Christa Hoff Sommers

This article from feminist law profs poses the intriguing question “What if Title IX applied to math and science courses?”  Title IX has been applied to college sports, but has not yet been applied to the sciences.  However, we have heard many rumblings by science college professors that this may happen in the future.  The feminist law profs seem to be in favor of such an action, but also present a contrary opinion by Christa Hoff Sommers, who is Resident Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research.  Sommers claims that “while Title IX has been effective in promoting women’s participation in sports, it has also caused serious damage, in part because it has led to the adoption of a quota system.”  Sommers claims just as Title IX has devastated college sports, the application of Title IX to the academic sciences would also be “devastating,” because it would force a calibration of the numbers that is not in sync with the numbers of interested and qualified women and men.  (By the way, her evidence of the devastation of college sports is that some colleges have lost some of their male sports teams.)

First of all, let us say that Sommers’ fear of quotas and “calibration” is widespread in this country.  As soon as you mention affirmative action, or anything of the sort, the little hairs on the necks of white men all around the country stand up, and a wall of resistance is encountered.  So, let us first say that we agree that if we lived in an ideal world, where everyone, regardless of race or gender had equal opportunities to pursue the lives they wanted, then “calibration” would not be necessary or wanted.  However, we don’t live in that ideal world and so we must take some action to eliminate barriers based upon race and gender.  The general “action” that people have been taking in the sciences is to let things fix themselves over time.  However, the numbers show that things are not improving over time at a rate that any person should find acceptable.  Therefore, it is interesting to consider the action of applying Title IX to the sciences.  We are in favor of such an action.

Now, let’s look at Sommers’ argument.  She speaks repeatedly of a “calibration” that would be enforced via Title IX.  We hear this argument all the time- that it is unfair and unnatural to fix the numbers such that women and men are 50/50 in academic sciences.  However, what people always seem to miss in their arguments is that “calibration” has always been occurring- that is essentially what discrimination enforces- a calibration in favor of whomever is in power (it is currently men in the sciences).  So, we say that if there has to be a calibration, then it should be a calibration not as a result of discrimination, but as a result of efforts to ensure gender and racial equity.  We think that the former type of calibration is contrary to our national interest and that the latter type of calibration is in line with our national interest.

Sommers has missed the essential fact that academic science is already devastated by the existing discrimination-based calibration because it is not getting the top minds in our country.  How can the sciences get the top ten percent of human minds if it is only dipping into one gender pool?  We know from study after study that there are no genetic, gender-based differences between men and women that makes one gender better at the sciences than the other.  Therefore, it follows from basic logic that if 90% of the academic science professors are men- then our colleges and universities are getting ripped off.  We are being forced to dip into the moderately intelligent male pool to make up for the fact that the fabulously brilliant females were discouraged from pursuing science.

Indeed it is in our national interest to apply Title IX to academic science. In regards to Sommers’ empassioned example of how callibration has affected male sports- we really have a hard time shedding a tear over a few lost male sports teams in a country that spends way too much time, money, and energy invested in male hero-worshipping in the form of male college and professional sports.