A tale of bureaucracy at work
Last September the Department of Health, Education and Welfare sent a stern command to the Joseph Sears Elementary School in Chicago's posh North Shore suburb of Kenilworth (pop. 2,980). According to HEW, Sears was required to fill out a detailed Title IX questionnaire explaining how it had eliminated sex discrimination in its hiring policy, in facilities for its 575 pupils and in its curriculum. The penalty for noncompliance: an end to HEW aid for the school.
Superintendent John Beckwith was perplexed. Sears, Kenilworth's lone school, had never asked...