AGELE is pleased to host the web release of
Building an Equitable School Culture,
prepared by staff and colleagues
at the Programs for Educational Opportunity,
University of Michigan School of Education.
As the newsletter was being prepared they
learned that their major source of funding
had been lost and they were unable to continue
as a functioning Equity Assistance Center.
AGELE members will notice quite a few familiar
faces among the contributors.

Click the image to download.

Plaintiff filed the complaint in April 2009 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York alleging that the Indian River Central School District, its board of education and eight of its employees violated his rights under the Equal Protection Clause and Title IX.

In June 2010, the school district filed a motion to dismiss the claims.

In the brief filed Friday, the United States argues that harassment based on sex stereotyping is a legally cognizable claim under Title IX and the Equal Protection Clause; that sexual orientation harassment does not preclude a harassment claim based on non-conformity to sex stereotypes; and that a hostile environment claim in primary and secondary schools can span classes, grades and schools.

Summary of the case provided by the U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division.

To read the entire brief, go to:

www.justice.gov/crt/edo/documents/casesummary.php#pratt

Ellen Swallow Richards is known to have been the first woman in the United States to be accepted at a
scientific school. She graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1873 and went on to
become a prominent chemist. In 1887, she conducted a survey of water quality in Massachusetts. This
study, the first of its kind in America, led to the Nation’s first state water-quality standards.
Women have also taken the lead throughout our history in preserving our natural environment. In 1900,
Maria Sanford led the Minnesota Federation of Women’s Groups in their efforts to protect forestland near
the Mississippi River, which eventually became the Chippewa National Forest, the first Congressionally
mandated national forest. Marjory Stoneman Douglas dedicated her life to protecting and restoring the
Florida Everglades. Her book, The Everglades: Rivers of Grass, published in 1947, led to the preservation
of the Everglades as a National Park. She was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1993.
Rachel Carson brought even greater attention to the environment by exposing the dangers of certain
pesticides to the environment and to human health. Her landmark 1962 book, Silent Spring, was fiercely
criticized for its unconventional perspective. As early as 1963,however, President Kennedy acknowledged
its importance and appointed a panel to investigate the book’s findings. Silent Spring has emerged as a
seminal work in environmental studies. Carson was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom posthumously
in 1980.

Grace Thorpe, another leading environmental advocate, also connected environmental protection with
human well-being by emphasizing the vulnerability of certain populations to environmental hazards. In
1992, she launched a successful campaign to organize Native Americans to oppose the storage of nuclear
waste on their reservations, which she said contradicted Native American principles of stewardship of the
earth. She also proposed that America invest in alternative energy sources such as hydroelectricity, solar
power, and wind power.

These women helped protect our environment and our people while challenging the status quo and
breaking social barriers. Their achievements inspired generations of American women and men not only
to save our planet, but also to overcome obstacles and pursue their interests and talents. They join a
long and proud history of American women leaders, and this month we honor the contributions of all
women to our Nation.
NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority
vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim March
2009 as Women’s History Month. I call upon all our citizens to observe this month with appropriate programs,
ceremonies, and activities that honor the history, accomplishments, and contributions of American
women.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this third day of March, in the year of our Lord
two thousand nine, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and
thirty-third.
BARACK OBAMA

In celebration of the 35th Anniversary of the passage of Title IX, participants at the 2007 AGELE Conference submitted these reflections on the impact of Title IX.

• Doors have been opened dramatically for girls and women in career areas – our state university now had 50% female enrollment in its law and medical schools.
• A concern is that young people (particularly young women) are not aware of the importance of being vigilant in assuring that gains in equity continue and that attempts to weaken TitleIX be addressed.
• Title IX was 16 or 17 years old by the time I really knew about it – most of my education preceded it – but my knowledge and interest in it paralleled by growing involvement with women in politics. It became a critical part of my life when I left elected politics and led meinto a new career in education, where I truly learned enough to become knowledgeable, though not expert. It was my community advocacy for Title IX in the early 1990s that not only made me better informed, it actually set my career path – and finally coalesced all my passion for equity in education and life.  I have done considerable professional equity work but even when my work isn’t defined as official “equity” work, I try to infuse equity in everything I do. Without Title IX and my involvement with people committed to it, including my AGELE friends, my life would have taken a different path. I’m glad to be on the path I’m on and I hope to see a day when Title IX is no longer controversial and is simply part of a totally equitable fabric in education and society.
• I was actually born in the year that Title IX was implemented, so I have been affected because of the absence of discrimination during my lifetime. I am grateful for the progress we have made and for the continued work we are doing towards achieving equity worldwide.
• I was a student before Title IX and we were limited to play half court basketball. I remember wondering why on earth we couldn’t play the boys game. I guess they were afraid our ovaries would fall out if we ran across the entire court.
• My daughter, a student after Title IX, had a softball team to play on K-8, lettered in three sports in high school and was a varsity lacrosse player for four years in high school. As a scholar athlete she developed both her mind and her body.
• It has helped me understand why we need a Federal Equal Rights Amendment, because Title IX only provides limited equal rights on the basis of sex, protections against sex discrimination.

