School rules raise cries at HEW

By John Mathews

L.A. Times/Washington Post Service ·

WASHINGTON

"Un-

isex schools? Isn't that what they have in Commieland, Comrade?" asks one irate letter-writer.

A woman from Salem, Ore., writes: "Can you picture the great forefathers of our country sitting in sewing and cooking classes?"

And, a handwritten note, signed "Mary Davis, 10 years old," expressed the traditional antipathy of her age group to the opposite

sex

"Please do not push me and my girlfriends into gym classes and other things with boys. We don't want to be with boys. Don't we have free choice in this country?"

In the weeks since Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare Caspar W. Weinberger issued proposed regulations barring sez discrimination in schools receiving federal funds, a steady flow of what

officials refer to as "comment" has been logged at HEW

The reaction ranges widely, from biblical injunctions about the differences between the sexes and denunciations of women's liberation to criticisms from women's organizations that HEW has not gone far enough in implementing a two-year-old sex discrimination law.

Open for "comment" until Oct. 15, the regulations are not expected to become final until early next year.

At this stage, the draft regulations require co-eduregulations require co-educational classes in physical education, shop and home economics. Schools and colleges can maintain the traditional male varsity sports and need not equal ize spending or scholarships, but must provide women with comparable athletic opportunities.

While Weinberger can ignore the "comments," if he wishes, he has already responded to an early avalanche of opposition to mixed sex-education class-

es. He acknowledged the draft regulations indicated coed sex classes would be required, but 20 days after the release of the draft, he issued an amendment permitting separation of the sexes for sex education.

Weinberger's switch on sex education elicited some criticism as well. Dr. George W. Naumburg Jr. of New York City wrote: "Your reasoning seems to be based on the idea that heterosexual classes would lead to heterosexual activity. Would it not then follow that homosexual class groupings would lead to homosexual activity?”

The doctor added that coed sex education classes become a "cooperative experience" in which girls, for example, "may learn for the first time that boys, far from being self-assured potential rapists, are actually as fearful about sex as the girls are."

With sex education now a dead issue, athletics in schools and colleges have become the dominant concern of the commentators..