Tag Archives: Title IX50

Ohio hears a “who”

Title IX is getting another spin through the washer on transgender rights. In November, a group of inter-faith parents sued an Ohio school district for allowing transgender students to use gendered bathrooms.

The parents are suing the Bethel Local School District of Dayton, Ohio, for using students’ stated gender identity rather than their biological sex to determine which bathroom they can use. In the lawsuit, filed on their behalf by America First Legal, the parents accuse the district of violating Title IX and state gender protections. They claim the district is forcing families to conform to its policy favoring transgender students, which infringes on their parental rights.

“Boys are boys, girls are girls, and every student has the right to privacy in intimate spaces that has been enjoyed by every single generation of students before them,” said lead counsel Gene Hamilton. “We are proud to fight for our clients in this important area.”*

Silent switcheroo

Specifically, the parents claim damage because the policy is causing health problems — rather than use bathrooms that allow access to students of the opposite biological sex, students have tried to avoid using bathrooms during school hours, holding their urine for uncomfortable and unhealthy amounts of time. If they do use the restroom, the lawsuit says, it causes anxiety and emotional distress. Girls go to the restroom in pairs or groups in order to make sure they are safe and their modesty protected.

The parents are equally upset that the school district actually has gender-neutral bathrooms for transgender students to use. In one case, a group of Muslim families donated money to have a gender-neutral bathroom built. But after the new policy went into effect in January 2022, the district stopped requiring transgender students to use the gender-neutral bathrooms. Even worse, the parents say, is that the district didn’t even inform them of the policy change.

Before filing the lawsuit, the parents aired their concerns to school officials. His clients, Hamilton said, “tried to find solutions that would value and respect all members of the community,” but they were ignored.

Anybody home?

Not only does the lawsuit claim Title IX infringement, it also targets the state of Ohio, whose officials have been equally as obtuse, the parents say. The state says it can’t help.

“Over the past several years, we have received many questions from local school districts on the topic of accommodating transgender students and whether specific accommodations are required, given the guidance in place at the time,” said Sara Clark, chief legal counsel for the Ohio School Boards Association.“We encourage districts to work with students requesting accommodations on a case-by-case basis.”**

Guidance at the federal level is also MIA. In June 2021, the U.S. Department of Education and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission applied the 1964 Civil Rights Act to gay, lesbian and transgender people in schools and workplaces. The guidance would apply to schools that accept federal financial aid, extending transgender protections to include use of restrooms and locker rooms.

But twenty states, including Ohio, sued the federal government in 2020 over transgender rights policies. A federal judge blocked the administration’s new rules until these lawsuits are resolved. This ruling brings the whole issue of transgender rights to a standstill. Lacking federal legal protection makes it unlikely that individual states can set and enforce their laws.

Title IX tug-of-war

So, Ohio has kicked the can back to the schools while the issue of transgender rights chugs its way through the agonizingly slow legal process. In the absence of guidance, individual school districts are being forced to form their own policies — and, not surprisingly, are running into legal backlashes like this one.

And the group of parents whose children are in the Bethel school district are happy to push back. “The parental right to direct the education, safety, and upbringing of their children is the oldest fundamental right recognized by the Supreme Court,” they say.

For its part, the Bethel School Board is using Title IX to support its claim that it had no choice but to open the restrooms to transgender students. The move was made to comply with Title IX, it says, because “the federal government was threatening school funding, and potential litigation was imminent.”

I guess we’ll just have to hold our… breaths… waiting for the final outcome.

___________________

* Jeremiah Poff, “Ohio school district sued for transgender bathroom policy that caused students to ‘hold their urine,” Washington Examiner (November 22, 2022). This quote and the next come from this article.

** Jim Gaines, “Transgender rights in Ohio: Protections at stake with challenges underway,” Springfield News-Sun (July 4, 2022).

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.”

__________________

* 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.”

Gentlepeople, start your engines

Today I’m talking about something I know nothing about. Could be dangerous! But not as dangerous as auto racing. In the 1970s, one woman broke the gender barrier in this once all-male sport.

In 1977, Janet Guthrie was the first woman to qualify for and drive in the Indianapolis 500. The race was first held in 1911, so Janet was breaking a 66-year-old tradition.

