Title IX: A Technical Approach

On June 23, 1972, "Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972" was made a law[1]. Since this day, many changes have been made to increase the power and scope of Title IX. In 1979, the Carter administration developed a "three-prong test" to determine an institution's compliance to Title IX. According to this test, an institution must 1) have opportunities in proportion of gender ratio of the student population, 2) be seeking to expand athletic opportunities for the underrepresented sex, or 3) accommodate the underrepresented sex according to their interest. In general, Title IX covers several areas including access to higher education and employment among the sexes, education for pregnant and parenting students, education in math and sciences, sexual harassment, and standardized testing [2]. In the 1992 case of Franklin v Gwinnett County Public Schools, the US Supreme Court ruled that schools not supporting Title IX could be sued for compensatory and punitive damages. Title IX encourages institutions to give equal scholarship funding for each sex, even though most athletic programs do not receive Federal funding. Today, the many aspects of Title IX seek to provide equal opportunities for individuals regardless of gender in athletics, academics and the workforce.

Let's hear it for communism!

Mike was right. By simply becoming communists, we will quickly and efficiently solve the issue of privacy. Currently, employers are advised to "reserve their right to search as broadly as possible." But if nothing we own is really ours, then such blanket statements will come de facto. Privacy would be a thing of the past: if you don't own anything, then the term "stealing" can be redefined as a softer "replacement of ownership." Without the excitement of being hunted by the law, crime would cease to exist and everyone would love his neighbor. If communism were further developed to a worldwide governing system, research ideas would be shared globally and all aspects of life will be positively affected. Nobody would worry that China is "ratcheting up its cyberspying operations against the U.S.," because a "firm involved in high-technology development" in the US would be developing for China as well. Outsourcing could be perfected to such a point that the only workers in the US would be illegal aliens, leaving us time to pursue the true American dream: watch TV, browse the internet, and Twitter promising research leads to overseas sweat-shops.

Could life get any better? I submit that it could not!

The laundry fight

I'm not a left-wing liberal, but neither do I consistently agree with the conservative right. In fact, I've sometimes been known to take issue with authority figures. It's not that I don't trust them, it's just that I follow a strict code of conduct: If you want my respect, you have to be 1) taller and 2) more intelligent than me. Otherwise, it's on a case-by-case basis. It's not that I've got a problem with taking advice or showing respect to my elders, it's just that, as a general rule, the bureaucratic I'm-your-superior rarely show concern for the little man (or the big man, if you're like me).

Case in point: BYU's Laundry Facilities. Remember a while back when, in order to play basketball in the Richard's Building, you needed a BYU-issue T-shirt? Or perhaps you remember forgetting clean socks for your early-morning workout and simply requesting an issue pair with your order? Sometime around April of this year, BYU decided to change this policy. Instead of supplying clothing and laundry services, they (the bureaucratically superior) agreed that it would be much cheaper to require everyone to provide their own clothing. So, with all the pomp and circumstance they could muster, they sold all the formerly-issue clothing and began to make everyone wear ridiculous plastic wrist bands. I fought it good and hard: "They're dangerous. When I'm dunking the basketball, I might catch my wrist on the rim and tear it off." I even tried just putting the silly rip-your-arm-hairs-out wristband on my shoe–they could see I was wearing it and I didn't find it too obnoxious. But it didn't fly.

It's been a long hard fight between BYU's laundry facilities and me. Apparently, they'll still wash your towel if you rent a locker from them, but that's about the extent of their service. Where did the money they saved go? Probably to the doubled number of students they've hired to send you from the gym for not wearing a wrist band. Perhaps a better solution could have been to ask each student to pay an extra dollar for tuition. I'm sure they'd be able to cover the washing of shirts for 20 grand a year, and we, the student population, would only need to give up one Jr. Bacon Cheeseburger every six months...

As I come down from my rant, I acknowledge that perhaps I need to be more understanding. A plastic wrist band isn't an incredible hassle, and I've felt the disgust when foreigners have come to use the pool at our apartment complex and routinely destroy the hot tub with a measure of bubble bath. Maybe the bureaucratic bigwigs really are there for our benefit, and, in spite of the occasional lack of help from some three-letter agencies (thanks, Cliff), they really do protect our rights.


Just don't get me started on parking enforcement. Class is in 20 minutes.

The bigger they are, the harder they move

Small companies or individuals can often provide great advances (like Bill Gates, a Harvard dropout), but sustained innovation is tough. It comes from continually looking outside the box and constantly making changes that quite often become epic fails. I'd like to think Google's growth during this economic recession is not solely based on the company's size, but has also gained momentum from employees' pet projects. And yet, what impresses me most is that they don't just leave old ideas for new ones, otherwise the traditional Google search engine would die. Instead, they recognize their weaknesses ("search needs to get better ... faster"), and are improving past projects as well as new ones (like the upcoming Chrome OS). Fortunately--or unfortunately, as the case might be--I can focus the entirety of my research on innovation. Maybe someday I'll be a billionaire and need to fix security threats in previously-developed software.

"Family History, I am doing it..."

Today is the day of technology. Nothing has been able to avoid its influence--including the Church (meaning The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints). For a massive religious organization established in the early 1800's, this is no small feat, especially when most of its leadership grew up in the pre-PC era. That's why I love it when my grandpa shows me his "latest and greatest" from the Family History Center. Sure, he may only view his iPhone as a somewhat cumbersome wireless landline, but to seek out technological advances and attempt to teach them to others? That's what makes him my hero. I can only hope I don't ever feel like the technologically primitive who, as described by Elder Nelson, "...secretly hope that they can slip through their remaining days on earth without ever having to touch a computer" ("A New Harvest Time").