Title IX is usually thought of as a sports law, so we often forget that its original intent was to increase academic opportunity. In 1974, just two years after Title IX was enacted, a woman who wanted to go to medical school brought a lawsuit claiming gender bias.

            Geraldine Cannon was a surgical nurse in Skokie, Ill., who had been practicing since 1955. While serving in Iceland during the Korean War, a doctor had remarked that she had extraordinary skills. She began to think about becoming a doctor.

            “I love nursing and I don’t think it gets the recognition it deserves. But I can do more. I want to go further,”  she said of her decision to pursue medical studies.*

            But soon, Geraldine and her husband started a family. In 1974, she finally got her degree from Trinity College in Deerfield, Ill. She was 39 years old, with five children and a grandchild.

            Geraldine had high grades and a good score on the medical college admissions test. She applied to seven medical schools in Illinois. They all turned her down, including the University of Chicago’s Pritzker School of Medicine and the Northwestern University Medical School.

            Both schools rejected Geraldine on the basis of age, not sex. The University of Chicago wouldn’t enroll students over the age of 30 who didn’t have an advanced degree. Northwestern wouldn’t enroll any applicant over the age of 35.

            She decided to fight back.

Wait just a minute there

            Geraldine filed a complaint with the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, alleging that university officials had engaged in sex discrimination in violation of Title IX.

            Sex discrimination? Shouldn’t her complaint be about age discrimination?

            Geraldine argued that women often have to put off or interrupt their education for childbirth and to raise families. The delays and interruptions increase the likelihood of women pursuing advanced education over the age of 30.

            “I think, if we really put a value on marriage, motherhood and raising a family, then women should also be allowed to choose the sequence of their life,” she said.**

            Geraldine’s husband was a lawyer, and the Cannons filed suit. They lost in district court and on appeal, but took the case to the Supreme Court.

            In Cannon v. the University of Chicago, the high court ruled 6-3 in her favor. But the justices said only that Geraldine had the right to sue, not that she could enroll. The court answered the question of whether an individual, as opposed to an entire class — say, all female applicants who were denied admission to those medical schools — could sue under Title IX. The court said, yes, she could.

            Meanwhile, the Age Discrimination Act of 1975 had prohibited age limits in programs that receive federal funds. The two universities said that Geraldine could apply again, but they would judge her qualifications against those of the 1979 class, which were more stringent. Geraldine wanted her application to be compared to the 1974 applicants. She continued her legal fight.

The fight of her life

            That decision to continue fighting likely cost Geraldine her chance to become a doctor. In 1979, the year of the Supreme Court ruling, she was 44 years old. In an interview, she expressed her continuing interest and hope for the future.

            “Each fall I think, ‘I’ll make it to medical school this time,’” she said. “I’m ready. I’m not rusty. I don’t think I’m too old either. Doctors stay on the scene for a long, long time.”***

            But it seems unlikely that Geraldine ever got to medical school. In a court brief I saw from 1985, the year Geraldine turned 50,  it was clear she was still fighting — and losing.

            “Attorneys are expected, even required, to represent their clients’ interests zealously. But they are also expected to know when to give up on an obviously lost cause. It should have been apparent to Cannon’s counsel that Cannon’s cause was dead,” the court sniffed.

            Despite the outcome of her fight, Geraldine has claimed a place in the canon of Title IX warriors. She had the nerve and the persistence to challenge longstanding discriminatory practices against women. In that way, she won her battle. 

                                                _________________________

* Carol Kleiman, “Too Old for Med School?” Chicago Tribune (Lifestyle Section 12, October 21, 1979), pp. 1 and 4.

** “Too Old.”

*** “Too Old.”

**** Cannon v. Loyola University of Chicago, 609 F. Supp. 1010 (1985) Feb. 26, 1985. United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. No. 84 C 8063.