Gender Slap

Trimming U.S. oversight

The Reagan Administration two years ago reversed longstanding Government civil rights policy and argued that private schools discriminating against minorities should nevertheless have federal tax exemptions. The U.S. Supreme Court soundly rejected that argument. Undaunted, the Administration last year asked the court for a narrow interpretation of what had been a broadly applied law banning sex discrimination. This time the Administration won. The Justices ruled 6 to 3 last week that the ban on sex discrimination in federally aided education programs does not automatically apply to a whole school but only to particular programs that receive federal funds.

The case involved tiny (2,200 students) Grove City College, a private coeducational school in Pennsylvania that has never taken direct Government funds. In 1977 officials said that since federal grants went to some of its students, Grove City had to state in writing that it would comply with federal regulations forbidding discrimination against women. Grove City denied it discriminated but refused to sign because it was determined on principle to shun Government red tape. Now, nearly $400,000 in college legal costs later, the high bench has ruled that the student grants do indeed constitute federal aid, triggering federal oversight. But the Justices also found that since Grove City's financial-aid program is the only part of the school affected by federal funds, it alone is subject to Government regulation. Writing for the majority, Justice Byron White found no evidence that Congress intended U.S. regulatory authority to "follow federally aided students from classroom to classroom." That, said Justice William Brennan in a lengthy dissent, was just what Congress intended.

Congressional women's rights advocates, led by Rhode Island Republican Representative Claudine Schneider, immediately announced their support for new legislation to reverse the high court. Meanwhile, most women's groups felt a major legal tool had been slapped from their grasp. If some schools now decide to cut back on non-federally funded women's programs, warned Bernice Sandier of the Association of American Colleges, "women will only be able to say, 'That's not nice instead of That's illegal.' "