Programs urge teachers and other school personnel to be vigilant and take strong
measures when they see bullying – but bullying almost always takes place when adults
are not present, and students rarely tell.

Anti-bullying programs are not successful in getting students to intervene. “We can no
longer conceive of bullying at school as a covert activity, engaged in guiltily when there
is no one around,” write Rigby and Johnson. “On the contrary, research has found that
school bullies glory in the presence of an audience. It provides theater. To a
remarkable extent, the watchers either enjoy the spectacle or watch in a curious but
largely disengaged manner. The few who may object are in a small minority.”
Here’s the kicker: when bystanders do speak up, the bullying often stops. Several studies have
found that objections from the “audience” effectively discourage bullies 50% or more of the time.
These findings led Rigby and Johnson to conclude that anti-bullying programs should focus
more on getting bystanders to speak up.

But this is easier said than done. Some students actually enjoy seeing bullies in action. “I love to
watch fights,” said one. “The person insulting the other person is cool and ROCKS,” said
another. “Some people deserve to get their heads kicked in because they are [losers],” said a
third.

Fortunately these students are in a minority, but there’s a larger group that watches bullying and
takes no action. Why? To find out, the authors showed videos of bullying to students in England,
South Africa, Italy, Israel, and Bangladesh and asked children what they would do if they were
bystanders. Those who said they would not intervene gave four reasons:

• They felt it was none of their business.

• They feared consequences, including embarrassment, being branded as a “sissy,” and the bully turning on them.

• They felt the victims should take care of the situation and stand up for themselves. As students move into the teenage years, they tend to become less sympathetic toward victims of bullying.

• They felt helpless to stop the bullying – or feared that their intervention might make things worse.

A number of students said they would intervene if they witnessed bullying, especially if the

victim was a friend. Here were their reasons:

• Bullying is wrong and stopping it is the right thing to do.

• �I am the kind of person who helps others.

• I feel pity for the victim.

• I identify with the victim; I’ve been bullied myself.

• The victim might help me in a similar situation or might become my friend.

• I’ll be a hero!

All well and good. But studies have found that in real-life situations, few students act on their beliefs and most continue to passively observe the bullying. This is especially true of teenagers. Rigby and Johnson report that students feel conflicted, and are highly susceptible to the influence of their peers. When asked what their peers expected them to do, students gave a wide variety of answers: some thought their friends would expect them to do nothing; some thought their friends would want them to join in the bullying; and some thought their friends would approve of helping the victim. Correlating these responses to what students said they would do, Rigby and Johnson found that students who
said they would intervene also believed their friends would approve of intervention. The authors then asked students what they thought adults wanted them to do. Most children said that authority figures expected them to help a bullying victim. But when Rigby and Johnson compared these findings with students’ statements about what they would actually do, they found no correlation. “Apparently,” they write, “neither mothers nor fathers nor teachers were having any significant impact on their children’s bystander behavior. This supports what many social psychologists and some developmental psychologists have told us. By the time children are in upper primary school, parental and teacher influence on their children’s peer-related behavior is practically nonexistent.” This is discouraging news for parents and teachers. We’d certainly like to feel we have more influence on young people! But Rigby and Johnson drive the
point home: just telling children how we expect them to behave in bullying situations is not enough. A more careful instructional strategy is required, and this is what the authors have been working on. Their strategy builds on the finding that peer influence is a powerful factor. “We reason that once children know how many of their peers feel about bullying and why they think it should be stopped,” write Rigby and Johnson, “there is a good chance that some of them -
especially those ‘on the fence’ – will be influenced by what they have learned.” Teachers must use an indirect strategy, they argue. “It must also seek to leverage the widespread good intentions that we have documented, so that children can be encouraged to object to bullying when the teacher is not around.”
Rigby and Johnson’s suggested intervention has eleven steps:

• Show children pictures or videos of bystanders witnessing bullying.
• Ask them what they, as bystanders, would do about it (orally or in writing)
• Ask them to give their reasons.
• Make sure that the whole class hears from students who say they would intervene.
• Acknowledge that sometimes the safest thing to do is go get an adult.Suggest thatverbal intervention can be as  effective as physical intervention.
• Suggest that encouraging bystanders to express disapproval can be powerful.
• Have students rehearse what they might say.
• Have students role-play how they might act.
• Don’t make this a one-shot lesson; repeat the message and role-playing over time.
• Ask students to report back on their experiences, good and bad. “In this way,” say

Rigby and Johnson, “the teacher, as well as the children, learn about what can be done to translate good intentions into effective action.”  Rigby and Johnson close with this powerful paragraph: “Promoting bystander intervention is not
risk free. The impetuous will make mistakes. Enemies may be made as well as friends. Being a hero can be close to feeling a fool. By being thoughtful and learning from experience, one can minimize the risk, but never eliminate it. Yet what is the alternative? Edmund Burke identified it: ‘All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.’”
“Playground Heroes” by Ken Rigby and Bruce Johnson in Greater Good Magazine, Fall/Winter
2006-07, spotted in PEN Weekly NewsBlast, Feb. 9, 2007; available at

http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/greatergood/current_issue/rigbyjohnson.html

