Advocate Speaks on Title IX

Women have combated overt discrimination in education effectively in recent decades, but still have further to go towards eliminating more subtle forms, an advocate for federal anti-discrimination laws said last night in Agassiz Theatre.

Bernice R. Sandler, who has worked for the development and passage of laws prohibiting gender discrimination in higher education, said she has seen major advances for women since she began her work in 1970.

These advances, she said, include legislative acts banning openly discriminatory policies, increased awareness of gender issues, the new strength of campus women's constituencies and the development of women's studies programs.

In recent years, she said, women's legal rights have been further bolstered.

The Civil Rights Act of 1991 allows women to sue for punitive damages up to $300,000 in sexual harassment cases, and a February Supreme Court ruling permits women to sue for unlimited damages under Title IX, the federal legislation to eliminate discrimination against women in higher education, according to Sandler.

Sandler, who played a leading role in the passage of Title IX, said she hoped more lawyers would try such cases because "liability has zoomed upward."

Sandler also said the 1991 Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee were a positive event for women.

"For the first time, public officials said, 'this is not nice behavior,' "she said. "Women talked about their experiences...The dam of silence was broken."

Despite these advances, Sandler said the situation for women in upper-level teaching and administrative positions at universities remains the same.

"There has been practically no increase in the last 10 years in women who are full professors," she said. "If our institutions are to be truly coeducational, we must have more women professors and administrators." professors and administrators."

She said that approximately 90 percent ofundergraduates attend institutions whose top threepositions are held by men.

Sandler said these problems are due mainly tosubtly discriminatory attitudes, which she saidshe expected to continue.

"These are things that go back thousands ofyears and will not change that easily," she said."We are talking about a social revolution thatwill have as great an impact as the industrialrevolution.

She said that approximately 90 percent ofundergraduates attend institutions whose top threepositions are held by men.

Sandler said these problems are due mainly tosubtly discriminatory attitudes, which she saidshe expected to continue.

"These are things that go back thousands ofyears and will not change that easily," she said."We are talking about a social revolution thatwill have as great an impact as the industrialrevolution.