They only needed 37 words to change the course of education of millions of women and girls in the United States. However, the concise language of Title IX, the historical education law that was signed in 1972, has its origins in even fewer characters.
“You’re going too strong for a woman.”
This is what Dr. Bernice Sandler was told in 1969 when she applied for a permanent position at the University of Maryland, where she was already an adjunct professor. Three years later, after a class action lawsuit on behalf of women in higher education and the cunning maneuver of a handful of legislators, women were given a means to ensure equal access to education. for the first time in U.S. history.
Due to its great repercussions, Title IX was approved with little fanfare, a remarkable whisper nailed among other two reference provisions aimed at granting rights to women in a period of 12 months: the amendment for equal rights and Roe v. Wade. Fifty years later, it looks like only one of the three will remain standing.
The Equal Rights Amendment, which proposed an explicit guarantee for the equal protection of women in the U.S. Constitution, was first proposed in 1923 and passed by the Senate on March 22, 1972. But it is not enough. states that ratified it within 10 years. to add.
Title IX was signed by President Richard M. Nixon on June 23, 1972.
Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion in the United States, was announced on January 22, 1973. But it is widely believed that the decision probably does not see its 50th anniversary. On May 2 this year, a draft opinion was leaked suggesting that the Supreme Court could overturn the previous ruling, which would cause laws to change rapidly in many states.
So what has made Title IX so enduring? An act of Congress and broad public support, to begin with. But while Title IX sought to equalize college admissions, perhaps its most visible achievement has been the inclusion of women in interscholastic sports, causing an explosion in numerous youth sports for girls.
“Everyone can relate to sports, whether it’s your favorite team or college sports experience; sports are a common denominator that unites us,” said Dr. Courtney Flowers, a professor of sports management at Texas Southern University and co-author of a new article. analysis of Title IX by the Women’s Sport Foundation. “Everyone knows the word, but it ties it to athletics.”
According to the report, 3 million more high school girls have opportunities to participate in sports now than before Title IX. Today, women make up 44 percent of all college athletes, compared to 15 percent before Title IX.
“There had to be legislation that opened the door and changed the mindset,” Flowers said, adding, “Because of Title IX, there’s a Serena, there’s a Simone Biles.”
Title IX emerged as an embers of the civil rights and women’s liberation movements. But like the policies prior to Title IX, its path to success was far from certain. The key was to keep it under the radar and wide, experts said.
U.S. Rep. Edith Green of Oregon, a longtime advocate for women’s inclusion, and Patsy Mink of Hawaii, the first woman of color elected to Congress, saw the struggles she had faced the amendment for equal rights as it passed through the House and Senate. . When they began drafting Title IX, they tried to do so in a way that did not cause backlash from colleagues and educational institutions.
Green and Mink considered amending the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which, among other provisions, prohibited employment discrimination on the basis of race and sex in federally funded programs. But the path to including an educational offering seemed politically difficult.
The reauthorization of the Higher Education Act of 1965, on the other hand, offered the opportunity to add a ninth degree, or subset of the law, to a long list of educational amendments. The act eventually became an omnibus education bill that dealt with antibusing policies and federal funding of financial aid for college students.
Although Green and Mink decided to abandon the amendment to the Civil Rights Act, they saw reasons to use their language.
No person in the United States, on the grounds of sex, will be excluded from participation, denied benefits, or discriminated against under any educational program or activity that receives federal financial assistance.
Green, Mink, and other lawmakers advanced on Title IX “not making a big social movement driven by an aggressive stance for educational equality,” said Dr. Elizabeth A. Sharrow, an associate professor of public policy and history at the University. of Massachusetts. and Amherst. “They did it in a very subtle and silent way, and they did it on purpose because they anticipated that this idea, which we should call certain things as sex discrimination in education, could be politically controversial and better to find ways to minimize it “.
