Letter to the Editor: Quota-Free Classes

Kyle Smith misquoted me in his otherwise excellent column, “Political Science” (PostScript, July 15).

I never said “courts have ruled that applying Title IX to education rather than sports is unconstitutional under the Equal Protection clause of the 14th Amendment.”

Instead, I said that if the Obama administration applies gender quotas to math and science classes — the way such quotas currently apply to college sports — then that would violate the Constitution.

Title IX itself does not require classroom quotas yet and legally could not, in light of court rulings striking down gender quotas in college admissions and government boards.

The Obama administration may try to impose classroom quotas in the future, but if it does, its actions will be challenged in court.

Courts have only upheld gender quotas in college sports, a unique area where benefits have to be distributed evenly between all-male and all-female teams. But math and science classes are not all-male or all-female, so quotas are impermissible there, and enrollment must be gender-blind.