Scott of a bill, HB 313, which requires training for teachers of "gender specific" classrooms in all Florida school districts. The governor signed the bill on May 12, and it goes into effect on July 1st.
The ACLU's complaint states that the Hillsborough School District spent almost $100,000 on outside consultants to promote the idea that boys' and girls' brains are inherently different, and that teachers of children as young as kindergarteners were trained in teaching methods based on sex stereotypes in sessions with names like "Busy Boys, Little Ladies." The ACLU argues that both the federal and state education departments should issue guidelines to ensure that the training mandated under HB 313 does not rest on sex stereotypes.
The information in the complaint was gleaned from public records requests filed as part of the ACLU's "Teach Kids, Not Stereotypes" initiative to end the practices of separating boys and girls in public schools based on discredited science about boys' and girls' purportedly different brains and learning styles. ACLU's investigation has shown that many such programs, including numerous programs in the state of Florida, are based on the ideas of Dr. Leonard Sax and other proponents of single-sex education, whose discredited theories on the supposed differences between boys' and girls' brains are rooted in archaic stereotypes. For example, Sax says that girls do badly under stress, so they should not be given time limits on a test; and that boys who like to read, do not enjoy contact sports and do not have a lot of close male friends should be firmly disciplined, required to spend time with "normal males" and made to play sports.
The Complaint provides evidence that in Hillsborough County, impermissible gender stereotypes were incorporated into almost every aspect of the educational environment. For example, the District encouraged teachers in boys' classrooms to "be louder" and "have high expectations," while teachers in girls' classrooms were expected to be "calmer" and "less critical." In one instance, boys had an electronics day, where they could bring in all their electronics and play them if they behaved, while girls did not. In another, the teacher in a girls' classroom gave each girl a dab of perfume on her wrist for doing a task correctly.
"Basing academic school programs solely on students' gender and gender stereotypes is not good for Florida's students, or for Florida's future," stated ACLU of Florida Associate Legal Director Maria Kayanan. "In Hillsborough County, we've seen that thousands of students - girls and boys both - are having their learning experiences limited by academic programs shaped by junk science. Students in Florida classrooms deserve better, and both state and federal law promise them that."
In order to safeguard against sex discrimination, federal law prohibits coeducational schools from implementing single-sex programs unless they meet extremely stringent legal requirements. At a minimum, schools must offer a persuasive justification for the decision to institute single-sex programming, the programs must be completely voluntary, and a substantially equal co-educational alternative must be available.
The complaint, authored by the ACLU of Florida and the ACLU's Women Rights Project, requests that the Department of Education Office for Civil Rights investigate all schools in Hillsborough County Public Schools that have instituted sex-segregated classrooms, order Hillsborough County Public School District to remedy any unlawful conduct, and monitor and secure assurances of compliance with Title IX from all schools within the District. The ACLU further reiterated its request that the Florida Department of Education fulfill its mandate to ensure compliance with state law and conduct its own investigation.
A copy of the complaint is available here: https://aclufl.org/resources/title-ix-complaint-hillsborough-single-sex-classes/
A cover letter sent with the complaint which summarizes the ACLU's findings is available here: https://aclufl.org/resources/hillsborough-schools-usdoe-cover-letter/
The letter to the Florida Department of Education is available here: https://aclufl.org/resources/letter-to-fl-doe-hillsborough-same-sex-classes/
The American Civil Liberties Union was founded in 1920 and is our nation's guardian of liberty. The ACLU works in the courts, legislatures and communities to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to all people in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States.
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Top G20 Ministers Back 2% Wealth Tax for Global Billionaires
"It is time that the international community gets serious about tackling inequality and financing global public goods."
Apr 25, 2024
Ministers from four major economies on Thursday called for a 2% wealth tax targeting the world's billionaires—who currently only pay up to 0.5% of their wealth in personal income tax—to "invest in public goods such as health, education, the environment, and infrastructure."
Fernando Haddad, Brazil's finance minister; Svenja Schulze, Germany's minister for economic cooperation and development; Enoch Godongwana, South Africa's finance minister; Carlos Cuerpo, Spain's minister of economy, trade, and business; and MarĂa JesĂşs Montero, Spain's first vice president and finance minister, made their case in an opinion piece for The Guardian.
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"What the international community managed to do with the global minimum tax on multinational companies, it can do with billionaires."
Brazil, Germany, and South Africa are all Group of 20 members while Spain is a permanent guest. The ministers noted that "Brazil has made the fight against hunger, poverty, and inequality a priority of its G20 presidency, a priority that German development policy also pursues and that Spain has ambitiously addressed domestically and globally."
