Category Archives: Title IX

A walk-on wonder

It’s almost December, that dreary time between the World Series and spring training, and I’m so happy to have a baseball story for you!

Last week, Olivia Pichardo made college baseball history. The 18-year-old freshman at Brown University became the first female athlete in NCAA Division 1 history to be named to a varsity baseball roster.

Here’s how she describes finding out that she’d made the team.

“It was definitely a surreal moment for me because it’s something that I’ve wanted since eighth grade,” she said. “It’s kind of crazy to know that I’m living out my dream right now and my ideal college experience that I’ve always wanted.”*

Softball? Nope!

Olivia grew up in Queens, New York, and has been playing baseball since she was 5 years old. Her father, Max, had played street and sandlot ball in the Dominican Republic, and was equally in love with the game. He teamed up with his daughter to make her goal a reality.

She played varsity ball for Garden School in Queens and travel baseball on Long Island. She played club ball for the New York Crush and Next Level Baseball and made the Olympic Women’s National Baseball Team. She went on to intern in the New York Mets’ amateur scouting department.

Over the years, coaches and mentors pressured her to play softball, where she would undoubtedly succeed and have a secure athletic future. But Olivia pushed back.

“Each year, I would be told that the game I love would leave me behind,” Olivia said. “I just kept playing and working harder.”**

Olivia was determined to play baseball, even if it wasn’t at the D1 level. She had several offers to play college ball, but Olivia chose Brown, having no guarantee of playing. She participated in a walk-on tryout followed by an intense assessment process. Head coach Grant Achilles was impressed with her athleticism, versatility and strength as a middle infielder, outfielder and pitcher.

“Olivia put together the most complete walk-on tryout I have seen from a player since becoming a head coach,” said Achilles.***

Team spirit

Olivia’s teammates have been equally as supportive. When Achilles introduced her to the team, they gave her a round of applause.

“I’m getting an overwhelming amount of support and it definitely feels very good to feel supported like this,” she said.†

Baseball For All, an organization that advocates for girls and women in baseball, keeps a list of colleges and universities that consider talented players, regardless of gender. Eight women, including Olivia, are on varsity college baseball rosters for the spring of 2023. That makes Olivia happy.

“I’m just really glad that we’re having more and more female baseball players at the collegiate level. No matter what division, it’s just really good to see this progression,” she said.†† “It’s paving the way for other girls in the next generation to also have these goals that they want to achieve and dream big and know that they can do it.”

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* “At Brown, Olivia Pichardo makes history as first woman on an NCAA Division I varsity baseball team,” Brown University press release (November 21, 2022). Read about other female baseball firsts here.

** https://oliviabaseball.com

*** “At Brown.”

† Julian McWilliams, “A lofty plan by a dad and his daughter 14 years ago produced Brown’s Olivia Pichardo, the first woman on a Division 1 baseball roster,” The Boston Globe (November 22, 2022).

†† “A lofty plan.”

Stemming the bias

Title IX’s most visible impact has been in athletics, but the law dramatically changed the academic universe for women, too. Evelynn Hammonds was in the first wave of women to break through the barriers women interested in science had faced.

Born in 1953 in Atlanta, Evelynn was intrigued with science and the physical world from the very beginning.

“As a young child, I was always very interested in science,” she said. “I had all these different kinds of science kits — I had a chemistry set, I had a microscope, I had all kinds of building kits, and it just spurred in me an interest in wanting to understand how the world worked.”*

In high school, Evelynn’s interest in physics emerged. A National Merit Scholar, Hammonds attended Spelman College, where she entered a joint engineering program with Georgia Institute of Technology. She also took physics courses at Morehouse College. She graduated in 1976 with degrees in physics and electrical engineering.

Evelynn got her first chance to work in a physics lab in Bell Labs’ Summer Research Program for Women and Minorities. After graduation, she began a PhD program at MIT, but instead of finishing, went to work as a software engineer for five years. She completed her PhD at Harvard in the history of science.

Making inroads

Today, she is Professor of the History of Science and of African and African-American Studies at Harvard. She was a dean at Harvard for five years, but returned to teaching in 2021.

Women like Evelynn are paving the way for women in the sciences. Many of the degrees women seek today are in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) fields. In 1970, two years before Title IX was passed, women comprised just 8 percent of STEM workers. Today, that number is 27 percent.

But men still dominate: men make up half of all U.S. workers, but 73 percent of the STEM workforce. Engineering and computer science — two of the most lucrative STEM fields — remain heavily male. Only 21 percent of college engineering majors and 19 percent of computer science majors are women.

It’s the culture, stupid

Part of the problem is a culture that is unwelcoming, and even hostile, to women. Evelynn found that to be true as early as her college years.

