The Bush administration is giving public school districts broad new latitude to expand the number of single-sex classes, and even schools, in what is widely considered the most significant policy change on the issue since a landmark federal law barring sex discrimination in education more than 30 years ago.
Two years in the making, the new rules, announced today by the Education Department, will allow school districts to create single-sex schools and classes as long as enrollment is voluntary. School districts that go that route must also make coeducational schools and classes of ``substantially equal'' quality available for members of the excluded sex.
Now, I'm not a lawyer, but isn't the reasoning behind Brown v Board of Education that segregation in and of itself is a grave injustice? Pragmatic arguments -- ``girls are intimidated by boys'', ``boys develop self-esteem problems if they're shown up by girls'' -- identify problems, but segregation just ignores (and even reinforces) the sexism that's their underlying cause.
More at Stone Court.