Laura Pappano News
Laura Pappano shares an excerpt from her book "School Moms: Parent Activism, Partisan Politics, and the Battle for Public Education."
Laura Pappano writes about a battle over public schools, in an article that also appeared in Vanity Fair.- New Book 鈥淪chool Moms鈥� Delves Into Battle for Public Schools
In a Q&A, Laura Pappano discusses her new book about parent activism and partisan politics in public schools, and shares an excerpt.
Laura Pappano explains the real world consequences of school choice.
Laura Pappano contributes to a collection of stories about the start of the 2022-23 school year.
Writer-in-residence Laura Pappano discusses the issue of mental health among college students.
Laura Pappano writes about different perceptions of success for post-pandemic high school students.
Laura Pappano, WCW writer in residence, investigates the unique needs of adult college students.First-gen and low-income students were already behind their peers in applying to college, but the pandemic has exacerbated to problem. WCW Writer in Residence Laura Pappano covers this story in the Hechinger Report.
Laura Pappano of WCW discusses the effect COVID-19 has had on regional college campuses in the US in this article featured in The Hechinger Report.
Laura Pappano, WCW's writer in residence, explores how college students have been keeping their communities connected while they are away from campus during COVID-19.Laura Pappano, WCW鈥檚 Writer in Residence, discusses chatbots and their evolving role in higher education.
Writer-in-residence Laura Pappano discusses the rise in transfer students from community colleges, who represent a highly motivated contingent with an important perspective."Students are forming new clubs, reviving old ones, launching bipartisan journals and organizing events," writes Laura Pappano, WCW Writer in Residence.
Laura Pappano, inaugural Writer in Residence at WCW, highlights civil discourse on college campuses.
Laura Pappano, writer-in-residence at WCW, reviews The Privileged Poor by Anthony Abraham Jack.
Laura Pappano, WCW writer in residence, highlights the difficulty American colleges have in defining diversity.
Laura Pappano, WCW writer in residence, explores what diversity means when it comes to college campuses and admissions programs.Laura Pappano, WCW writer-in-residence, writes about college-bound teens transforming the way college administrators and faculty communicate.
Laura Pappano, writer-in-residence at WCW, explores the future of education.
Laura Pappano looks at the way students, faculty, and administrators at Christian Colleges are responding to the clash of gay rights and traditional values on campus.
First-generation Ivy League graduates struggle to navigate shifting socioeconomic class after obtaining high-paying jobs post-graduation, writes Laura Pappano, WCW writer in residence.
A WCW study found that for Division I college basketball, tickets to see men鈥檚 teams were significantly higher priced than women's teams at every seating and pricing level.
Laura Pappano writes about the experiences of first generation students in Ivy League schools.
Laura Pappano discusses the experiences of first generation college campuses in the Hechinger Report.
Georgia Hall, Laura Pappana, and Lissette DeSouza of WCW are referenced in this article that discusses gender inequality in sports.Laura Pappano of WCW writes about a volatile climate on college campuses in this article in the New York Times.
Laura Pappano of WCW discusses diversity and cultural identity among students in the New York Times.
Laura Pappano of WCW penned this article in the New York Times.
Laura Pappano discusses "disorientation" and Portland State activists in the New York Times.
Laura Pappano of WCW discusses death threats targeted at college professors in the New York Times.
Laura Pappano of WCW discusses bachelor's degrees and credentials in regards to college admission and employment.
Laura Pappano of WCW is featured in the New York Times discussing computational thinking.
Laura Pappano of WCW is featured in the New York Times and discusses rural students in regards to college.
Laura Pappano of WCW discusses rural students in the New York Times.
- Commentary with Laura Pappano: Olympics Are Gold for Women Athletes
Research & Action Report, Fall/Winter 2016
The Olympics may be鈥攐n the surface鈥攁bout international goodwill, but they are more baldly about political competition. They also offer a report card on gender equity progress. One could credit the rise of women鈥檚 athletics in the U.S., not to the passage of Title IX in 1972, but to the Cold War realization that the medal gap between the U.S. and the Soviet Union was essentially the difference in women鈥檚 participation.
- Commentary with Laura Pappano: Olympics Are Gold for Women Athletes
The Olympics may be鈥攐n the surface鈥攁bout international goodwill, but they are more baldly about political competition. They also offer a report card on gender equity progress. One could credit the rise of women鈥檚 athletics in the U.S., not to the passage of Title IX in 1972, but to the Cold War realization that the medal gap between the U.S. and the Soviet Union was essentially the difference in women鈥檚 participation.
- When Is a Girl Not a Girl?
When Is a Girl Not a Girl?
