OAKLAND — Oakland schools have settled a gender discrimination claim, agreeing to provide equal opportunities for female student athletes.
The settlement was with Fair Play for Girls in Sports, a project of Legal Aid at Work, over the district’s gender inequity issues. The agreement calls for a three-year monitoring program, according to Kim Turner, of Legal Aid at Work.
After Oakland Unified planned to eliminate a number of girls’ athletic teams in 2018 as part of cost-cutting moves, Legal Aid at Work sent a letter to the district on behalf of girls and parents in September 2018, according to Turner. The letter alleged that the administration of Oakland Unified’s athletic program violated the district’s obligations under Title IX, the 50-year-old federal law that requires gender equity in education, including in kindergarten-through-12th-grade athletics.
Both Oakland Unified School District and Legal Aid at Work hailed the agreement, which was reached in mid-March but announced this week.
“The district is pleased with the settlement with Legal Aid at Work that underscores this mission of serving the whole child and eliminating inequity,” said Oakland Unified spokesman John Sasaki in an email. “For thousands of OUSD students, extracurricular activities, including competitive sports, are an integral component of their educational experience and provide many lifelong benefits such as higher grades, higher graduation rates, better health and higher wages as adults.”
He called the partnership with Legal Aid to Work “an exciting and collaborative approach designed to fine-tune our system and ensure equity among athletic offerings, opportunities to play, and access to benefits and facilities.”
“One of the major issues when talks with the district began was girls not getting their fair and proportional share of spots on teams throughout the district,” Turner said in an email. “Girls make up approximately 49 percent of the district’s students, yet were getting significantly less than 49 percent of the opportunities on teams across district schools.”
Turner said the “gold standard under Title IX” is “the share of girls enrolled in the student body should closely mirror the share of girls participating in an athletics program,” so if there are 49 percent of girls who make up the district’s students, there should be close to 49 percent in the athletic program.
Fair Play for Girls in Sports is focused on ensuring that minority girls and girls of low-income communities can experience equity in athletics programming. Oakland Unified has more than 30,000 students and about half that number are girls, or about 15,000 students. According to recent data, 88.3 percent of its students are minorities and 71.2 percent are eligible for free- and reduced-price lunches.
The settlement agreement will run through June 2023, and applies to all Oakland Unified schools with any form of interscholastic competitive athletics, including elementary schools, middle schools and high schools. The settlement also requires equal amenities for the girls, including athletic facilities, transportation, scheduling and publicity.
Oakland Unified also will annually survey female students to determine what athletic opportunities the district should offer. The district has hired a Title IX expert-consultant to examine athletic programming, according to a statement.
“We look forward to continuing to partner with OUSD in coming years to help girls experience equity in school athletics,” Turner said in a statement. “Girls of OUSD not only will get equal chances to play as a result of this agreement, but also will receive the many lifelong benefits associated with athletics participation: higher grades and graduation rates, better health and higher wages as adults.”
Legal Aid at Work is a nonprofit legal services organization that has been assisting low-income, working families for more than 100 years.
