Strengthen, Don't Weaken, Title IX for Women and Girls

February 28, 2003

After a year of public hearings on Title IX, the stage is set for the Bush administration to make harmful changes that will undermine the 31-year-old law which mandates equal educational opportunity for women and girls. And it is clear that, in the words of noted NPR commentator and Sports Illustrated columnist Frank Duford, the administration intends to "eviscerate" Title IX.

Once again, under cover of preparations for war, the Bush administration has delivered a set-back to American women and an unbudgeted emergency to NOW's doorstep. We are working hard to inform the public and to mobilize our grassroots to take action to protect this critical law. We are contacting tens of thousands of activists with the information they need to respond knowledgeably.

Send a message to your members of Congress right now and please consider making a special gift today to help us maximize this effort. Send the most generous gift you can to help us get the word out. Our elected representatives, along with President Bush and Secretary Paige must hear from many, many constituents, that we want to see Title IX strengthened, not weakened. Don't forget to send this page on to everyone you know.

This is more than helping little girls learn soccer or even get athletic scholarships to colleges that were once off limits. This is science and math, law school and PhDs. This is about preserving our hard-won right to equal educational opportunity in every arena of endeavor.

Background:

George W. Bush's so-called Commission on Opportunity in Athletics, stacked with members hostile to women's equality in sports, has come out with its recommendations for "tinkering" with the Title IX standards. The results are shameful but predictable, given the Bush administration's malevolent purpose in setting up the Commission in the first place. Instead of acknowledging the continued discrimination that girls and women face in obtaining equal athletic opportunity and addressing the skewed attention that college athletics budgets give to men's football and basketball, the Commission pitted men's minor sports teams against women's athletic programs.

Now that these unpopular proposals are out of the bag, Secretary of Education Roderick Paige has attempted to smooth things over by misleading the public. In hope of preventing a massive public outcry, Paige issued a statement saying that only those recommendations that were unanimously supported by the Commission would be forwarded. Though the Bush Administration would like it to appear that only non-controversial recommendations will be put in place, that is simply not the case. As noted in the Commission's Minority Report, which Secretary Paige has refused to include as part of the public record, Commissioners Julie Foudy and Donna de Varona actually rejected some of the "consensus" recommendations included in the Majority Report.

In particular, one of the so-called consensus recommendations allows the Secretary to come up with new ways to interpret and enforce Title IX that are not described in the report and were not considered by the Commission. This blank check means the Secretary could make any changes, no matter how devastating, and claim they were pursuant to the Commission mandate and "consensus."

Be sure to spread the word about the Minority Report, which you can read online in pdf format, because it will not be made officially available.

NOW is determined that Title IX won't be weakened. Along with our allies in the women's movement, we have fought too hard promoting equality for girls and women in education to allow Title IX to be undermined. We are mobilizing at the community level to bring the message to the President, the Secretary of Education, and Congress that girls and women will not go back.

People from all over the country have cheered on the efforts of our outstanding women athletes. We've all seen the power of Title IX and we believe that a well-informed public will swell the tide of outrage -- but only if they have access to the truth and are fully informed about this stealth plan to effectively end Title IX. Please send the most generous gift you can afford to support NOW's efforts to inform and mobilize parents, alumni, business leaders and elected officials in their support of a strong and undiluted Title IX.

Your gift today will make a significant difference in NOW's efforts to inform and mobilize public opinion. Together we can save Title IX!