Sex Testing: Gender Policing in Women鈥檚 Sports
By Lindsay Parks Pieper
Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2016, 250 pp., $22.50, paperback
Reviewed by Laura Pappano
An e-mail arrived recently from a college student I had met several times. Embedded in the electronic signature below the year of graduation, residential college, and major was a quick line of text: 鈥淧ronouns: he/him/his.鈥�
It surprised me. Not because the pronouns were different from what I had expected鈥擨 had perceived this student as male鈥攂ut because he chose to include them. He was proclaiming don鈥檛 assume you know what I am. He was reminding me, and everyone else he e-mails, that gender identity is neither fixed nor obvious.
Ambiguity is a hallmark of our time, from confusion over the sources of extremist danger to the state of race relations, the future of the planet, the purpose of a college degree, or the true healthfulness of so-called healthy foods (must we eat kale?). When it comes to gender and biological sex, we are getting used to a fluid view of 鈥渕ale鈥� and 鈥渇emale,鈥� and overturning old norms. This is not simply a nod to surgery and hormone therapy, or the rising profile of transgender people, but the recognition that biological sex is more complicated than many once believed.
This wiggly reality has been a stubborn adversary for Olympic and international sport officials, who insist on dividing competition into neat categories: male and female. The desire for certain sex identity鈥攆or dichotomy, where nature offers a spectrum鈥攈as spurred a costly, complicated, and fraught process to 鈥減rove鈥� that female athletes are, indeed, female. (Males require no such proof).
Questions of why, how, and for what purpose athletic associations have so fervently sex tested female athletes is at the heart of Lindsay Parks Pieper鈥檚 Sex Testing. In it, she digs into the history, politics, and mangled logic for sex testing elite female athletes, particularly in Olympic competition. She argues that the process is more about enforcing western ideals of womanhood than about procuring that elusive 鈥渓evel playing field鈥� for competition. Top sport officials, she writes, 鈥渇ound it inconceivable that strong, muscular women could be authentic or natural,鈥� and attempted to enforce a 鈥渧ision of appropriate female athleticism.鈥� They seemed to believe 鈥渢hat any man could don a wig or a skirt and defeat all women in athletic competition.鈥�
On-site sex testing was officially instituted during the Mexico City Olympics in 1968 and suspended just this year: there was no sex testing in Rio. However, the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), founded as a governing body for track and field, and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) sought sex verification as early as the 1920s. Questions arose most often in track and field when an athlete was taller, more muscular, or faster than was deemed possible.
At the 1928 Amsterdam Olympics, for example, when Hitomi Kinue of Japan came in second in the 800-meter event behind Lina Radke of Germany, some in the press speculated that Kinue was a man. The race became famous because six runners fell exhausted to the ground, prompting the cancellation of women鈥檚 distance events for years. 鈥淏ased largely on Hitomi鈥檚 athletic success and her unmarried status,鈥� writes Pieper, one reporter 鈥渄educed that she was 鈥�40 or 50 percent male and 50 or 60 percent female.鈥欌�� Years later, in a 1936 article in the New York Times, reporter Grantland Rice alluded to the 1928 games in which 鈥渢he investigating committee was out two hours before it decided predominant sex鈥� of a Japanese woman competitor.
The requirements of femininity have long been at odds with sport. Female athletes who didn鈥檛 appear classically feminine fed the myth that sports such as track and field weren鈥檛 appropriate for women and, worse, could have a masculinizing effect. The brash, all-around athlete Babe Didrikson was criticized as unladylike. She and the track stars Helen Stephens and Stella Walsh were 鈥渓ambasted [for] their muscular physiques, unfeminine appearances, working-class backgrounds,鈥� observes Pieper. 鈥淢annish鈥� female athletes threatened a gender order in which men were powerful and women lithe and delicate. 鈥淐alls to implement sex testing,鈥� writes Pieper, were not about fair play but about ensuring heterofemininity.
Over the years, the testing has taken different forms. In the 1920s and 1930s, the only way to tell if an athlete was female was to look. Whenever there was 鈥渁 definite question as to sex,鈥� explains Pieper, the IOC and IAAF called for an exam. This created problems. For one thing, only muscular women were singled out. Then there was the exam itself. Here Pieper is less than clear. How extensive were the exams? Who performed them? The allusion to the Japanese athlete who left examiners puzzled for two hours is intriguing: visual inspection had limitations. Pressure to verify all female competitors鈥攏ot just suspicious ones鈥攍ed the IAAF in 1947 and the IOC in 1948 to require certificates signed by a doctor. Yet these could be easy to obtain.