Each year at the annual banquet AGELE honors it members with awards dedicated to its founders. Information about all three of our awards, along with information about how the awards are made, is on the AGELE website.  The oldest award AGELE offers, and the only one presented at the 2008 Conference, is the Shirley McCune Award. The award honors Dr. Shirley McCune, cofounder of AGELE and a life-long and tireless advocate for gender equity. Her training of equity specialists and students continues to benefit students and those of us who
work in equity. The materials she developed to educate and train educators about Title IX remain as salient today as when she and Marty Matthews developed them in the mid 70’s. Those of us fortunate to have copies of that material are very protective of them. The Shirley McCune award is a nomination-based award presented to an AGELE member who has demonstrated proficiency in the field and made extraordinary contributions to the field of gender equity.

This year’s award was presented by Shirley McCune to Jack Kronser, currently Director of Recruitment for the
Douglas County School District in Colorado, is this year’s recipient of the Shirley McCune award. Jack is a dedicated
worker for equality and diversity both in his professional live as well as his community activities. Jack has
been a tireless worker for equity for all students – not only as a school district administrator but also as a committed
volunteer for organizations dedicated to providing equity in education and supporting civil rights for all. He has
been the school districts window to multicultural and diversity work. He is a GESA trainer, a trainer for the ADL
(Anti-defamation League) as well as for Respecting Ethnic and Cultural Heritage Training (REACH). Jack was instrumental in starting what has become the Colorado Chapter of the National Association for Multicultural Education
in the 1990’s. Previously, Jack was Director of Human Resources for the Douglas County Schools. Prior to coming to the Douglas County School District, He was Coordinator of Staff Development for Harrison School District in Colorado Springs.

Then Jack met AGELE. Jack has been a very active AGELE member since 2000 and has served as Secretary to the Steering Committee, Steering Committee member, as well as Chair of the Steering Committee. If it had not been for his support and very hard work, the 2000 annual conference in Denver would not have been the success it was and we are so very grateful for that assistance. He agreed to become the secretary to the Steering Committee and was elected to the Steering committee the following year.  He was also Chair of the Steering committee, ending his term at the Hawaii conference. And who can forget his AGELE “Jeopardy” game which debuted in Minneapolis? We all hope he will re- introduce at the next conference in California. For several years, the Steering Committee wanted to establish a scholarship fund to help support undergraduate and graduate students to come to the conference as a way of furthering their education into equity and gender equity specifically. This year’s McCune award recipient Jack Kronser has made that possible. A quiet and modest man, it was he who arranged for the funding of the AGELE Student Conference Scholarship, which pays the conference registration for the scholarship winner. Jack Kronser is a friend to education, to civil rights, to equity and especially to AGELE.

Dr. Chance W. Lewis, associate professor of Teacher Education at Texas A&M University, was the keynote speaker on
Sunday, July 30, 2006. Dr. Lewis is co-editor of White Teachers/Diverse Classrooms and the author of “African American Male Teachers in Public Schools: An Examination of Three Urban School Districts,” published in a February 2006 special issue of the Teachers College Record journal at Columbia University.

The status of African American male achievement, the relationship between White female teachers and African American male students, and recommendations for raising
the academic achievement levels of African American males were the points around
which Dr. Lewis framed his speech.  Dr. Lewis presented the audience with an overview of the graduation rates for Black male students in relationship to the graduation rates for White males in the United States.  The gap between the two groups is staggering and one that the educational systems must address if the social and economic health of the African American community is to improve. The majority of African American students
attend publicly funded schools. The public elementary and secondary teachers for these schools are overwhelming White, non-Hispanic and female. Slightly less than 8
percent of public elementary and secondary school teachers are non-Hispanic, African
Americans. While it may be seen as ideal to have a teaching force that is as diverse as the students in our schools, Dr. Lewis reinforced that what was the most important element for students, especially African American males, were the expectations and professionalism of teachers. Race and gender were secondary to those qualities as evidenced by Dr. Lewis’ own school experiences. He reported that he received the greatest support and encouragement for success from his White female teachers than from any other group.
Dr. Lewis discussed the types of teachers that are often found in schools. He described some characteristics of teachers, based on Kunjufu’s (2002) work ranging from the “custodian” who uses the same lesson plans year to year to the “coach” who knows not only subject matter and pedagogy but also bonds with students. It is the “coach” we want to see in the classrooms of all our students.  The recommendations Dr. Lewis made to education professionals to raise the achievement levels not only of African American males but all our students were:

• If one truly cares, with actions not words, about your African American male students, they will perform for you academically.
• If teachers are going to have male African-American students do their homework,teachers must do their own homework and be prepared to teacher well-designed relevant lesson plans.
• Finally, teach the male African American students as if they were your own children and watch how they will improve their academic achievement.

Dr. Lewis received a standing ovation for his speech and generously met with AGELE members following the speech. Dr. Lewis may be reached by email at Texas A&M chance.lewis@tamu.edu or though his web site, http://www.coe.tamu.edu/~clewis.