Dive Brief:
- The ACLU is claiming gender discrimination in the enrollment requirements of the Ron Brown College Preparatory High School, a new Washington, DC, school designed to increase achievement among young men of color.
- The Washington Post reports the ACLU released a statement celebrating a policy change that would allow girls into the school next year, but the DC Public Schools denied the assertion and said the school would remain all-boys.
- While the ACLU has not filed a lawsuit in opposition to the school, it has not ruled that out as a long-term strategy, given the commitment by the district and its attorney general to keeping girls out of the school, which critics say violates the DC Human Rights Act and the U.S. Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause.
Dive Insight:
The Young Women’s Leadership School of East Harlem opened as an all-girls school in 1996, and while it had significant local support, there were critics who rallied against the gender discrimination inherent in its design. An Office of Civil Rights complaint process dragged on for 19 years, during which time the OCR revised its regulations relating to gender discrimination in schools. The George W. Bush administration made it easier for school leaders to introduce single-sex classrooms or entire schools without running afoul of the law.
Now there are single-sex high schools in multiple cities. The Ron Brown College Preparatory High School in DC joins the Los Angeles Girls Academic Leadership Academy, both of which opened this year to just one gender. Many of the existing single-sex schools can tout impressive student outcomes, including sky-high graduation and college-going rates. Critics, however, still find grounds on which to sue, and legal opposition to single-sex schools is sure to remain.