Title IX bias against men alleged
Education Department looking into complaints of exclusion
WASHINGTON — At home in Turkey, Kursat Pekgoz considered himself a feminist. In the world of American higher education, where he is now pursuing a doctorate in English literature, the 30-year-old activist says it is men who are being treated unfairly.
Arguing that campus resource groups for women and women’s studies programs amount to discrimination against men, Pekgoz has filed federal complaints against several universities with the backing of the National Coalition for Men, an American men’s rights organization.
The Education Department is taking the complaints seriously. Over the past year, its civil rights division has opened investigations into Yale, Princeton, the University of Southern California and Tulane University to determine whether their women’s programs violate Title
IX, a federal law that prohibits sex discrimination at schools that receive federal funding. The department also has received complaints against Georgetown, Northeastern and the University of Pennsylvania.
With more women than men attending and graduating from college in America, Pekgoz says women no longer need additional support.
“Women are the majority, so I really cannot see how this is not discrimination against men,” said Pekgoz, a student at the University of Southern California. He studied English literature in Turkey and moved to the U.S. four years ago to pursue an advanced degree. “We can’t keep living in the past on these issues.”
While the number of women attending college has grown significantly in recent decades, women are still underrepresented in science and technology and in leadership positions in higher education.
Carly Thomsen, a professor of feminist studies at Vermont’s Middlebury College, dismissed the complaints as a backlash against women’s activism and the #Metoo movement.
“They are trying to dress up their desire to hold on to power as an equity issue,” Thomsen said.
The complaints under investigation by the Education Department describe opportunities that appear to exclude men.
The Education Department said in a statement that it enforces Title IX so that “all students, including men, have equal access to educational opportunity and can go to school without fear of sex discrimination.” It would not comment on specific investigations.