During the cold war, Soviet and eastern-bloc female athletes were encouraged to train more aggressively than American women, who feared 鈥渦nsightly鈥� muscles. This made Russians and Eastern Europeans鈥攅xcluding the 鈥減ixie-like鈥� child-gymnasts Olga Korbut and Nadia Comaneci鈥攕uspect. And indeed, some of this suspicion turned out to be justified: East German female swimmers were subjected to a horrific doping program that led to illnesses and ruined lives.
As with the East Germans, the separate issues of sex testing and doping are often conflated, writes Pieper. Sports authorities first tested for steroids in 1974 at the Commonwealth Games in New Zealand鈥攁lthough none who failed were penalized鈥攁nd then at the 1976 Montreal Olympics. At the time, it was acceptable for male athletes, particularly weightlifters, to take steroids: the drugs enhanced their masculinity. 鈥淭he most serious and dangerous use of drugs by females,鈥� one journalist warned, 鈥渋s the taking of male hormones.鈥� The press erroneously reported that a 鈥渘ew infamous sex test鈥濃�攕ex chromatin testing, developed in the late 1940s and used at the 1968 Olympics鈥攚ould offer an ideal scientific solution. But it did no such thing.
In the chromatin, or Buccal smear test, a small amount of DNA, usually from a scrape inside the cheek, is amplified to reveal an athlete鈥檚 chromosomal makeup. The test is difficult to read: in a medical journal, two scientists pointed out that even the scientist who invented it, Murray Barr, read some tests incorrectly. And in a 1956 article in the British medical journal, the Lancet, Barr himself begged 鈥減hysicians to act with 鈥榗aution and diplomacy鈥� when labeling sex and to use the chromosomal check sparingly.鈥� He was ignored.
Biological sex simply cannot be clearly categorized. The chromatin test has humiliated women born with chromosomal differences, such as those with mosaicism, who have cells containing both XY and XX chromosomes, and those with androgen insensitivity, who have Y chromosomes and test as male, yet have many female physical characteristics. These and other intersex states have been common enough to raise questions about the test鈥檚 validity or usefulness鈥攂ut not before many female athletes were publicly shocked by results they never anticipated. The chromatin test also results in a fair number of false positives, reports Pieper:
From a sample of 鈥渘ormal appearing males,鈥� the Barr body test labeled one out of seven hundred as female. The test also identified one out of two hundred women as male, which was of particular significance for the Olympics.
Yet, rather than question testing itself, the IOC medical commission in the 1990s embraced a new test: the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test, which seeks out a specific DNA sequence鈥攖he sex-determining region or SRY鈥攖o identify the presence of a Y gene, a sign of 鈥渕aleness.鈥� Because the test was susceptible to contamination, female workers were assigned to take the samples from female athletes.
In 1999, the IOC announced an end to official sex testing鈥攜et in a nod to old fears, at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, officials required inspectors to visually scrutinize athletes鈥� genitalia during the urination required for antidoping exams. Such scrutiny, argues Pieper, marks yet another instance of the troublesome conflation of doping and sex testing.
Pieper makes a powerful case for the folly and pain of sex testing, sharing the case of the Spanish hurdler Maria Pati帽o. When Pati帽o forgot to bring her verification card to international competition in Japan in 1986, she underwent and failed a chromatin test鈥攕tunning herself and the world. Pieper chronicles the controversy in detail, as Pati帽o, with the help of a Finnish physician, sparked doubts about the value of sex testing, and its hold began to unravel.
Although Sex Testing is thorough and well documented, we need more science. Chromosomal abnormalities are explained early on, but later, as we hear about Barr鈥檚 doubts about his sex chromatin test and about limitations of PCR testing, we need more. What, precisely, are the tests鈥� weaknesses? Why do intersex conditions go undetected and unsuspected, even by those who have them?
The strength of Sex Testing is its detail, though at times the structure seems weak; the book is more a jumble of gems than a necklace. Still, because it is chock full of terrific research from primary sources, it will be useful for academics. And Pieper鈥檚 message comes through loud and clear: sex testing is a political act. It is about enforcing gender norms, not ensuring fair play.
In Pieper鈥檚 epilogue, she notes that although sex testing has officially ended, sports authorities have not let go. Instead, they鈥檝e raised a new question: what is biological fairness? Should women with hyperandrogenism, or higher-than-average levels of androgenic hormones鈥撯�揵e allowed to compete?