“You’re in a culture where, on any given day, somebody might think you were a secretary, or a janitor, or anything but a graduate student in physics,” she said. “It was made very clear to us by some people that we didn’t fit, that we didn’t belong, that we were only there because of affirmative action, that we could never be successful. We were constantly finding those attitudes.”**

Because of that, Evelynn authored her first published paper as E.M. Hammond, so people couldn’t tell she was a woman or African American. She was following in a long line of female scientists who have had to fight for recognition. Women in earlier generations had always been victims of the culture.

“I still remember asking my high school guidance teacher to take a second year of algebra instead of a fifth year of Latin,” said Nancy Grace Roman, the first female executive at NASA. “She looked down her nose at me and sneered, ‘What lady would take mathematics instead of Latin?’”***

What’s to be done

Evelynn and others are working to erase the hurdles that still exist for women in STEM fields. Some possible fixes: universities should diversify their faculty and courses should teach social issues, journals should reject research that doesn’t consider gender and sex, and Title IX should be used as a lever to force institutions to comply.

“We’ve fought our fight as my generation, but we’re going to have to keep fighting for a while,” she said.† “We have a lot of work to do. The attitudes and the culture haven’t changed as much as they absolutely have to.”

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* Jennifer Berglund, “Challenges and Change for Women of Color in Science – A Conversation with Evelyn Hammonds, Chair and Professor of the History of Science,” Harvard Museum of Sciences and Culture (August 20, 2020).

** Caitlin McDermott-Murphy, “Women in STEM need more than a law,” Harvard Gazette (June 20, 2022).

*** Report: “The STEM Gap: Women and Girls in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics,” American Association of University Women. Nancy Grace Roman (1925-2018) is known as the “Mother of the Hubble Telescope” for her role in planning the telescope.

† “Challenges and Change” and “Women in STEM.”

Hurdles, what hurdles?

Title IX’s impact on college campuses is well known, but what about life afterward? You only need to look at the life of Benita Fitzgerald Mosley to see that opportunity and success doesn’t stop at the college level.

Benita was born in 1961, making her 11 years old when Title IX was enacted. Growing up in Dale City, Virginia, her talent in track surfaced early. She says she never experienced any discrimination in her athletic pursuits. As a standout hurdler, she won three state 110-yard hurdle titles.

After graduating high school, she attended the University of Tennessee on a full athletic scholarship, a school renowned for its track and field program. At UT, she was a 14-time All-American and won four NCAA titles, including three 100-meter outdoor hurdles championships.

She made her first Olympic team at the age of 18. Unfortunately, the United States boycotted the 1980 Olympics held in Russia that year. But at the 1984 Summer Olympics, she won Olympic gold in the 100-meter hurdles. She was only the second American woman (after Babe Didrikson) and the first African-American woman to win gold in that event. She was also an alternate for the 1988 Olympic team.

A Title IX success

Off the field, Benita earned her bachelor’s degree in industrial engineering. She is fully aware that her athletic and academic successes stem from Title IX.

“[The law] was instrumental in allowing me, as a real fresh Title IX baby at 11, 12 years old, to have all these opportunities that led to a college scholarship and an Olympic gold medal and (being a) 14-time all American,” Mosley said. “It’s unbelievable to think how different my life would have been, if not for that law.”*

A family tradition

Benita was born into a family that had already made its mark. In 1964, Benita’s mother, Fannie W. Fitzgerald, was one of four African American teachers to integrate the public schools in the Prince William County, Virginia, school district.

Virginia had vigorously fought school integration after the Supreme Court ruled in 1954 in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka that segregation was unconstitutional. Rather than integrate, some counties closed their public schools, and white families opened private white-only schools. Other white families fled the cities for the suburbs.

Benita attended Gar-Field High School, a pioneer in the successful integration of Virginia public schools. A girl named Joyce Russell Terrell, daughter of the president of the local chapter of the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People), was the first African American student to attend the high school. She started there in 1961, under police protection, the year Benita was born.

Benita is proud of the legacy of the women who led the way for racial equality.

“They all represent many unsung heroes who have quietly enacted change behind the scenes — not calling a lot of attention to themselves, just quietly doing the right thing,” Benita said.**

A grateful beneficiary

Today, Benita is the director of all U.S. Olympic training centers, president of the Women’s Sports Foundation and CEO of Laureus Sport for Good Foundation USA. She is a board member for the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Museum. In addition, she is vice president of LeagueApps, a technology platform for youth sports organizers that aims to create positive youth sports cultures.

Widening out Title IX’s reach, Benita credits the gender equality law with her ability to fashion a post-college career in sports marketing and administration that includes these leadership positions.