"By directing two-thirds of total expenditure on social services and wage support, as well as by calibrating tax policy administration, South Africa continues to target a progressive tax and fiscal agenda that confronts the country's legacy of income and wealth inequality," they wrote.
The ministers continued:
It is time that the international community gets serious about tackling inequality and financing global public goods. One of the key instruments that governments have for promoting more equality is tax policy. Not only does it have the potential to increase the fiscal space governments have to invest in social protection, education, and climate protection. Designed in a progressive way, it also ensures that everyone in society contributes to the common good in line with their ability to pay. A fair share contribution enhances social welfare.
With exactly these goals in mind, Brazil brought a proposal for a global minimum tax on billionaires to the negotiation table of the world's major economies for the first time. It is a necessary third pillar that complements the negotiations on the taxation of the digital economy and on a minimum corporate tax of 15% for multinationals. The renowned economist Gabriel Zucman sketched out how this might work. Currently, there are about 3,000 billionaires worldwide. The tax could be designed as a minimum levy equivalent to 2% of the wealth of the superrich. It would not apply to billionaires who already contribute a fair share in income taxes. However, those who manage to avoid paying income tax would be obliged to contribute more towards the common good.
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Except the billionaires, of course. "I don't want to be naive. I know the superrich will fight," Zucman added. "They have a hatred of taxes on wealth. They will lobby governments. They will use the media they own."
A few months ago, no one wanted to talk int. taxes, let alone on the super rich. Now we have a process (#G20), finance ministers (\ud83c\udde7\ud83c\uddf7 \ud83c\uddeb\ud83c\uddf7 \ud83c\uddff\ud83c\udde6 \ud83c\uddea\ud83c\uddf8 & others) supporting it, \ud83c\udde9\ud83c\uddea in part & everyone agreeing that proceeds should help fund climate and dev: https://t.co/ZldF557pAL— (@)
The ministers' opinion piece follows the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank's Spring Meetings last week, during which anti-poverty campaigners pressured the largest economies to address inequality with policies like taxing the superrich and to pour resources into the global debt and climate crises.
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Oxfam America policy lead Rebecca Riddell declared Thursday that "extreme inequality stands in the way of solving our most urgent global challenges. We need to tax the ultrawealthy."
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After Biden campaigned on ending the use of for-profit detention centers, said the groups, he took office at a time when fewer than 15,000 people were being held in immigration detention facilities—which gave him "a remarkable opportunity to wind down a wasteful and abusive system."
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The administration is seeking to expand a system, said the groups, in which the jails and prisons used have been found to "operate under insufficient standards."
The organizations cited a 2018 ACLU reportthat found inadequate medical care contributed to the deaths of more than half of the detained immigrants who died in custody between December 2015-April 2017; a 2021 case in which an LGBTQ+ man reported "physical and homophobic verbal abuse" at a facility in Louisiana; and the finding by Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) that the use of solitary confinement in detention centers "regularly meets the United Nations' definition of torture."
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"No, Mr. Netanyahu. It is not antisemitic or pro-Hamas to point out that in a little over six months, your extremist government has killed 34,000 Palestinians and wounded more than 77,000—70% of whom are women and children," said Sanders (I-Vt.). "It is not antisemitic to point out that your bombing has completely destroyed more than 221,000 housing units in Gaza, leaving more than one million people homeless—almost half the population."
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No, Mr. Netanyahu. It is not antisemitic or pro-Hamas to point out that in a little over six months your extremist government has killed 34,000 Palestinians and wounded more than 77,000 – 70% of whom are women and children.
You will not distract us from this immoral war. pic.twitter.com/oDaiyU4ipD
— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) April 25, 2024
Sanders' statement came a day after Netanyahu
falsely described student protesters speaking out against Israel's catastrophic war on Gaza as "antisemitic mobs" and likened the demonstrations to "what happened in German universities in the 1930s."
"It has to be stopped," Netanyahu said of the campus protests, which have faced violent police crackdowns.
Students at Columbia, Princeton, the City College of New York, the University of Texas at Austin, Northwestern, and other schools nationwide are demanding that the institutions divest from any companies that are participating in or benefiting from Israel's war on Gaza and publicly support an immediate cease-fire.
On Wednesday, hundreds of UT Austin students walked out of their classrooms and marched to the main lawn of the campus before police officers with horses and riot gear
arrived on the scene, arrested dozens, and assaulted some protesters.
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Jeremi Suri, a professor of history at UT Austin, toldAl Jazeera that contrary to Republican Gov. Greg Abbott's claim, there was "nothing antisemitic" about Wednesday's protests.
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