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Monday, December 21, 2009
Law - "Colleges subpoenaed in gender bias investigation"
Kathy Matheson reports in USA Today in a story that begins:
PHILADELPHIA — A federal civil rights agency investigating possible gender discrimination in college admissions will subpoena data from more than a dozen mid-Atlantic universities, officials said Thursday.The probe by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights is focusing on whether some colleges favor men by admitting them at higher rates than women, or by offering them more generous aid packages.
Commission members voted Wednesday to authorize subpoenas for 19 universities within a 100-mile radius of their meeting place — in this case, Washington — which is the geographical extent of their subpoena authority.
The schools represent a mixture of sizes and include public, private, religious, secular, historically black and moderately selective to highly selective institutions. There are six in Maryland, five in Pennsylvania, three in Washington, two each in Virginia and Delaware, and one in West Virginia.
Women outnumber men nearly 60% to 40% in higher education nationally. The probe grew out of anecdotal evidence and news accounts that admissions officials are discriminating against women to promote a more even gender mix, said commission spokeswoman Lenore Ostrowsky.
Posted by Marcia Oddi on December 21, 2009 02:04 PM
Posted to General Law Related