“Women didn’t have the opportunity to pursue degrees in law, medicine, engineering. Women didn’t have the opportunity to be sports executives,” Mosley said.*** “I’ve had opportunities throughout my career that were only made possible because of Title IX, and I’m forever grateful.”

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* Cora Hill, “Title IX pioneers: Benita Fitzgerald Mosley turned women’s opportunities to Olympic gold,” Knoxville News Sentinel (June 20, 2022).

** “Historical Marker Unveiled for the Courageous Four,” Prince William County Communications Office (September 13, 2022).

*** “Title IX pioneers.”

Can Title IX curb hazing?

In a lawsuit wending its way through the courts, a college student’s grieving parents are testing Title IX as it applies to hazing deaths on college campuses.

In 2017, Max Gruver entered Louisiana State University, declaring a communications major. The 18-year-old from Roswell, Georgia, wanted to be a sports journalist. He had published almost 400 sports articles while in high school.

Max decided to rush Phi Delta Theta. It was a small fraternity Max thought might give him the opportunity to move into a leadership role.

Alcohol-fueled night

On the night of September 13, 2017, Max participated in a hazing ritual called “Bible study.” In this ritual, pledges must chug 190-proof liquor for giving wrong answers to questions about the fraternity or incorrectly reciting the Greek alphabet. Max died the next morning from alcohol poisoning.

At the time of Max’s death, he had a 0.495 percent blood alcohol level. That’s more than six times the legal limit in Louisiana. He also had THC in his system, a chemical found in marijuana.

The Gruvers filed a lawsuit in 2018 against LSU, Phi Delta Theta and several members of the fraternity, seeking $25 million in damages.

Gender bias in reverse

Here’s where Title IX comes in. The suit claimed that LSU discriminates against men by policing sorority hazing more strictly than fraternity hazing. Specifically, the suit claimed that LSU imposed greater sanctions on sororities than those imposed on fraternities, even though the women’s rituals are non-life-threatening.

Max’s parents claim that fraternities’ practice of hazing is based on outdated stereotypes of men, exposing them to a greater risk of hazing death. They point out that the school distributes glossy brochures promoting the benefits of Greek life without mentioning any risks.

The fraternity and five fraternity members settled with the Gruvers. One fraternity member, Matthew Naquin, was convicted of negligent homicide and sentenced to five years in jail. Witnesses testified at Naquin’s trial that he didn’t like Max, wanted him cut from the fraternity and played a central role in the hazing. He went to jail in January 2020. But 2.5 years of his sentence were suspended, and due to good behavior, he was released in April 2020, after less than three months in jail.

Phi Delta Theta has been banned from LSU’s campus until at least 2033, but the university is a holdout. It pressed a countersuit up the legal chain, but an appeals court ruled that because the university accepts federal funding, it isn’t immune from hazing lawsuits. And in December 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected LSU’s request to hear arguments.

“This ruling means that a school can face liability for violating Title IX if it disregards or minimizes reports of Greek male hazing,” said Jon Fazzola, an attorney for the family. “In doing so, it creates a greater risk of danger for males compared to females in Greek life.”*

Stopping the rituals

A trial has not yet been scheduled. But in 2018, Louisiana’s governor signed into law the Max Gruver Act and other anti-hazing bills.

The Gruvers created a foundation in Max’s name and are working to stop murderous hazing rituals. Since 1838, they say, more than 200 American university students have died from hazing. Max was one of four young men to die from fraternity hazing in 2017 alone.

“We don’t want to live in what happened to Max at the end, but at the same time, we want to change things for other young kids,” his parents have said. We don’t want this happening to another family.”**

I hope the Gruver family is successful in its pursuit. I remember clearly the death of Timothy Piazza that same year, a Penn State student who died from alcohol-fueled fraternity hazing. Whether redress comes through Title IX or some other path, we all want to know that we can safely send our students to college.

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* Betsy Butler, “What This Title IX Case about Hazing Means for Women on Campus,” Ms. Magazine (August 19, 2019).

** Natalie Anderson, “The Hazing Edition: Remembering Max Gruver,” the LSU Reveille (September 11, 2018).

Watching and waiting

“To my best basketball player in the ninth grade, boy or girl.”

That’s what a gym teacher and the basketball coach wrote in Tara VanDerveer’s ninth-grade yearbook. But the words didn’t made Tara proud — they were painful, because Tara hadn’t played on her school’s basketball team. Girls weren’t allowed.

In the 1960s and ‘70s, girls sports were practically nonexistent. The girls at Tara’s school only had gym class and play dates, which were after-school meets with girls from area high schools. The girls were mixed up on temporary teams, so that competition was muted and results weren’t recorded.

