In my last post, we followed Title IX through Congress, until the final bill landed on President Richard Nixon’s desk. He signed the Education Amendments of 1972 into law on June 23, 1972.
But, curiously, the language of Nixon’s signing speech was still distinctly male-centric.
“In March of 1970, I asked that aid to students enrolled in postsecondary institutions be expanded and redirected to assure every qualified student that he would be eligible for a combination of federal grants and subsidized loans sufficient to make up the difference between his college costs and what his family is able to contribute,” Nixon said.*
Much of the speech was given over to scolding Congress for not acting decisively to address the failings of national desegregation and busing policies. But he also ripped legislators for downsizing the mandate for equal admissions and financial aid policies.
“Unfortunately, certain restrictions placed in the law by the Congress mean that we will not be able to realize fully our principles of equity,” he went on.
For one thing, Congress had given in to protests that some universities shouldn’t be subject to the law. In the end, the bill only required public institutions to equalize admissions — private universities could still do what they wanted. That meant that say, Penn State, where I got my degree, was subject to the law, but in the same state, the University of Pennsylvania was not. Military academies, traditionally single-sex universities and institutions controlled by religious entities were also exempt.
Admissions quotas were specifically not required, and colleges were given a lengthy timeline to effect change — up to seven years in some cases. The bill got so granular as to address father-son, mother-daughter events and beauty pageants!
But even with all the meaty content of the bill, the law didn’t get a lot of publicity. One week earlier, on June 17, burglars had broken into Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate Office Building in Washington, DC. The nation was just beginning to turn its attention to this curious burglary and the brewing political scandal.
In fact, on the same day that Nixon signed Title IX, he and White House Chief of Staff H. R. Haldeman discussed using the CIA to obstruct the FBI’s Watergate investigation. It was the recording of this conversation that led to Nixon’s resignation two years later, on August 8, 1974.
And, even in the 1970s, the depth of discrimination against women hadn’t yet been recognized by society. It was just the way things were — women were raised to expect less from life than men. They were just awakening to the injustice themselves.
“We had no idea how bad the situation really was — we didn’t even use the word sex discrimination back then — and we certainly had no sense of the revolution we were about to start,” said Bunny Sandler, “The Godmother of Title IX.”**
Even the bill’s House co-sponsor, Rep. Patsy Mink, didn’t foresee the wide-ranging consequences of the law.
“When it was proposed, we had no idea that its most visible impact would be in athletics,” she said. “I had been paying attention to the academic issues.”***
But, still, the law didn’t have an immediate effect on sports programs. Several years passed before specific guidelines regarding sports opportunities were issued.
“Most of us still hadn’t heard of Title IX three years after it had passed,” sports journalist Melissa Isaacson said.****
Ms. Isaacson, you definitely were not alone!
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* President Richard Nixon’s speech on signing the Education Amendments of 1972. Italics mine. https:// presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/statement-signing-the-education-amendments-1972
** Steve Wulf, “Title IX: 37 words that changed everything,” ESPN.com, March 22, 2012. Accessed January 23, 2021.
*** Susan Ware. Title IX: A Brief History with Documents (Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press Inc., 2007), p. 3. Quoted from Brian L. Porto, A New Season: Using Title IX to Reform College Sports (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2003), p. 144.
**** Melissa Isaacson, “Birch Bayh: A Senator Who Changed Lives,” May 2, 2012, ESPN.com. Accessed January 22, 2021.