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Key Takeaways
- The University of Connecticut revised the language of its 'BOLD Women’s Leadership Network' program to include 'young people' instead of just 'young women' after a College Fix inquiry raised concerns about potential discrimination and legality.
- These changes were made after five years of investigation by the Office for Civil Rights into a complaint filed by Professor Mark Perry, who argues that the university continues to violate Title IX with minimal consequences.
- The revisions reflect broader trends among colleges responding to legal challenges regarding gender-specific programs, with similar changes occurring at other institutions like Ithaca College and Colby-Sawyer College.
- Critics, including Perry and Ed Barlett from SAVE Services, argue that such changes often serve as superficial compliance measures and do not adequately address underlying discriminatory practices.
The University of Connecticut slightly amended the language on its “BOLD Leadership Network” program following a College Fix inquiry into its legality.
The edits occurred some time last week after The Fix emailed the general counsel and media relations team. The Fix noticed the edits the following day, on Wednesday, Oct. 8.
“The BOLD Women’s Leadership Network is a pioneering program cultivating courageous leadership in young women during the college years and beyond,” the website previously stated. Now it replaces “young women” with “young people.”
The university made some other website edits while retaining the name “BOLD Women’s Leadership Network.”
“BOLD focuses on facilitating opportunities for women’s career development and networking through scholarship funding, programming, and post-graduation fellowships,” the description previously stated.
The same section now states: “BOLD focuses on facilitating opportunities for career development and networking through scholarship funding, programming, and post-graduation fellowships.”
Other older pages retain the discriminatory language. A now-closed application continues to use “young women.”
The changes came five years after the Office for Civil Rights first opened an investigation after Professor Mark Perry filed a complaint. The office has sat on Perry’s complaint since then, the civil rights activist told The Fix. He said the minimal changes will likely satisfy OCR.
“Based on my experience with OCR, their attorneys are perfectly willing to allow schools to continue to discriminate based on sex or race, as long as the school disingenuously pretends to be ‘inclusive’ with ‘legal fig leaves’ that are phony disclaimers about non-discrimination,” he told The Fix via email. Perry has filed nearly 1,000 federal civil rights complaints.
“UConn has been under a federal civil rights investigation for five years, during which time it has continued to violate Title IX without facing any consequences or make any meaningful changes, except for some recent adjustments that reflect broader national organizational changes,” he said.
“I’m sure the word has spread among colleges and Title IX officers that OCR is a pushover, and any violation of Title IX can easily be ‘corrected’ with a phony legal fig leaf,” he also said.
The office “often accept[s] false/fake compliance.”
Other colleges in the leadership network have made language changes to their program, following Perry’s initial complaint in 2020.
Ithaca College’s program is nominally open to women following an OCR investigation, but Perry told The Fix that all the recent winners are female. The office also closed his complaint about Colby-Sawyer College after the school agreed to say the program is open to anyone who is “female, identif[ies] as female, or want[s] to learn more about women’s leadership,” Perry said.
The College of St. Rose has shut down in entirety, rendering the complaint moot.
An investigation has been opened into Middlebury College but the school plans to end the program with the latest cohort, Perry said.
These slight changes are common, according to Ed Barlett, president of SAVE Services. His group advocates for equal protection for men and women on college campuses.
He told The Fix “college administrators will resort to a broad range of devious strategies to advance a feminist-driven, male-discriminatory agenda.”
This is not the first time the University of Connecticut has amended its program following College Fix questions. The public university made similar edits to a women’s engineering leadership program after The Fix raised questions last year.
The Fix specifically referenced last year’s situation in its questions to Stephanie Reitz, the university spokeswoman, and Nicole Gelston, the school’s general counsel. The Fix asked if the BOLD program has been reviewed for legal compliance as well. Neither responded to two emailed inquiries in the past week.
The network is a project of the Helen Gurley Brown Foundation.
Its website similarly uses “young people” in text, although it retains other female-specific text. “BOLD WLN introduces young people to a network of powerful women leaders,” the website explains.
The network also “provides a platform for personal and professional development in order to facilitate meaningful career launches once they graduate from college.”
Perry, the civil rights activist, noted the foundation itself made edits to its language.
“It’s likely a strategy at both the national and school levels to provide legal cover for the numerous legal challenges to their discriminatory practices and four federal civil rights investigations,” he said.
The Dept. of Ed. did not respond to an email and voicemail left in the past week. An automated response cited the government shutdown and said there would be no response to media requests.
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