Schools Chancellor Rudy Crew said yesterday that the experimental all-girls public middle school in East Harlem would remain single-sex and that he would not create an equivalent school for boys.
Crew will likely battle the Education Department and the New York Civil Liberties Union in court on civil rights charges because the Young Women’s Leadership School violates the Title IX prohibition on sex discrimination in federally-funded education programs.
Crew said admitting boys would defeat the purpose of the school, which is to help girls excel in math and science. Studies say girls perform best when boys are not in the classroom. Crew sees no reason to create a similar all-boys school, which the “quid pro quo” law of Title IX would dictate. “This is a case where the existence of the all-girls school makes an important statement about the viable education of girls,” Crew said.
