Title IX in K-12 Schools: Challenges, Shortcomings, and Student Resistance

Background and Purpose: Title IX (TIX), the federal legislation barring sex discrimination in schools, has become a key battleground in an ongoing culture war around gender equity, as regulations expand and contract with each new administration. Despite the outsized attention on TIX politically, prior research demonstrates that K-12 schools struggle to comply with the most basic components of TIX, fail to meaningfully interrupt hegemonic gender hierarchies, and overlook how intersectional systems of oppression interact within these hierarchies. However, there is limited research on TIX that incorporates the perspectives of K-12 students. Drawing on the perspectives of both students and school professionals, this research aims to deepen understanding of the shortcomings and potentialities of TIX in addressing gender inequality in school by examining two interrelated research questions: 1) How does gender inequality manifest in school settings and 2) To what extent is TIX useful for addressing gender inequality?

Methods: The present study, conducted in 2023, used the rigorous qualitative methodology of critical ethnography to examine the culture and context of gender in New Orleans public charter schools broadly. Participants (n=26) were recruited through community partnerships, word of mouth, and snowball sampling and included both students (n=18) and school professionals (n=8) affiliated with the school system. Interview questionnaires were semi-structured and included questions such as, “Have you ever been treated differently because of your gender at school? Explain.” Interviews were transcribed without identifying information and coded multiple times using thematic analysis, revealing 18 primary themes and 247 subthemes. Relevant to this inquiry, one primary theme, TIX was referenced 101 times across 28 interviews.

Results: Study findings are organized into three broad and overlapping categories: (1) TIX Violations; (2) Shortcomings and Issues; and (3) Responses. TIX Violations, in the form of both harassment and assault were reported by participants and included harassment based on sex, sexual orientation, or gender expression and sexual assault. Students experienced negative impacts related to the many issues associated with TIX, including a lack of knowledge and training on TIX in their schools and tensions in implementing disciplinary proceedings. Schools focused on discipline and education as their primary responses to TIX violations, while students responded with a combination of survival techniques and resistance to cisheteronormativity more broadly.

Conclusion and Implications: Despite the focus on TIX in ongoing culture wars, TIX failed to meaningfully challenge the existing gender hierarchies that permitted harassment to flourish in the focal schools. Consistent with prior literature, schools struggled to implement even the basic requirements of TIX and when TIX was utilized, it was mostly conceptualized as a disciplinary tool. Despite these shortcomings, students showed a remarkable ability to both survive under the force of these structural inequalities and actively challenge existing gender hierarchies. Findings suggest that institutional attempts to combat gender inequality using TIX may be inadequate. Indeed, it may be time to divert gender equity advocacy away from top-down, institutional approaches and instead learn from the students and school communities fighting for gender liberation through their daily interactions at school.