But everyone knew Tara loved to play. “I was always in the gym. If I couldn’t play, I was always watching,” she said.*

In fact, two years earlier, when she was in seventh-grade, a star basketball player — a boy, of course — wrote, “You will go to the Olympics in basketball some day.”

There was no Olympic basketball for women in those days! What did this boy know that Tara didn’t know?

Playing the system

Tara was born in 1953 in Melrose, Massachusetts, but grew up outside of Albany, New York. She was the oldest of five girls. They would go to the Y on the weekends to swim, and play racquetball and other sports. But as she got older, the opportunities became fewer, and girls went looking elsewhere for how to spend their time.

But Tara still wanted to play, especially basketball.

“When I was a little kid, I’d be by myself, dribbling and shooting, and pretending I was playing in front of a big arena. It was like I could imagine it,” she recalled. “But I don’t even know why I could imagine it. There was nothing like that for women.”

She tried to play with the boys, but they wouldn’t let her play — until she figured out how to make herself welcome.

“I had the best basketball and if they wanted to use my ball, then I’d play,” she said.

Mentored by the best

In her sophomore year, the family moved to Niagara Falls, and she played for a high school there. She wanted to play in college, but she couldn’t afford schools with the top basketball teams. She started at the University of Albany, but transferred in her sophomore year to Indiana University, where she finished her three years as a stand-out player.

At Indiana, Tara soaked it all in. Bobby Knight was the men’s basketball coach at the time. Tara watched his practices in the stands every day and she took a coaching class that he offered.

In her sophomore year, the women’s coach, Bea Gorton, took the team to the Final Four of the AIAW (the precursor to the NCAA) championship, losing only in the semi-finals. (Earlier this year, I wrote about another player on this team, Debbie Millbern Powers.)

Even at that level, the women athletes were pretty much on their own.

“My sophomore year, we didn’t have a uniform,” she said. “You bought your own shoes, paid for your own meals, [slept] four to a room.”

Today, if people know the name of Tara VanDerveer, it’s because she’s earned the title of winningest coach in women’s college basketball. She has been head coach of women’s basketball at Stanford University since 1985, and in December 2021, she passed the University of Tennessee’s legendary Pat Summit for most wins.

And, that seventh-grade basketball player was right — she went to the Olympics. In 1996, she coached Team USA at the Atlanta Games, winning all eight games and beating Brazil for gold. (If you don’t remember this, it might be because of the bombing at the Atlanta Games that grabbed all the headlines.)

Tara and Title IX

Tara regrets that she never had the chance to play professional basketball. But she’s passionate about coaching. In fact, she believes coaching will take Title IX to the next level.

“Since Title IX passed, it’s gone from over 90 percent of women’s teams coached by women, to less than 50 percent. We’ve got to fix that pipeline,” she said.** She’s doing her part, only hiring female coaches.

Tara credits Title IX with everything about her life.

“I would say honestly that my whole life, everything about my life, is because of Title IX,” she said.*** “Before that there really weren’t coaching jobs, so there was no such thing as a profession for women coaches. Having that job has allowed me to work at a great university, buy a house, travel, you know, do everything ― my life is totally determined by it.”

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* Dave Kiefer, “Q&A with Tara VanDerveer,” The Mercury (CA) News (February 20, 2008). This quote and the next three are from this article.

** Lindsay Schnell, “Meet California Woman of the Year Honoree Tara VanDerveer,” The (Palm Springs, CA) Desert Sun (March 13, 2022), p. A7.

*** Charlotte Carroll and Rhiannon Walker, “How has Title IX changed your life? Women in sports answer,” The Athletic (June 24, 2022).

Title IX gets failing grade

Earlier this year, the Shirley Povich Center for Sports Journalism teamed up with the Howard Center for Investigative Journalism at the University of Maryland to assess the level of Title IX compliance at the high school level when it comes to sports.

Their four-month study raises concern for the 3.4 million high school girls playing sports in the 23,882 public high schools across the United States.* This is what they found:

It’s mostly up to teens and their parents to report violations of the law. State and federal governments don’t actively police Title IX.
But students and their parents don’t know much about the law. Many don’t even know it exists! Schools aren’t required to offer education about Title IX and sports.
Reporting Title IX violations can have grave consequences for teens and their parents. It means standing up to coaches, teachers and principals who have a lot of power over a student’s academic and athletic life.
Seeking Title IX relief is cumbersome and plays out over a long period of time. The study showed that, on average, two years elapses between reporting a violation and getting to a resolution. Girls who suffer unequal treatment often graduate before they see results.

What’s really sad is that girls — and even parents — are conditioned to accept unequal treatment.

