Gov. Brown signs bills to help juvenile offenders, Title IX compliance

Gov. Jerry Brown announced Friday that he has signed 33 bills into law, including measures providing the automatic sealing of juvenile offenders’ records if they comply with court directions and requiring schools to report, by gender, who is participating in their sports programs.

The juvenile offender bill, by Sen. Mark Leno (D-San Francisco), will help young nonviolent offenders get their lives back on track so they can become productive members of society, its author says.

The measure provides for the automatic sealing of juvenile records in cases in which the youth successfully completes all court-imposed sanctions. Existing law allows for the sealing but requires the offender to petition the court and many never file a petition, Leno said.

“We know that young people who have been in trouble, if given the chance, can turn their lives around before it’s too late,” said Leno, who added that his SB 1038 “helps ensure that nonviolent juvenile offenders who have paid their debt to society receive a clean slate upon completing probation.”

Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson (D-Santa Barbara) authored SB 1349 so that students and their parents can see how many boys and girls are participating in school sports and judge whether there is gender equity in the programs.

The measure requires all public elementary and secondary schools that offer competitive sports to report on their website the number of boys and girls who play sports and the number of boys’ and girls’ teams by sport and competition level. That will help determine if schools are complying with Title IX, which mandates equity.

“These past few weeks, as we’ve watched Mo’ne Davis pitching in the Little League World Series, we’ve seen what incredible contributions a young woman can make to sports,” Jackson said in a statement. “In the 40 years since Title IX became law, girls’ sports opportunities have grown exponentially. Yet, we know that girls still have far fewer opportunities to play sports than boys.”

“For those schools that don’t comply [with Title IX], we hope this reporting requirement will ‘sunshine’ that inequity, give parents and schools important information, and become a wake-up call to the school and its community that change is needed,” Jackson added.