Access & Disparities

"The Al-Huda chain of Islamic schools across Pakistan was founded by Farhat Hashmi in her home with a small group of students in the early 1990s. Now it caters to women and girls in Pakistan and in elsewhere, including the U.S. and Canada, where Hashmi now lives.  Al-Huda is distinct in several ways from other groups in Pakistan offering classes on Islam.

It offers a structured curriculum and a range of programs, a strong brand name and administration, and it was conceived and run by women from the start, instead of being a branch of a male-dominated institution.  At its main campus in Islamabad, the Pakistani capital, women wearing uniforms of head scarves and long robes sit in rows and take notes as teachers lead lessons on the meaning of the Quran. Children scamper through the multistory facility. There's a library, concession stands, a range of pamphlets, books and audiotapes and even an 80-year-old member who acts as a therapist of sorts. Women can sign up for full-fledged diploma courses, taught in Urdu and English, or they can be "listeners," just stopping by now and then. Schedules are flexible to attract working women, housewives and the young. Students can live on campus, and a bigger facility is being built on the edge of Islamabad.

"Today marks the 38th anniversary of Title IX, a law prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sex in all levels of education. The legislation, which was originally passed in 1972, reads: "No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance." While most widely known for increasing women's participation in high school and college athletics, women�s rights advocates now hope to use Title IX to increase gender equity in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education, among other areas.

Currently, there are two bills in Congress that would enable stronger enforcement of Title IX in athletics. The High School Athletics Accountability Act (H.R. 2882) and its Senate counterpart the High School Sports Information Collection Act (S. 471), would require the information and statistics on gender equity in school athletic programs be made available to the public."

"The College Sports Council (CSC) released a study last week claiming that Title IX has hurt men’s soccer.  Sadly, the study is just another version of the same old attacks that the CSC and similar groups have launched against Title IX in the courts and in the media for many years—attacks that have been unanimously rejected. 

In their latest study, the CSC compares the participation numbers and scholarship limits for males and females in Division I and erroneously claims that the somewhat smaller number of men playing soccer in Division I is the result of a "gender quota." If you’re confused, you’re not alone. There are many pieces of the puzzle that the CSC study conveniently omits.

The elephant in the room that CSC ignores is football and basketball, which together consume three-fourths of the entire men's athletic budget at Division I-A institutions. In addition, men alone are eligible for 85 football scholarships, the highest by far for any sport. So claiming that men are somehow getting the short end of the stick is simply false. Moreover, if certain men’s sports do not believe they are getting sufficient opportunities or resources, they should approach their schools to talk about how sports are prioritized in the men’s program"