Anita Hill will be moderating a series of presentations and workshops entitled The Gender/Race Imperative. It aims to revive awareness of the broad capacity of Title IX, the crucial law mandating equal education opportunities for women. The hope is that the series will kick start inquiry to foster legal, policy, and social reforms that enable success in schools and workplaces for girls and women of all races and economic backgrounds. To engage and educate MIT and the broader Boston area community on the role of Title IX in education, particularly for STEM, MIT brings engineers and other scientists together in conversation with lawyers and social scientists to develop multidimensional strategies for promoting equity in STEM.

Hosted by:

Muriel Medard – Cecil H. Green Professor in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department, Research Laboratory of Electronics, MIT
 Anita Hill – MIT Martin Luther King Fellow, University Professor of Law, Public Policy and Women’s Studies, Heller Graduate School of Policy and Management, Brandeis University

Guest speakers:

Catherine Lhamon – Chair of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, Former Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights, U.S. Department of Education
Deborah Slaner Larkin – Chief, Advocacy Officer at the Women’s Sports Foundation
Fatima Goss Graves – Director of the National Women’s Law Center

Lhamon, Larkin, and Graves are national authorities on Title IX, each of whom brings a different perspective on how this civil rights law works and how to strengthen its effectiveness.  In this first in a series of programs, these speakers will familiarize the audience with the many ways which Title IX insures that no person “shall be excluded from participation, in be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.”  As well, each speaker will provide an assessment of Title IX’s influence going forward.