“Most of these athletes just presume that there must be a reason that they’re getting second-class treatment,” said three-time Olympic gold medalist Nancy Hogshead-Makar of the Women’s Sports Policy Working Group. “It’s everywhere they look. They see that men are getting more than women everywhere. In high school, in junior high school, in college, men are getting more.”

Access doesn’t equal equality

There’s no question that girls’ participation has increased exponentially since Title IX was enacted in 1972. That year, just 1 in 27 girls participated in high school sports, according to the Women’s Sports Foundation. Today, about two in five do.**

But that doesn’t mean that treatment of female athletes has advanced at the same rate. In many cases, girls might still have less-equipped locker rooms, or no locker rooms at all. Their uniforms might not be as nice as the boys uniforms. They might play on neglected and dangerous fields, if they have their own fields at all. Their coaches might not be as experienced as the boys coaches, and their practice times might be scheduled around the prime time the boys get. They might get less publicity in their school’s athletics reporting.

Why the silence?

So why don’t more people speak out? I don’t know about you, but I remember my son’s high school baseball years. If you saw something you thought was wrong — like the coach’s son getting more playing time than anyone else’s son! — you didn’t want to say anything, because you didn’t want to jeopardize any chance your child did have of playing.

Plus, the high school years are stressful enough for parents, without adding in a Title IX dispute, and possibly a lawsuit. That’s what a group of parents found when they brought a lawsuit against the Stillwater, Oklahoma, school district for the unequal treatment of their softball-playing daughters.***

“It’s been quite an emotional toll. I think we’ve all lost sleep over it,” said Angela Morgan, a plaintiff in the case.

Step up to the plate

So, here we are, beginning the next 50 years of Title IX, and in many ways, girls are no better off than they were.

“We still estimate that the majority of schools are likely out of compliance with the law,” said Sarah Axelson, vice president of advocacy at the Women’s Sports Foundation.

Let’s hope that going forward, more brave families are willing to step forward to erase the continuing disparities female athletes face in their high school years. More importantly, let’s hope that state and federal entities step up their enforcement efforts.

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* Jacob Richman and Alexandra Gopin, “Title IX at 50: Girls are still fighting for equality in high school sports,” Shirley Povich Center for Sports Journalism and the Howard Center for Investigative Journalism at the University of Maryland (April 22, 2022). All quotes in this post come from the press release reporting the results of the survey.

** “50 years of Title IX: We’re Not Done Yet” (May 2022)

*** The lawsuit was settled in September 2021. Details are provided in Michelle Charles, “Stillwater superintendent meets with softball parents after Title IX suit settled,” Stillwater News Press (September 8, 2021).

Tragedy at the Title IX Olympics

The 1996 Olympics have come to be known as the “Title IX Olympics.” The 1972 gender equality law created a path to the Olympics for women, but it took another generation before the impact of the legislation hit. The first wave of expertly trained female athletes burst onto the scene at the 1996 Atlanta Summer Games.

Of the 555 American athletes who participated in that Olympics, more than half — 292 — were women. They dominated the women’s team sports of basketball, soccer, softball, gymnastics and track. Female athletes took home 19 gold medals, 10 silver and 10 bronze. Michelle Akers, Brandy Chastain, Mia Hamm, Lisa Leslie, Dominique Dawes, Cheryl Swoopes, Gail Devers — all of these women became household names.

But is this what you remember about the 1996 Games? Probably not. For all the victories of the Title IX Olympics for women, you likely remember something else about those Games. Tragedy overshadowed the American women’s achievements

The bombing in Atlanta

On July 27, three pipe bombs were planted in Atlanta’s Centennial Park, where Olympic celebrations were taking place. They detonated, killing one person and injuring 111 others. A second person died of a heart attack suffered in the chaos of the bombing site.

In the ensuing manhunt, security guard Richard Jewell became the first suspect, generating intense interest from the press. While on duty at the park, Jewell had spotted the backpack containing the bombs and helped to usher hundreds of people out of the area before they exploded.

But within days, the press was speculating that Jewell had planted the bombs. He was a hapless victim — an overweight loner with a checkered employment history who lived with his mother. Reporters staked out their apartment, reporting on his comings and goings. The media painted him as excitable, overly eager, “a badge-wearing zealot.” Surely, he planted the bombs just so he could “discover” them and be the hero, they concluded.

The suspect fights back

Jewell filed a libel and defamation lawsuit, declaring he was ready for a long battle.

“What more could they do to me that they haven’t already done?” he said. “This [the legal battle] is going to be easy compared to what they’ve done to me and my family.”*

The FBI investigated Jewell for months before they finally cleared him. But the story remained in the headlines, as law enforcement scrambled for leads in the bombing.

