Ann Arbor lawyer Jean King recently filed a lawsuit against the University of Michigan over the women’s restrooms at the recently renovated Hill Auditorium.
Michigan’s building codes require one toilet per 65 female patrons and 125 toilets per male patron. So when renovating the hall, the university sat down and figured out how many people would attend a sold-out show at the auditorium. It then reasoned that if half the patrons were men and half were women it would need 29 toilets for the women and 15 for the men to comply with the building codes. The restrooms finally built included 30 toilets for women and 22 for men.
Not good enough for King who says that anything less than two women’s toilets for every men’s toilet is a violation of Title IX’s proscriptions against sex discrimination in educational institutes.
King told the Ann Arbor News that if more women’s toilets are not added,
Our daughters, granddaughters and great-granddaughters will no doubt still be waiting in line at Hill past the end of the intermission.
The university says that there simply is not any room for additional restroom facilities in the 89-year old auditorium.
And people wonder why Title IX is increasingly viewed with such hostility.
Source:
U-M faces restroom complaint. Peri Stone-Palmquist, Ann Arbor News, June 12, 2002.