In this op-ed I wrote for Inside Higher Ed I lay out what colleges need to do.

For those of you kind enough to order a book on the early side…please consider writing a review on the Amazon site. Doesn’t have to be long … a couple graphs will do. It helps spread the word on this issue. Thanks, Richard

Both these, from Inside Higher Ed, tell us something about the issue. The first, a lawssuit from Green Mountain College, reveals some of the tensions that arise over college dorm bathroom issues. Although Green Mountain is evenly balanced (wonder what their admittance rates are by gender?) I ran across this issue in colleges that become 60 percent female. What to do with the bathrooms in coed dorms? Keep them separate and the female bathrooms are overcrowded. Integrate them and you get this. The second is a column about coed college education.

If you’re among the many claiming that boys are falling behind because teachers don’t adjust to boys’ “learning styles” then you should be willing to hear the other side of that argument, found here on Facebook at Learning Styles Debunked.

This article from the Baltimore Sun reveals how colleges will finesse this one — gender is just one of many considerations, they say. Fine. But the only indicator that matters is the admission rate. If after all those “considerations” you still admit men at far higher rates, what’s up?

Balancing a freshman class for gender is fine, at least from my perspective. How is that any different from favoring a trombone player or free safety? But when you obfuscate and pretend you don’t have to reach deeper in the application pool to find men you let K-12 schools off the hook for failing to educate boys. Something is going on in those K-12 schools, and the best way to bring pressure is to have colleges be candid about what they’re seeing in their application pools.

This report from Statistics Canada reveals gender changes more dramatic than found in the U.S. From the Chronicle: “While the number of university graduates per year increased by 43 percent from 1992 to 2007, the graduating classes went from 56 percent women to 61 percent women.”

… in Sphere, the new AOL News opinion site, a commentary I wrote on the admissions controversy.

Earlier today I posted the insidehighered brief about the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights’ investigation into admission gender bias. I was so certain the College of William and Mary would be on the list — 43 percent admittance rate for men, 29 percent for women and a defiant attitude for a public college: “We’re the College of William and Mary, not the College of Mary and Mary” the admissions director once told the press — that I didn’t check to make sure.

I mean, it’s within the geographic range of the investigation, and the college obviously favors men in admissions (justifiably so, I have have argued).

But it’s not on the list. You have to wonder: this issue has a history of liberals looking the other way. While I would describe myself as a liberal I’ve come to the conclusion that colleges being honest about what they have to do is the only hope we have for directing attention to where the real problem lies, in the K-12 system.

If the commission decides it would rather whitewash this one, the AAUW would applaud … but it would be a lost opportunity.

Here’s the update on Commission actions yesterday, from insidehighered. I plan to continue writing commentaries on this issue — I have two more about to surface — not because I think this is a critical issue (is this bias any different from favoring minorities or quarterbacks?) but because it appears to be the only way to focus attention on the true issue, which is what’s happening in K-12 schools. I find it difficult to draw attention to what most people consider a messy problem lacking a solution. But tell them their daughter is being discriminated against … all of a sudden I have their attention. Now, if I can only steer that attention in the right direction.

Just posted.