In July 1997, U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno addressed Jewell’s complaints. “I’m very sorry it happened. I think we owe him an apology,” she said.**

Jewell’s lawsuit dragged on for years, even after his death in 2007. In the end, the courts ruled that because the news articles were written in good faith, there was no basis for a defamation claim.

The killer captured

It was another seven years and three more attacks before the suspect who was subsequently identified was captured. In 1997, Eric Rudolph bombed a women’s health clinic in Sandy Springs, Georgia, and a gay bar in Atlanta, injuring eleven people. In 1998, he bombed a Birmingham, Alabama, abortion clinic, killing a police officer and severely injuring a nurse.

A former soldier and carpenter from North Carolina, Rudolph was a skilled outdoorsman who eluded capture by hiding in the woods. In 2003, he was finally discovered and arrested. In 2005 he pleaded guilty to all of the bombings to avoid a death sentence. Rudolph was sentenced to life in prison without parole.

Women finally recognized

The terrorist attack muted the significance of the 1996 Olympics for women at the time. But as athletic programs began to arise at all levels, from high school to the professional level, people increasingly traced the ascendance of women’s sports to the first generation of women who profited from the Title IX mandate.

“[The ’96 games] were… the first time we saw women’s sports at that scale, that level of greatness,” said Jessica Robertson of Togethxr, a women’s sports platform founded by four current-day Olympic gold medalists: Sue Bird (basketball), Alex Morgan (soccer), Simone Manuel (swimming) and Chloe Kim (snowboarder).***

In 1996, women took home the gold and the world finally noticed.

______________________________

* Jay Croft and Bill Rankin, “Security guard, newspaper reiterate their positions,” The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (January 29, 1997), p. C4.

** “Reno to Jewell: I regret the leak,” CNN Interactive (July 31, 1997).

*** Melissa Jacobs, “Summer of Gold: how the 1996 Olympics inspired a generation of female athletes,” The Guardian (August 16, 2021). Togethxr produced a six-part podcast series with interviews of female athletes from the 1996 Olympics along with current-day athletic stars.

The path less trod

A while ago, I wrote about the women of Brown University’s 1992 gymnastics team who brought a Title IX lawsuit when their team was cut. This week, I learned that a coach at the university had a choice to make about this lawsuit — would she support it and risk her job or would she stay silent?

Margaret Degidio “Digit” Murphy chose the harder path. She chose to support the women, even though it meant taking a stand against the university that employed her.

In 1992, Margaret was head coach of Brown’s women’s ice hockey program. As a college student, he had played for Cornell in the early 1980s, where she was a star player.

I yam who I yam

As you can see from the dates, Margaret’s childhood predated Title IX. She was born in 1961 in Rhode Island, but was fortunate that her mother paid no attention to gender norms.

“My mom let me have short hair, she let me wear boys clothes because that’s what I wanted to wear,” Margaret says. “I climbed trees, I played street hockey, I played with G.I. Joes — everything that was atypical for a girl, but my mom never said no. My mom was just like, ‘Who cares? She is who she is.’”*

Still, that didn’t mean she had the opportunities boys had. She watched boys play from behind chain-link fences, unable to join in because of her gender. Margaret’s chance came when two women in her town started a girl’s ice hockey team.

But even when she arrived at Cornell, equality was just a pipe dream.

“We were a bunch of ragtag girls in hand-me-down equipment,” she recalled. “What you brought was what you wore. We were second-class citizens.”**

Men v. women

As a coach at Brown, she didn’t find things much better. A friend who coaches women’s hockey recalled that her team rode around in a rickety bus that had no bathroom and that filled with gas fumes. Margaret might not have minded that.

“Bus? We didn’t even have a bus,” she said. “We had vans. And I remember one time, driving in the snow, the transmission broke and the coach had to shift the fan with his hand, manually. That’s the kind of transportation we had.”***

So, when the Brown girls gymnastics team brought their lawsuit in 1992, Margaret didn’t hesitate to support them. The university had cut four teams — men’s water polo and golf, and women’s gymnastics and volleyball — in order to trim its budget by $1.6 million. It claimed it was acting fairly by cutting two women’s and two men’s teams.

But the women saw it differently. They were already underrepresented in sports at Brown, so the cuts disproportionately affected them. At the time, women comprised 53.8 percent of the 5,600 enrolled students, yet they represented just 38 percent of the 900 varsity athletes.

For Margaret, there was no question she would back the female athletes. But taking a stand comes with a price.