Just prior to the 2014 Glasgow Commonwealth Games, the Indian sprinter Dutee Chand was pulled aside, tested, and deemed ineligible. Although she had always thought of herself as female, the tests showed higher-than-average testosterone levels. Chand was offered medical 鈥渢reatment,鈥� which she refused. Instead, she appealed to the Court of Arbitration, which decides sports cases. On July 24, 2015, the court permitted Chand to return to competition, ruling that the IAAF had failed to prove the benefit of higher testosterone levels: 鈥淭here is presently insufficient evidence about the degree of the advantage,鈥� the court wrote, as it suspended the hyperandrogenism regulations for two years.
鈥淔airness,鈥� observes Pieper in her conclusion, 鈥渋s an abstract concept that does not exist in elite sport.鈥� The fact is, birth advantage helps many athletes excel. The Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps has a longer-than-average arm span, an elongated torso, short legs, size 14 feet, and double-jointed ankles that enable him to bend fifteen degrees farther than most swimmers. At 6蛠蛠 5蛠蛠蛠蛠 蛠, the sprinter Usain Bolt has a height advantage. While abnormalities and variations give many athletes an edge, women have born an unfair share of scrutiny. As Pieper reminds us, 鈥渙nly sex/gender differences resulted in disqualification.鈥�
Laura Pappano is writer-in-residence at 妻友社区. A journalist who writes on education and gender and sport, Pappano is co-author of Playing With The Boys: Why Separate is Not Equal in Sport (2007), was a varsity college athlete, and continues to be an avid sports participant (though has never been sex tested).
Lauren Pappano of WCW is featured in this radio segment about how "helicopter parenting" might affect college graduates entering the workforce.Laura Pappano of WCW is featured in The New York Times discussing career guidance post-college.
This article in the New York Times discusses what it's like to be a first-generation college student in the United States.The New York Times, April 11, 2014
by Laura PappanoChristian Science Monitor, February 23, 2014
by Laura PappanoThe New York Times, November 1, 2013
Laura PappanoThe New York Times Magazine, September 13, 2013
by Laura PappanoInformation Week: Education, March 7, 2013
David F. Carr
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The New York Times November 2, 2012
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KNPR June 11, 2012
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KSL.com May 3, 2012
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On The Issues Magazine April 19, 2012
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The Harvard Crimson April 13, 2012
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Spartan Daily April 3, 2012
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Lenny Megliola 
New Haven Independent February 8, 2012
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Harvard Education Letter January/February 2012
Laura Pappano- The New York Times January 20, 2012
- The New York Times November 4, 2011
Laura Pappano - The New York Times November 4, 2011
Laura Pappano 
The Star-Ledger (Newark, NJ) August 31, 2011
Julie O'Connor
MSNBC August 15, 2011
StateImpact New Hampshire (online) August 2, 2011
Amanda Loder
Voices in Education: The Blog of Harvard Education Publishing July 28, 2011
The New York Times July 22, 2011
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The New York Times July 22, 2011
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A. Graham Down
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Harvard Education Letter September/October 2010
Laura PappanoNational Public Radio’s Only A Game
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March 6, 2010The Associated Press
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November 22, 2009Huffingtonpost.com
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Libby Sander
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October 1, 2009- FairGameNews: Seeking Gender Equality on and Off the Field
Starting a blog is a little like trying to find a seat at your favorite coffee shop during primetime. It is where people are at, but if you drape your sweater over a chair, will anyone notice that you鈥檝e claimed this ground? If you post, will anyone read (besides the friends you鈥檝e begged)? Will anyone care?
The 妻友社区 Townsman
Elana Zak
May 21, 2009The Christian Science Monitor
April 3, 2009The New York Times
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Forbes.com
Emily Schmall
May 22, 2008Harvard Education Letter
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May/June 2008Harvard Education Letter
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May/June 2008The New York Times
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January 7, 2007The New York Times
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April 22, 2007Litchfield County Times
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December 27, 2007The Chronicle of Higher Education
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November 30, 2007Blog: Oxford University Press
Q&A with Laura Pappano
October 30, 2007The Huffington Post
Eileen McDonagh and Laura Pappano
November 8, 2007- Squeeze Play: Why Title IX Is Not Enough
Q&A with Laura Pappano
Laura Pappano is the first writer-in-residence at the 妻友社区 (WCW). An experienced journalist, Laura Pappano has been widely published in The New York Times, The Boston Globe, The Boston Globe Magazine, Good Housekeeping, Working Mother, and The Harvard Education Letter, among other publications. While at WCW, Laura Pappano is working on a book proposal that will combine her more than 20 years writing about education with her interest in women鈥檚 issues. Her new book, co-authored with Eileen McDonagh, Playing with the boys: Why Separate is Not Equal in Sports, has just been released by Oxford University Press.
