Contact: Rebecca Stewart

Telephone: 513-479-3335

Email: info@saveservices.org

Noting the ‘Seriousness of Penalties,’ College Administrators Suspend Trainings that Promote Sex Stereotypes

WASHINGTON / October 19, 2020 – In response to new federal requirements, college administrators have begun to stop school trainings and curricular offerings that promote stereotypes based on sex or race. For example, the University of Iowa recently announced a decision to suspend all such trainings, workshops, and programs. Noting “the seriousness of penalties for non-compliance with the order,” the pause applies to all harassment and discrimination trainings offered by the institution (1). Other institutions of higher education reportedly have made similar decisions (2).

Two federal policies are driving the re-evaluation. First, the new Department of Education sexual harassment regulation states that Title IX training activities “must not rely on sex stereotypes.” (3) Second, Executive Order 13950 directs federal agencies to suspend funding for any institution that promotes concepts that “an individual, by virtue of his or her race or sex, is inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive.” (4)

SAVE is urging administrators at colleges and universities across the country to take immediate steps to end trainings and other activities that may promote sex stereotypes. Title IX and other training programs are known to be promoting sex stereotypes in at least seven ways:

1. Domestic violence: Each year there are 4.2 million male victims of physical domestic violence, and 3.5 female victims, according to the Centers for Disease Control (5). University training programs need to clearly and accurately state these numbers.
2. Sexual assault: Nearly identical numbers of men and women are victims of sexual assault, according to the federal National Intimate Partner and Violence Survey. Each year, 1.267 million men report they were “made to sexually penetrate,” compared to 1.270 million women who report they were raped (6). But many university training programs utilize data from surveys relying on methodologies that undercount the number of male victims who were made to penetrate.
3. Annual vs. lifetime incidence: Due to well-known problems with recall and memory retrieval, lifetime incidence numbers significantly undercount domestic violence and sexual harassment incidents, especially less serious incidents that occurred in previous years. University trainings should use annual, “in the past 12 months” numbers, not “lifetime” numbers.
4. Sex-specific pronouns: In referring to domestic violence or sexual assault perpetrators and victims, many training materials misleadingly refer to the perpetrator as “he” and the victim as “she.”
5. Examples: Training materials often provide hypothetical examples to illustrate key concepts. Such examples need to highlight approximately equal number of male and female victims.
6. Imagery: Some university websites feature domestic violence incidents that portray a threatening male standing over a fearful, often cowering female. Such one-sided portrayals are misleading.
7. Negative stereotyping of men as a group: Some universities offer campus-wide programs that seek to redefine, reform, and/or stigmatize masculinity. University-sponsored courses that promote theories of “toxic masculinity,” “rape culture,” and “patriarchal privilege” are likely to be in violation of the federal ban on sex stereotyping. Such stereotypes serve to undermine principles of fairness and equity for male students.

For example, the University of Texas offers a program titled “MasculinUT.” The program’s website states that concerns about sexual assault and interpersonal violence justify the “need to engage men in discussions about masculinity as one tool to prevent violence.” (7) The university does not offer a similar program directed at females, thereby creating an unlawful stereotype of male perpetrators and female victims.

Some universities teach courses that feature the American Psychological Association report, “Guidelines for Psychological Practice with Boys and Men.”  (8) The accompanying APA article made the stereotyping claim that “traditional masculinity — marked by stoicism, competitiveness, dominance and aggression — is, on the whole, harmful.”

To date, the SAVE Title IX Equity Project has submitted 20 complaints to the federal Office for Civil Rights for non-compliance with regulatory requirements for Title IX training materials (10).

Links:

1. https://diversity.uiowa.edu/regarding-executive-order-13950?utm
2. https://blog.aspb.org/policy-update-uneven-implementation-of-executive-order-on-race-and-sex-stereotyping/
3. https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/docs/titleix-regs-unofficial.pdf 45(b)(1)(iii)
4. https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/executive-order-combating-race-sex-stereotyping/
5. https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/pdf/2015data-brief508.pdf Tables 9 and 11.
6. Lara Stemple and Ilan Meyer. The Sexual Victimization of Men in America: New Data Challenge Old Assumptions. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4062022/
7. https://deanofstudents.utexas.edu/masculinut.php
8. https://www.apa.org/about/policy/boys-men-practice-guidelines.pdf
9. https://www.apa.org/monitor/2019/01/ce-corner
10. http://www.saveservices.org/equity/