Google: Teach Girls Coding, Get $2,500; Teach Boys, Get $0

theodp (442580) writes "'Public school teachers,' reads the headline at Khan Academy (KA), 'introduce your students to coding and earn $1000 or more for your classroom!' Read the fine print, however, and you'll see that the Google-bankrolled offer is likely to ensure that girls, not boys, are going to be their Computer Science teachers' pets. 'Google wants public high school students, especially girls, to discover the magic of coding,' KA explains to teachers. 'You'll receive a $100 DonorsChoose.org gift code for every female student who completes the [JS 101: Drawing & Animation] course. When 4 or more female students complete it, we'll email you an additional $500 gift code as a thank-you for helping your students learn to code.' While 'one teacher cannot have more than 20 of the $100 gift codes activated on their DonorsChoose.org projects,' adds KA, 'if the teacher has more than 20 female students complete the curriculum, s/he will still be sent gift codes, and the teacher can use the additional gift codes on another teacher's DonorsChoose.org project.' So, is girls-are-golden-boys-are-worthless funding for teachers' projects incongruent with Khan Academy's other initiatives, such as its exclusive partnership with CollegeBoard to eliminate inequality among students studying for the SAT?"

Re:Sex discrimination.

[thaylin]

And that matters how? Sexual discrimination is not legal no matter if you are the government site or something else.

Re:It would be inequal to provide equal rewards

[redmid17]

There's also a complete inequality in girls graduating high school, enrolling in college, and graduating college. I'm all for making sure that girls are given every opportunity to succeed and not prevented or discouraged from going down a path they want to try, but frankly there are many larger issues that need to be worked on before you started down this path? That said, it's Google's money to do with as they please. They clearly see some benefit to this and it doesn't mean that the money they donate here would have gone to equalizing the current gender gap in education or that they don't give money to that cause already.

Re:Sex discrimination.

[CrankyFool]

You misunderstand the concept of a "protected class."

Employment law indicates that discrimination or harassment based on protected classifications is illegal. A protected classification is something like "gender," but not "being a woman." So if you discriminate against someone because she's a woman, that's illegal because you're discriminating based on a protected class (gender); and if you discriminate against someone because he's a man, that's ALSO illegal because you yet again are discriminating based on a protected class (gender).

Same thing about race, national origin, and a few other classifications (military service, in a few states sexual orientation, etc).

That doesn't mean, however, that you can't have a charity that focuses on one gender or race, or an organization focused on one gender (e.g. girl scouts or boy scouts); it also doesn't mean that an entity seeking to donate money must donate money equally to all genders -- protected classifications are an area in employment law, not every facet of life.

Re:Sex discrimination.

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't worry, the powers that be have covered that unique case. Apparently, discrimination can only legally happen if it's against a "protected class" (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protected_class). So if you are a white straight male, or in some cases a male period, you are not a "protected class" and therefore discrimination cannot happen.

Disgusting.

White makes are in two protected classes: whites and males. The law doesn't say you can't discriminate against women and minorities, it says you can't discriminate based on race or gender, so white males are just as protected as anyone else.

Re:Sex discrimination.

[gsslay]

You appear confused. A few points that may help you.

No one is offering excuses for anything.

The ones who might suffer here are high school boys. Not "menz" and not CS graduates. So your scorn is addressing an irrelevant target.

Google, the ones offering this discriminatory money, are very much part of the nasty, unpleasant industry you speak of.

Re:I'd say your extrapolation of 'people you know'

[mwvdlee]

0 in 5 is statistically about right, considering 6.6% of nurses in the US are men.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M... [wikipedia.org]

title ix issue

[Joe_Dragon]

No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance.

Re:Sex discrimination.

[Zmobie]

Um, what the hell are you talking about? I've done work with a Boy Scout troop for over a decade and it has been the way it is for some time.

A Boy Scout Troop is all males under the age of 18, no females. A Venture Crew, which can be related to a troop under their same sponsoring organization, have males and females up to 21. Adult leaders can be both male and female so as to avoid discriminating against say single parent households where the child only has his mother (arguably this is even more beneficial to these groups, "arguably"). There is no "pitched a fit" and now girls can be in the actual troop. Girls can only be in Venture Crews which are related to a Scout Troop, but managed differently, follow different activity guidelines normally (though some overlap, such as Philmont), and have completely different progression paths and requirements.

Seriously not trying to be a prick here, but please don't post things when you only have misleading information.