Equal Writes

by Jillian Hewitt

This week the Times ran an article about Robert Landau, an activist from suburban Philadelphia who specializes in filing complaints against schools with policies that discriminate against girls.  He began in 1989 when his daughter’s field hockey coaches kept getting fired; he realized that while boys’ coaches had full-time teaching jobs, girls’ coaches did not, and were let go frequently.  Since then, Landau has been filing complaints—mostly complaints about the unfair treatment of girls, but some about discrimination against people with disabilities as well.  From the article we can see that he’s a little extreme—a little too intense, a little too obsessed with justice, just a little too much.  He’s passionate and confrontational, two qualities that when paired together are looked down upon.  But maybe that’s what we need.  Maybe what we need to make things right is one person who’s willing to go too far, instead of multitudes of people who just don’t go far enough.

One of the quotes I love in this article is by the director of student services at Landau’s daughters alma mater, the school Landau originally filed a complaint about in 1989.  According to him, it wasn’t Landau’s persistence that caused the subsequent addition of several girls’ sports– “We just did some things that we were going to do anyway,” he says. Good. Then you won’t mind the complaint.  This reminds me of when you’re little and your older brother gives you some brilliant idea, and you can’t just say thanks, you have to insist that Oh, I was going to do that anyway.  Sure you were.  Anyway, regardless of the intentions of schools to make improvements regarding gender equality in sports, the fact is that Landau forces action.  Whether it’s shaming tactics that he uses (the same kind of tactics used by Human Rights Watch, in fact) or not, it really doesn’t matter.  The desired outcome is equality and justice, and so often we never quite get there because we never quite go far enough…Call the principle to complain? Maybe.  But spend significant amounts of time making sure that these kinds of issues are solved?  Most of us brush it off: we just don’t have the time.

I spent fourteen years playing soccer. I can honestly say I have no idea what I’d be like if I hadn’t played, and for the vast majority of the time I never felt discriminated against.  It gave me confidence, made me feel empowered, and taught me discipline.  And I loved it.  When I was in high school, my school did a “signing ceremony” on National Signing Day, when all the seniors who received athletic scholarships signed their letters of intent.  Every year, the recruited athletes would sign their (usually fake) letters, their proud parents would take pictures, and they’d write a little article in the newspaper about it.  My senior year, 7 or 8 girls got athletic scholarships.  That year, no boys did, and we didn’t hear a thing about a signing ceremony.  I asked around, and finally found out that the (male) Athletic Director just didn’t think it was “newsworthy” enough, since there were no baseball or football players involved.  It would’ve been nice to have a Robert Landau in our community, because to us it was newsworthy.  It isn’t the biggest deal in the world, but try telling that to a 17 year-old who’s worked her entire life for something only to be told it doesn’t mean a thing.  As Landau himself said, “Quite frankly, I shouldn’t have to do this,” but he does.  I’m thankful that there are people who do, and I wish there were more.