Title IX: 35 Years of Creating Opportunities for Girls and Women

June 22, 2007

By Jess Grunberg, NOW Communications Intern

Thirty-five years ago, on June 23, 1972, Congress passed Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, making sex-based discrimination unlawful for any educational program or activity receiving federal funds. Since its enactment, Title IX, also known as the Patsy T. Mink Equal Opportunity in Education Act, has improved and promoted equality in high school and college athletics, resulted in growing numbers of women earning college, graduate and professional degrees, increased the hiring and salaries of female educators, staff and coaches, and prohibited sexual harassment.

Title IX has helped to increase the number of women on intercollegiate sports teams from 32,000 in years prior to Title IX, to 150,000 today. The law has also contributed to the growing number of women earning doctoral degrees; women earned nearly half of doctoral degrees awarded in 2001, a great increase from only 13.3 percent in 1970.

The number of women receiving bachelor's degrees has also risen, from 28 percent before Title IX to 49 percent today, according to statements of Rep. Rubén Hinojosa (D-Texas), chair of the House Subcommittee on Higher Education, Lifelong Learning, and Competitiveness, during a subcommittee hearing on June 19, 2007. Entitled "Building on the Success of 35 Years of Title IX," the hearing was held to evaluate the law's effectiveness; witnesses were invited to share their knowledge and experiences, as well as give suggestions for what remains to be accomplished.
Although there is much to celebrate with the successes of Title IX, witnesses at the congressional hearing voiced a need for further progress. Concerns include second-rate facilities, equipment, coaching and other services for women athletes, as well as regulations encouraging gender segregation in schools without safeguards to ensure genuinely equal education of the separated sexes.

"The playing field is not yet level," said witness Marsha Greenberger, Co-President of the National Women's Law Center. "Much remains to be done." Witnesses expressed concern for ongoing discrimination in academic fields, as well as the continuation of sexual harassment in school systems.

The testimony and first-hand accounts remind us that sex-based discrimination still occurs today. However, despite ongoing inequity, enforcement of Title IX is still being met with opposition, and there are continuous efforts to weaken its impact.

The Bush administration has been a fierce opponent of Title IX, attempting to weaken the law by allowing schools to segregate sexes, a measure passed by the Department of Education (DOE) in October 2006, without genuine protections to ensure that women and girls won't get lesser facilities, teachers and resources.

The DOE has also allowed schools to determine interest in female athletics by emailing "interest surveys" to students, and permits schools to assume that the failure to respond to the email means the female student is not interested in sports, thereby allowing schools to decrease funding for women's athletic programs.

Opponents of Title IX often claim that the law provides advantages for women at the expense of men's sports. Another witness at the recent hearing, Chairman of the College Sports Council (CSC) Eric Pearson says that the CSC is "critical of the proportionality prong" of Title IX, which is one of three tools universities can use to establish compliance with the law.

Pearson says that this tool has resulted in a "decimation of men's programs," as schools attempt to comply with Title IX: "Opportunities for young male students to play sports have been limited."

Although Pearson and others say that schools are forced to cut men's athletic teams in order to comply with Title IX, in no way does the law require universities and colleges to do so, and in reality some schools are cutting some men's teams in order to provide even greater resources to other men's sports like football and basketball, not in order to provide funding and teams for women.

A 2001 report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that 72 percent of colleges and universities that added women's teams did so without cutting any men's teams. The GAO's report also shows that in years following Title IX, the percent of female athletes in undergraduate programs has increased, while the number of undergraduate male athletes has stayed about the same; challenging the belief that Title IX has decreased the number of male athletes.

Responding to Pearson's comments on men's athletics, Rep. Hinojosa asked, "Do you realize that the gap [in equality] is so big ... that unless we leap, there will be no improvement?"

As women, we must continue to leap and overcome the boundaries prohibiting equality.

"By strengthening Title IX and requiring compliance with the law, we can continue to ensure that women are receiving equal opportunities in every aspect of the educational system," said NOW President Kim Gandy. "We must continue to fight every attempt to deny the discrimination that is occurring to this day."

Rep. Hinojosa expressed similar sentiments during the hearing, informing participants that Title IX has not yet met its full potential after 35 years: "We can never take equal opportunities for granted as we celebrate the anniversary of Title IX. We must still look to the future and what remains to be done."

See also Legislative History of Title IX.