Schools

Gov. Lets Bill OKing Father Daughter Dances Become Law

Rhode Island Governor Lincoln Chafee has ignored pressure from a coalition of womens' groups asking him for a veto and allowed a bill that OKs father daughter dances in public schools.

The bill was introduced by Cranston Sen. Hanna M. Gallo in response to a controversy centered here in Cranston last year after one parent complained of discrimination after a school dance was labeled a "father daughter" dance.

The complaint, filed by the ACLU on behalf of the mother, warned Cranston that events exclusively for one gender or another violates Title IX law that bars gender discrimination in schools.

The Gallo bill carves an exception for father daughter dances with a provision that any such event must have a "comparable" event for the opposite gender. And critics of the ban on father-daughter dances said the mother was allowed to attend the dance and no parent would actually be turned away at the door.

Last week, the National Coalition for Women and Girls in Education, along with 12 other organizations, like the National Organization for Women, the Women's Sport Foundation, the ALCU and the Women's Law Project, wrote a letter to Chafee and said the Gallo bill "may appear innocuous, it is both vague and over-broad, and would encourage Rhode Island schools to institute single-sex programming in violation of federal and state laws designed to prevent sex discrimination in educational programs and activities."

In reality, the father daughter dance had been phased out years ago, Cranston school officials said during the height of the controversy when dozens came out at School Committee meetings to protest what was believed to be a new "ban" on the dances based on ACLU pressure. What really happened was it creeped into the language of a few school flyers while other schools had adjusted to hosting "sweetheart" dances that were open to both moms and dads, school officials said.

In response, the district warned administrators of the concerns about violating Title IX.

"We're following the letter of the law," Cranston Superintendent Judith Lundsten, a mother of two grown sons, said. "We never thought it was harming anybody, nobody ever had any intentions of doing that nor did any parent organizations have any intentions of doing that."

Now, with the passage of the bill, school districts like Cranston need not worry how a dance is labeled. Instead, the discussion will be about whether a "comparable activity" is a night out at McCoy Stadium, a mother-son dance, an ice cream party, etc.

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What do you think constitutes a "comparable activity?"

Previous stories on the father-daughter dance controversy:

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