traditionalists favoring rigid gender roles, democrats striving to remedy past discrimination, progressives promoting diversity in academic choices, and feminists championing exclusively female support systems. Because the coalition of proponents consists of parties with different interests, the body of "educational research regarding the efficacy of single-sex schools is mixed at best". Moreover, advocates tend to bolster their respective positions by emphasizing specific aspects of educational research without addressing the remaining "array of evidence regarding institutions, structures, and processes that construct views on gender and equality". Although educational research supporting gender segregation in schools is rife with ambiguity, "the social research is absolutely clear that separation on the basis of identity characteristics creates feelings of individual inadequacy and instills beliefs about group hierarchy". Studies used to make policy or legal arguments in the current debate over single-sex education narrowly "look only at the slice of the social picture that schooling represents". An informed assessment regarding the appropriate role of gender segregation in contemporary and future education developments requires contemplation of potential implications beyond the direct, internal, and immediate influences that single-sex schools stand to exert on students. It is undeniable that gender inequality exists, consciously or not, in contemporary social, professional, and domestic hierarchies or relationships. Indeed, "[g]ender separatism is so pervasive that it is almost invisible. It is woven into the fabric of our daily social routines." Vestiges of past gender segregation and its connotations throughout American history validate questions concerning the likely effects of contemporary institutions of single-sex education on prevailing gender. Impact on female citizens' civil rights Assessing the current single-sex education debate through a broad lens realizes contextual factors that effectively constitute the crux of the issue. Most discussions regarding the potential effects of single-sex education characterize future students of such institutions as the sole beneficiaries of resulting impacts. However, an appropriate assessment considers contextual implications and realizes that female citizens as a class will be the true beneficiaries if single-sex education developments reach fruition. If the multitude of diverging interests that influence the single-sex education dispute was distilled, the core concern of the discussion asks whether single-sex education will help remedy past gender discrimination or not. In sum, [Gender] separatism originated in beliefs about innate differences between women and men in inclinations and abilities, sentiments that comported with 'widely held views about women's proper place.' The existence of segregated higher education was itself, for centuries, a critical