Title IX and the Protection of Pregnant and Parenting College Students: Realities and Challenges

This book explores the discrepancies among what protections Title IX provides to pregnant and parenting students, what colleges communicate, and what pregnant and parenting students actually experience. To actually protect pregnant and parenting students, the authors argue that a school must provide multifaceted support that is effectively communicated to an entire campus community, including students who are parenting, who are pregnant, and who may become pregnant.

The first part of the book portrays the realities of pregnancy and parenting in college. The chapters illuminate related Title IX applications, population demographics, how unplanned pregnancies in college occur, and physical and mental health challenges that these students often experience. The authors then discuss what compliance with Title IX legally entails and why meeting it is often an afterthought. In the second half of the book, the authors use mixed-methods research to map the compliance landscapes of three schools in the southeast as examples: a large state school, a mid-size private university, and a small private college.

Offering eye-opening interviews with pregnant and parenting students, interdisciplinary research, and proposals for multifaceted support and communication on college campuses, this volume will engage students, scholars, and activists with an interest in higher education administration, educational policy, reproductive health, bioethics, gender studies, and rhetoric.