Public Interest Briefs

In response to a CLIPI suit on behalf of the California Women’s Law Center, the California State Board of Education has been ordered to develop regulations implementing the state laaw that bans sexual harassment and sex discrimination in the state’s schools.

Declaring that the Board of Education appeared “to have merely paid lip-service to its responsibility,” Los Angeles Superior Court Judgee Robert H. O’Brien ruled that the Board haad failed to comply with its legal duty to issue regulations implementing the Sex equity in Education Act (SEEA) ban against sexual harassment and sex discrimination. Judge O’Brien ordered the Board of Education to issue, as quickly, as possible, regulations prohibiting sexual harrassment and sex discrimination in extracurricular activities, research and occupational training programs in educational institutions. 

The California Women’s Law Center had asked CLIPI to bring suit after receiving numerous complaints of sexual harassment from girls and their parents all over the state. When these complaints were brought to school authorities, they failed to inform parents or students about grievance procedures investigate the complaints adequately, impose appropriate discipline on the offenders, or even provide administrators with procedures for responding to such complaints. 

Abby J.Leibman, Executive Director of the California Women’s Law Center, reported: “Students, the parents of students who have been harassed, and school administrators call us wondering whether certain actions are covered by legislation and what the remedies are. School administrators concerned about discrimination or seeking to limit their exposure to lawsuits also call to find out how to deal with the law’s ban against discrimination in extracurricular activities. Does it bar all-boy glee clubs or all-girl honor societies? We don’t know. Without the Board’s guidance, school districts and students are left to fend for themselves on an ad hoc basis.

The California Legislature has enacted statutes requiring the State Board of Education  to address these issues. The first statute was enacted in 1982, the Sex Equity in Education Act. SEEA bars “discrimination on the basis of sex in any program or activity conducted by an educational institution which receives or benefits from state  financial assistance or enrolls students who receive state financial aid.”

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