GAO Faults Science Agencies on Title IX Compliance

doi:10.1126/science.305.5684.589b

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Three top U.S. science agencies have failed to enforce a federal law aimed at increasing female participation in educational programs, according to a report unveiled last week by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), Congress's investigative arm. The report, which was requested by Senators Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Barbara Boxer (D-CA) after a 2002 hearing (Science, 11 October 2002, p. 356), says the Department of Energy, NASA, and the National Science Foundation have not been monitoring grantee institutions to check if they are complying with Title IX. The 32-year-old legislation, which allows the government to withhold funds from institutions that practice gender discrimination, applies to all fields of education, but its impact has mostly been limited to athletics.

The GAO report confirms that the federal government needs to enforce Title IX "not just on the playing field but also in the classroom," says Wyden. He believes compliance reviews by granting agencies are essential to close the gender gap in the sciences and engineering. Massachusetts Institute of Technology biologist Nancy Hopkins, who chaired a study on the status of women faculty members at MIT's School of Science, predicts that "without government oversight and support, the full participation of women and minorities in science and engineering will not occur in our lifetime--or in the lifetime of our children."