“It was hell going through a Title IX battle in the ‘90s,” she said. “You could actually sense the tension in the air at staff meetings. It really was a men vs. women issue that really didn’t have to be that way. I remember in 1994 being on the stand, testifying against my employer. I mean, that was pretty hairy. You get labeled.”†

Words to live by

The women ultimately won their lawsuit, and Margaret went on to coach at Brown for eighteen seasons. She later served as head coach of the Boston Blades in the Canadian Women’s Hockey League, and in 2004, she coached the U.S. National team at the Lake Placid Olympic Festival. Today she’s the head coach and president of the Toronto Six of the National Women’s Hockey League.

Like other women whose lives bridged Title IX, Margaret credits the gender equality law with making her career a reality. Asked to explain what Title IX means to her, Margaret has just two words.

“Those two words are: Why not?”††

And those are the two words that have propelled Margaret to the life of her dreams.

_____________________

* Ryan Dixon, “The Tornado,” Sportsnet.ca (2020).

** Andy Gardner, “Matriarchs of women’s hockey reflect on how sport has grown,” Elmira (NY) Star Gazette (November 15, 2000), p. 11.

*** Kent Youngblood, “Coaching in first class,” Minneapolis Star Tribune (March 22, 2002), p. C10.

† Bill Littlefield, “Brown University: Revisiting the Case for Title IX,” WBUR, Boston’s NPR affiliate (June 23, 2012).

†† Steve Wulf, “Title IX: 37 words that changed everything,” ESPN.com (March 22, 2012).

Waves of injustice

Over the years, women (and some men!) have filed thousands of Title IX lawsuits claiming discrimination. It’s safe to say that 99.9999 percent of these lawsuits are settled before they go to court. But one major lawsuit in Hawaii might eventually make it to trial.

In December 2018, female athletes at James Campbell High School in Ewa Beach, Hawaii, filed a lawsuit saying they were being treated unequally. Some examples they gave:

* Female athletes didn’t have a locker room, showers or bathrooms.

* With no lockers, girls had to lug their gear around with them and wear their athletic gear all day at school, or have to change under the bleachers.

* The portable toilets at the field were often locked to prevent vandalism. The girls would have to hike a quarter mile to a fast food restaurant or gas station to use a bathroom, or else relieve themselves behind bushes. They dehydrated themselves to avoid the humiliation, a dangerous thing to do in Hawaii’s hot climate.

* Some women’s teams had no coach.

* Girls often had to use fields late at night after the boys were finished.

* The girls only played locally, not around the country, like the boys. When they played tournaments, they weren’t allowed to stay overnight in hotels, like the boys did. They didn’t have time to shower or eat, or else they’d miss their connection home.

Meanwhile, of course, the male athletes had all of this and more. Just for context, we’re talking about inequities that persist 46 years after the passage of Title IX.

It’s all of us

One of the women who brought the suit, Ashley Badis, experienced the discrimination firsthand as a member of the water polo team. Her team had to practice in the ocean, battling winds and choppy waves, because they didn’t have practice time in the pool.

But when she started talking to other girls, she soon realized that the problem was more widespread than just one team.

“Hearing how many concerns and complaints that they had — it made me feel like I’m not alone in this, but it’s so wrong that we’re all being treated like this,” Ashley said.*

The suit also accuses high school administrators of retaliating against the girls who initiated the suit. Although the girls are identified only by initials in the lawsuit, the school ferreted out their names and warned faculty members to be cautious around them.

Ashley says that school officials repeatedly threatened to cancel the girls’ water polo season. They claimed that some of the program’s medical and consent forms were missing, even though every team member had submitted her forms.

Let’s be reasonable

For its part, the school claims that it is making “reasonable efforts” to address inequities. They built a new baseball and softball field with some lockers for the girls, or the girls have the use of the boys locker room. The state has kicked in $6 million, in part to construct a girls locker room. But in a dig at the girls who brought the lawsuit, the school says they aren’t due anything retroactively.

Ashley is now 21 and at the University of Hawaii. That’s the way it is with these lawsuits. They drag on and on, leaving the original plaintiffs in the dust.

What ho, Patsy Mink!

It’s sad that the discriminatory treatment is being claimed in the year of Title IX’s 50th anniversary. But it’s also ironic that the battle is raging in the state of Hawaii. Title IX was the brainchild of several members of the U.S. House of Representatives, most notably Rep. Patsy Mink, the revered legislator from Hawaii. In fact, the act was renamed for her in 2002, the year she died.

In July, a federal judge ruled that the case can proceed as a class action lawsuit. The outcome of the suit could have wide-ranging consequences. Most Title IX lawsuits have been brought against colleges and universities. Discrimination at high schools and lower grades has hardly been addressed.

