I can hardly hold back on all the Title IX stories I want to share. But first… let’s get the fine print out of the way. Today, we’ll talk about how institutions have been judged on compliance as the law has evolved.
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Tag Archives: Title IX
Laying bare the facts
Sometimes, to get attention, protest has to take a dramatic form. The form of a woman, to be exact.
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Cutting ties with Uncle Sam
Lest you think Sen. John Tower was the only one objecting to the idea of the government dictating to our nation’s colleges, hold up. Let’s look at more pushback to Title IX, starting with Grove City College.
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And the beatings go on
In the news last week, South Carolina State women’s basketball coach Audra Smith was fired the day after she sued the school in federal court alleging Title IX violations and discriminatory practices.
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The game ball goes to the women
It wasn’t long after Title IX crossed President Nixon’s desk in 1972 that sputtering opponents tried to break the law’s back.
Sen. John Tower (R-TX) immediately began working on a way to leave behemoth male sports programs out of Title IX. With the Tower Amendment of 1974, he tried to win this exemption. And by sports, Sen. Tower meant the all-American game of football, which is practically a religion in Texas.
Even before its passage, Title IX was a lightning rod for the collegiate football juggernaut. When it was being debated in the House and Senate, congressmen tittered and guffawed about it, facetiously suggesting that male teams would have to welcome women onto their rosters.
“I would have had much more fun playing college football if it had been integrated,” joked Sen. Peter Dominick (R-CO).*
The thinking behind the Tower Amendment was that a massive sports program like football (or basketball, for that matter) requires more money to operate, but it also produces more revenue. Women’s sports bring in less revenue, it argued, and the money earned by the male programs could fund the smaller female programs.
As an example of the size of football programs in Sen. Tower’s state today, the revenue-generating machines of the University of Texas and Texas A&M are tied for first place in the country with the $147 million their football programs will bring in for the academic year 2021-22.**
At first glance, it sounds like the football argument has merit — it brings in a lot of money, doesn’t it? So the corresponding costs are justified, right?
But one outcome of the Tower Amendment would be that the opportunities that go to the players of the exempted sports wouldn’t count for Title IX compliance. The size and number of women’s teams would only have to match a much smaller universe of men’s sports. And the total number and value of women’s scholarships would be judged against that smaller percentage. So, equal wouldn’t be equal at all.
Leave it to a professor at my alma mater, Penn State, to object! In a tongue-in-cheek opinion piece in the New York Times, associate PE professor Ralph J. Sabock interviewed a fictitious coach about the reasoning behind the Tower Amendment.*** After querying the coach about the football program’s bloated roster, staff and equipment budget, he concluded:
“Q: Well, coach, I certainly can see that there is no possible way for you trim your budget since there are no frills in your football program. It is also obvious that girls’ athletics are a distinct threat to the future of football. First thing you know they’ll want a new game ball every year and who knows what excesses in spending that will lead to.
A: Damm right, Ace. Let them share money with the wrestlers, track team, tennis team and those people. But leave us alone.”
Thankfully, Congress rejected the Tower Amendment, but it resurfaced a scant month later when a coalition of senators headed by Sen. Jacob Javits (R-NY) introduced the Javits Amendment, which was a little more complicated but basically sought the same outcome. That died in 1975.
But — again! — in 1977, Sen. Tower along with two other buddies tried to introduce another bill that would exclude revenue-producing sports. Again, it was batted away.
When you think about it, is it any surprise that Sen. Tower tried to shred Title IX? It was also he who opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. His opposition to equality was Texas-sized across the board!
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* Karen Blumenthal, Let Me Play: The Story of Title IX, The Law that Changed the Future of Girls in America (New York: Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2005), p. 44.
** Estimate by GoBankingRates with information provided by Forbes and based on a three-year average before the start of the 2021-22 academic year (which includes the not-so-average 2020 Covid-19 data).
*** Susan Ware, Title IX: A Brief History with Documents (Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press, 2007), p. 63.
Thrills, chills and brawling in Atlanta
Margie Wright overcame many objects on her road to the Olympics. Kicked off a Little League team because she was a girl. No scholarships to make college affordable for female athletes. Demonized as a coach for pushing Title IX equality.
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Women have to drive the bus
In my last post, I continued the story of Margie Wright, a girl who had been kicked off a Little League team because of her gender. But her father stepped in and started a softball team, so the girls of Warrensburg, Illinois, had a chance to compete at a sport.
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Dad gets his marching orders
In my last blog post, we met 10-year-old Margie Wright, a girl who was excited about playing in her first Little League game. She’d made the team, the only girl to make the cut.
But as the game got underway, a group of angry women bullied the coach into dropping her from the team, because she was a girl. The year was 1962 — ten years pre-Title IX.
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Showdown on a Little League field
Let’s take a timeout from the Title IX timeline and tell a story of a woman whose involvement in sport spanned pre- and post Title IX years. It’s a baseball story, and I love baseball. I’ve spent almost 20 years attending my son’s ball games, so I understand the deep desire children can have to play the game.*
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You say there is a revolution?
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.
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