He was personal to both Green and Mink, his own experiences with discrimination influenced his policy making. Green originally wanted to be a lawyer, but her family pushed her to teach; Mink was denied entry to dozens of medical schools because she was a woman.
“I think seeing her daughter being subjected to the same kind of exclusion and straitjackets she had experienced when she was little and as a young adult trying to make her way, seeing him happen again, was a real treat. motivation. factor for her to try to figure out a way to try to make equality the standard and discrimination was wrong, “said Wendy Mink, daughter of Patsy Mink and a political scientist.
He was also personal to Senator Birch Bayh of Indiana. After sponsoring the Equal Rights Amendment in the Senate, he was tasked with doing the same for Title IX. Bayh’s wife, Marvella, was also denied equal opportunities.
“My father came to feel that this was deeply unfair,” said his son Evan Bayh, also a former Indiana senator. “He felt that if our society was going to reach its potential, we could not harm more than half the population.”
With the push for the bill focused on financial aid and limiting desegregation tactics, little attention was paid to the inclusion of Title IX. President Nixon made no mention of it in his signature statement. The signing of the bill was the cover of The New York Times; Title IX received a point.
Although the Amendment for Equal Rights had opponents such as Phyllis Schlafly, who led a conservative grassroots campaign against its ratification, and Roe v. Wade had social conservatives and religious leaders ready to protest, immediate opposition to Title IX was minimal, according to Dr. Deondra Rose, an associate professor of public policy at Duke University who focuses on leading social policies in the United States.
Title IX also had what Rose called a “pivotal” advantage, as an educational policy passed down from several generations.
A 2017 National Women’s Law Center poll found that nearly 80% of voters supported Title IX. (A March survey by Ipsos and the University of Maryland on parents and children found that most had not heard of Title IX, but generally believed that boys ‘and girls’ sports teams should be treated equally.)
“It’s a difficult thing for lawmakers to come back to,” Sharrow said.
The Equal Rights Amendment, Roe v. Wade and Title IX are all linked by their attempts to focus on gender inequality in American society, Sharrow said, but they differ in how they used law and politics to enact change.
The amendment of equal rights was an attempt to amend the Constitution, a process that is intended to be very difficult. However, if ratified, Sharrow said, “It would have been much broader than any other policy.”
Roe v. Wade, on the other hand, was an interpretation of constitutional law, as a decision of the Supreme Court.
The advantage of Title IX, Rose said, was that it was relatively vague, which “gave regulation a chance to fight over time.”
This is not to say that Title IX avoided criticism. As soon as it was signed into law, the application issue “sparked a torrential controversy,” Wendy Mink said, primarily about athletics and physical education. The outcry began in early 1973, around the time of the Roe decision. The long speech on the implementing guidelines, which ended in 1979, focused on the debate over whether sport was a suitable place for women.
“As a reaction, they fed off each other: the reaction against women’s bodily sovereignty and the reaction against women who could use their bodies in athletics,” Mink said.
The extension of Title IX also created a broad umbrella for protections, including against harassment and sexual assault on campus. A group of women at Yale in 1977 secured this with a lawsuit that led to the establishment of grievance procedures for colleges across the country.
“Title IX is excellent: we are subjects, we are no longer objects,” said Dr. Ann Olivarius, one of the main plaintiffs in the Yale lawsuit and a lawyer specializing in sexual misconduct. “We’re actually participants, we’re active narrators of our own lives with our bodies and we know we really have bodies and we use them.”
As found in 1972, Title IX has evolved to find a more inclusive society. In 2021, the Department of Education said it planned to extend Title IX protections to transgender students. (The Biden administration shared its broad Title IX proposals on Thursday and said it would use a separate process to consider how sports participation should be considered with respect to Title IX goals).
Eighteen states have enacted laws or issued statewide rules restricting transgender girls ‘participation in girls’ sports divisions, and a group of 15 state attorneys general urged the Biden administration in April to reconsider your …