Boys will be boys, and girls will be girls. Such is the mantra of a growing group of educators and policy makers who argue that boys and girls are so different from one another that they should be taught in separate classrooms—single sex classrooms. A few public schools in Albuquerque  have already implemented such a scheme.  It may be that, on an individual basis, some students perform better in gender-segregated environments. However, before we move to institutionalize this radical approach to public education, we should consider the serious questions that have been raised about the constitutionality, legitimacy, and effectiveness of gender-segregated teaching methods.

The movement towards gender-divided classrooms owes much to the work of Leonard Sax, a psychologist, and Michael Gurian, a corporate consultant and novelist. Although they characterize their theories as hard science, their rationale for separating boys and girls in the classroom often strays into the bizarre. For example, according to Sax:

• Teachers should not look boys directly in the eye or smile at them because boys’ brains perceive this as a sign of weakness.
• Boys do well under stress and girls do poorly. Therefore, girls shouldn’t be given time limits on tests.
• Girls’ hearing is better than boys, so they should be spoken to in soft tones, while boys should be spoken to in loud, short sentences.

Gurian offers equally strange rationale, claiming:

• Boys perform better than girls in math because their bodies receive daily surges of testosterone, while girls are equally good at math during only a few days in their menstrual cycle.
• Boys are abstract thinkers and are therefore naturally good at subjects such as philosophy and engineering, while girls’ brains are inherently suited to more concrete thought processes.

These pseudo-scientific claims were dismissed in Newsweek by David Sadker, an education professor at American University:

“While it’s true that brain scans show differences between boys and girls, no one is exactly sure what those differences mean. Differences between boys and girls are dwarfed by brain differences within each gender. If you want to make schools a better place, you have to strive to see kids as individuals.”

Sax and Gurian’s claims have no basis in rigorous science and generalize so broadly that they cause educators to overlook students’ individual strengths and weaknesses. Many girls are highly competitive and thrive under pressure, and many boys need a less stressful, more cooperative learning environment to excel. Making gender the primary educational distinction between students is an oversimplification of the learning process that not only robs students of their individuality, but also conditions female students according to disempowering stereotypes.

Proponents of gender-segregated classrooms also claim that separating boys and girls reduces distractions in the classroom. This may be so, but real life is not segregated by gender. Students need to work, play and learn in a diverse environment that reflects the society that they will one day enter. Furthermore, the argument that students’ emerging attractions to one another are so distracting that boys and girls must be separated ignores the fact that gay and lesbian students would not benefit from this arrangement. Must gay students study with the girls? Will lesbian students be assigned to boys-only classes? Should bisexual students be taught by private tutors? There is too much diversity in the world to lump every student into one of two categories.

One of the most fundamental problems with this type of arrangement is that it could easily lead to inequalities between boys’ and girls’ educational experience, creating two separate curricula for two separate classes of students. If history is any indication, we should react with skepticism to the constitutionality of any “separate but equal” arrangement in our education system. In fact, New Mexico’s constitution contains an equal rights amendment that explicitly protects against this kind of discrimination.
Laying aside the constitutional concerns, it is far from certain that gender-segregated classrooms give students any significant advantage. In 2005, the U.S. Department of Education extensively reviewed the effectiveness of gender segregation in classrooms and found that, overall, students in gender-segregated classrooms are no more likely to succeed than those in which boys and girls are taught together.

Instead of dedicating more resources, time and energy on experimenting with gender-segregated classrooms, Albuquerque Public Schools should focus on what we know works: smaller class sizes, increased parental involvement, better funding and improved teacher training. These are proven methods for increasing student performance, and require only the political will to implement.

Peter Simonson
Executive Director
ACLU of New Mexico

This article originally appeared as an Op-Ed in the Albuquerque Journal on April 15, 2010.

Real people in New Mexico are hurt today because our families are denied basic protectionsafforded to other families. But now we have the opportunity to join other states in advancing fair treatment for same-sex couples.
The American Civil Liberties Union is working to obtain relationship equality for New Mexico couples, and we need your help.
Real families with real stories will help us convince the public, the courts, and the legislature that lesbian and gay couples deserve the legal protections necessary to sustain our relationships and families.
Winning relationship equality in New Mexico begins with you. If you are interested in sharing your story, you can fill out a survey online.  This survey information may be shared with other LGBT organizations hoping to work for relationship protections in New Mexico, but nobody will use your name without contacting you for your permission first.  If you wish instead to have your family’s story considered ONLY for the ACLU’s relationship equality work, you can call Micah McCoy at (505) 266-5915 Ext. 1003.
Fill out a survey now and help win relationship equality in New Mexico!

American Civil Liberties Union's affiliates in the border states of Arizona, California, New Mexico and Texas were dismayed to learn of the Administration's plan to send as many as 1,200 National Guard troops to the U.S.-Mexico border and to make a request to Congress for $500 million in supplemental funding to secure the border and enforce federal laws.
"The Administration is buying into an electoral political rhetoric that claims an interest in border enforcement first, before the dialogue on a fair and just immigration reform has even been considered," says Vicki B. Gaubeca, director of the ACLU of New Mexico Regional Center for Border Rights. "The truth is that there have never been more federal resources and technologies placed at the U.S.-Mexico border than at this point in history."
Currently, about 90 percent of the more than 20,000 border patrol agents employed by U.S. Customs and Border Protection are deployed along the southern border.  This number does not include an additional 6,000 customs officers and another 5,000 ICE agents working along the U.S.-Mexico border. Other federal agencies operating on the southwestern border include the FBI, ATF, DEA, U.S. Marshals and more. Nor does it include complementing initiatives such as 700 miles of border fencing and so-called "fusion centers."
Community members along the border region, particularly those living within the 100-mile "Constitution Free Zone," have become pawns of political compromise in exchange for an immigration reform strategy that has yet to materialize. This border enforcement boom has resulted in an increase in civil rights violations, traumatic family separations and entire communities, which include many U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents, experiencing a deterioration of their freedom of movement and quality of life. In addition, community members of Latino/Hispanic descent have experienced an increase of racial profiling and harassment as a result of heightened border enforcement initiatives.
"It is time to move on to broader, more effective solutions that will fix the broken immigration system, instead of using stop-gap measures that place the civil liberties of the border communities at risk and do little to solve the problem in the long term," states Gaubeca.
ACLU affiliates expressed additional concerns about the Administration's decision to feed into the myths about cross-border criminal activity.  A May 2, 2010, article in the Arizona Republic debunked the connection between immigrants and crime by noting that crime rates in Arizona border towns have remained flat for a decade despite population increases and drug violence in Mexico.
"While ACLU affiliates recognize that it is the job of federal officials to enforce immigration law, it is equally important for the Administration to conduct a comprehensive evaluation of border enforcement needs prior to taking a step of this magnitude," adds Gaubeca. "Instead of conducting a true risk assessment, consulting with border communities, or focusing on how to better deploy and train currently deployed CBP agents, the Administration has chosen to simply throw more money at the problem and add to the already massive deployment of federal forces along the border."
CONTACT: Micah McCoy, (505) 266-5915 Ext. 1003 or [email protected]

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