There seem to be strong laws against gender discrimination in the US, how does your college avoid getting sued for discrimination?
I wonder about this also. First, there is a supreme court case from 1982, Mississippi University for Women v. Hogan, which held that admitting only women violated the Equal Protection clause of the constitution. This seems to have not had much impact on college admissions.
For one, they held that when checking the if a law violates Equal Protection by discriminating against women, it is only subject to “intermediate scrutiny”, as opposed to discrimination by race, which is subject to “strict scrutiny”. So the state interest that has to be served by a law in order to outweigh the discrimination against women does not have to be as compelling as for race. A concurrence also noted that “the Court’s holding today is limited to the context of a professional nursing school. Ante at 723, n. 7, 727. Since the Court’s opinion relies heavily on its finding that women have traditionally dominated the nursing profession, see ante at 729-731, it suggests that a State might well be justified in maintaining, for example, the option of an all-women’s business school or liberal arts program.” Maybe that’s indeed what happened later.
It seems that the strongest law against sex discrimination in education is not the constitution, but Title IX. However, Title IX explicitly grandfathered in existing single-sex colleges: “in regard to admissions this section shall not apply to any public institution of undergraduate higher education which is an institution that traditionally and continually from its establishment has had a policy of admitting only students of one sex.”
I wonder about this also. First, there is a supreme court case from 1982, Mississippi University for Women v. Hogan, which held that admitting only women violated the Equal Protection clause of the constitution. This seems to have not had much impact on college admissions.
For one, they held that when checking the if a law violates Equal Protection by discriminating against women, it is only subject to “intermediate scrutiny”, as opposed to discrimination by race, which is subject to “strict scrutiny”. So the state interest that has to be served by a law in order to outweigh the discrimination against women does not have to be as compelling as for race. A concurrence also noted that “the Court’s holding today is limited to the context of a professional nursing school. Ante at 723, n. 7, 727. Since the Court’s opinion relies heavily on its finding that women have traditionally dominated the nursing profession, see ante at 729-731, it suggests that a State might well be justified in maintaining, for example, the option of an all-women’s business school or liberal arts program.” Maybe that’s indeed what happened later.
It seems that the strongest law against sex discrimination in education is not the constitution, but Title IX. However, Title IX explicitly grandfathered in existing single-sex colleges: “in regard to admissions this section shall not apply to any public institution of undergraduate higher education which is an institution that traditionally and continually from its establishment has had a policy of admitting only students of one sex.”
MUW is a public school.