“What strikes me in this 50th anniversary year is just how little we actually know about what is going on in the high school space,” said Ellen J. Staurowsky, a professor of sports media at Ithaca College. “This case has the potential to really be a wake-up call for schools that continue to ignore the law and don’t take it seriously.”

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* David W. Chen, “Sex Discrimination Case in Hawaii Could Change High School Sports Across the U.S.,” The New York Times (October 22, 2022). Both quotes in the post come from this article. It was surprisingly difficult to find details of the lawsuit in the media. I imagine the high school is pretty happy about that.

PHOTO CREDIT: Ashley Badis (right) with her sister Alexis, also a water polo player. Marie Eriel Hobro for The New York Times

Toni storms the field

The World Series will go on without my Yankees, but here’s one more baseball story for you. Meet Toni Stone, the first woman to play professional ball in the Negro Leagues.

Marcenia Lyle Stone was born in West Virginia in 1921, but at age 10, she moved with her family to St. Paul, Minnesota. Her interest in sports was noted early, earning her the nickname “Tomboy.” Eventually, she chose “Toni” as her professional name.

Her mother was unhappy with Toni’s athletic interests. She bought her a pair of ice skates, hoping to dissuade her from less feminine pursuits. Toni wanted nothing to do with those skates! Neither did she want to play softball — it was baseball, and baseball only, for her.

“Baseball was like a drug,” Toni said. “Whenever summer would come around and the bats would start popping, I’d go crazy.”*

Toni’s parents considered that “drug” sinful, and she dutifully confessed to the family’s Catholic priest. Surprisingly, he didn’t extract penance from her — instead, he signed her up for the church’s baseball team, the first girl to play.

The coach couldn’t say no

Looking for more coaching, Toni showed up to watch the action at a baseball school run by Gabby Street, manager of the minor league St. Paul Saints. At first, the coach wasn’t thrilled.

“Every time I chased her away, she would go around the corner and come back to plague me again,” Street said. “I just couldn’t get rid of her until I gave her a chance.”**

Not only was Toni the first woman in Street’s program, she was the first Black player he had accepted. Until she came along, he had scrupulously maintained an all-white program.

By the time she was 16, Toni was playing weekend games with the barnstorming Twin City Colored Giants, where again she was a first. Eventually, she dropped out of high school and moved to San Francisco to live with her sister, hoping to make a living playing baseball.

There, a local pub owner got Toni settled with an American Legion baseball team. But there was a catch — Legion ball limited players to ages 18 and under. No problem! Toni just erased 10 years from her actual age and presented herself as a 17-year-old teenager. She played with the team for two years, until 1945.

Legion ball led Toni to the San Francisco Sea Lions, a barnstorming team that was part baseball and part vaudeville. But when she learned she was being paid less than the male players, she decamped to the New Orleans Creoles.

Replacing “The Hammer”

Now, let’s add on another layer of discrimination. In 1950, Toni married Aurelious Pescia Alberga, who ordered her to abandon baseball. She gave in for one year, but the pull of the game was too strong. “He would have stopped me if he could have, but he couldn’t,” Stone said.***

Toni caught the eye of the Indianapolis Clowns, who were hurting from the departure of Hank Aaron, who had been signed by the Atlanta Braves. The Clowns were looking for someone who could not only bring in crowds but was also good at the game. So, in 1953, Toni became the first woman to play in the Negro Leagues, as a second baseman.

No matter that it was a publicity stunt, Toni won the nation over. “She belts home runs as easily as most girls catch stitches in their knitting, and the sports boys are goggle-eyed,” reported syndicated columnist Dorothy Kilgallen.†

Leaving the bench

Not surprisingly, the Clowns restricted the team to one female player, and Toni left the team when two other women were signed. She joined the Kansas City Monarchs, the team Jackie Robinson left to play for the Brooklyn Dodgers, breaking through the color barrier in Major League Baseball.

But being the first woman on men’s teams wasn’t easy, and most likely never fun. She was shunned by her teammates, who taunted her and worse. Runners tried to spike her as they slid into second. She came to expect nothing less. “They never let up,” she said.††

In 1955, after spending most of her time on the Monarchs’ bench, Toni quit playing ball. In 1993, she was inducted into the Women’s Sports Hall of Fame and the International Women’s Sports Hall of Fame. She died on November 2, 1996 at the age of 75, but not before making her mark on the game she loved.

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* Ashwanta Jackson, “This woman shattered the gender barrier in pro baseball,” timeline.com (June 7, 2018).

** “Woman Player Says She Can ‘Take Care of Self’ in Game,” Ebony (June/July 1953), p. 48.

*** “This woman.”

† “This woman.”

†† “Girl Star in Game at League Park Wednesday Night,” Jackson (MS) Advocate (May 2, 1953), p. 2.