Dive Brief:
- About 57% of colleges and institutions offering women-focused programs and scholarships "violate provisions of Title IX," according to a review from a nonprofit group called Stop Abusive and Violent Environments.
- The group, initially founded to lobby for the rights of alleged sexual harassers on campus, says it's considering filing federal complaints against 185 institutions the Los Angeles Times reports. SAVE views these programs as discriminatory against men.
- Emily Martin, VP and general counsel at National Women's Law Center (NWLC), disputed the claims. Those programs, Martin told the Times, are allowed by Title IX because they intend to counteract the "limited participation" of one gender in certain educational programs.
Dive Insight:
Industry and academia have poured resources and time into solving tech's diversity woes, with mixed results.
Though women account for 47% of the U.S. workforce, 25% of IT workers are women, according to an IDC survey released in May.
With 18% of computer science graduates made up of women, scholarships aimed at women in the tech space seek to remediate an existing inequality in the tech field, which makes programs Title IX compliant, according to the NWLC.
The issue of gender diversity in tech speaks to structural issues within industry. Key elements include workplace culture, a lack of representation in senior leadership and the gender pay gap.
A recent study by researchers at Seattle's Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence predicts that, unless a dramatic shift occurs, men will still make up the majority of the computer science field in 2100.
Companies including Uber have come under fire for failing to address toxic workplace cultures marked by sexual discrimination and harassment.
In Uber's case, the surfacing of sexism and harassment allegations from engineer Susan Fowler, in February 2017, set off a public backlash for the ride-hailing company. It resulted in the #DeleteUber movement and the departure of CEO and cofounder Travis Kalanick, alongside 20 other staffers.
SAVE did not respond to emails and calls by Wednesday morning.