Janet was born in Iowa in 1938 and grew up in Florida. Her love for machines led her to learn to fly planes when she was only 13 years old. She made her first parachute jump at 16 years old. She was off and running!

At the University of Michigan, she studied physics. “The beauty of it just entranced me,” she said.* She started her career as an engineer for an aircraft manufacturer.

Her first car

Janet needed a car to get to work, so she bought a used 1953 Jaguar XK120 M coupe. She loved that car! And she loved speed. In 1963, she began competing in solo events called gymkhanas. A gymkhana features a starting point, a finish line and obstacles to maneuver though in between, all within a stated time limit.

By 1972, Janet was racing full time. She had learned the craft at the Sports Car Club of America driver’s school and began racing in another Jaguar, an XK 140. She built the engine of that car, did her own body work and sometimes slept in the car.

In the 1976 World 600 (now the Coca Cola 600), Janet finished 15th, becoming the first woman to compete in a NASCAR Winston Cup Superspeedway race. It’s the longest closed-course NASCAR race, 100 miles longer than the Indy 500. She competed in four more races that year.

The allure of speed

What attracted Janet to this all-male — and very dangerous — sport?

“You have to think about what you are doing all the time. You have to commit yourself to going very fast. It commands every faculty you have,” she said. Besides, she added, “It is exhilarating and it’s fun!”**

Although she admitted at times to being hurt by the negative comments from men who didn’t think a woman had the strength and stamina to race, she had a pretty good comeback.

“I don’t carry the car, I drive it,” she said.***

Janet competed in her first Daytona 500 in 1977, finishing 12th, when her car’s engine failed with 10 laps to go. When she competed in the Indy 500 that year, she finished 29th, again slowed by engine problems. She competed in two more Indy 500s, finishing ninth in the 1978 race. In total, Janet competed in eleven IndyCar events, with a best finish of fifth place.

Money’s the problem

So, why do so few people know about Janet Guthrie today? The answer to that is money. Despite her historic firsts, Janet was unable to find sponsors. She was puzzled by that fact — surely, a female driver would attract a lot of attention for her sponsors? But without financial backing, she was forced into retirement.

In 1982, she spoke at a 10-year celebration of Title IX on the steps of the Capitol building in Washington, DC.

“We are here to celebrate our accomplishments, but also to point out how much work remains to be done,” said Guthrie. “We have the framework in place to insure equality, to insure what is morally and legally just. We have to call attention to the progress that is being made.”****

Billy Jean King, the tennis great who broke ground in her sport, understood the stakes for Janet. King had put her reputation on the line in the “Battle of the Sexes,” her 1973 match against Bobby Riggs.

“The biggest difference between my challenge match with Bobby Riggs and Janet’s historic races at Indianapolis and Daytona is the difference between hitting a ball into the net and hitting a concrete wall at 200 mph. Janet put everything on the line, including her life.”†

But for Janet, being a female first isn’t foremost in her mind. She knew that her racing career was in part a result of the women’s movement, and she’s glad to have moved the needle. But what’s really important to her is her achievement on the track.

“I want to be remembered as damn good racing driver,” she said.††

And that indeed is her true legacy.

__________________

* Automotive Hall of Fame, 2019 inductee.

** Tom McEwen, “Janet Guthrie: She’s Paid Her Dues for Indy,” The Tampa Tribune (May 25, 1977), p. 29.

*** Bill Lyon, Janet Guthrie has paid her dues and is ready to roar,” The Chicago Tribune (May 27, 1979), p. 161.

**** Ronn Levine, “A Celebration for Title IX,” The Washington Post (June 17, 1982).

† “Qualified,” ESPN 30-for-30 documentary (Debut: May 28, 2019).

†† Patrick Donovan, “Janet Guthrie: The First Woman to Qualify for the Indy 500,” The Hollywood Times (May 28, 2019).

The pay gap narrows

Elite female athletes are more than aware of the pay gap between them and their male peers. Just ask anyone in the WNBA.

Today, I want to widen out the lens to the pay inequity faced by women in any and every profession. The good news is that the picture has improved in recent years. The bad news is that only a small subset of women are benefiting.

This year, it’s estimated that women are earning 83 cents for every $1 that men earn, according to Payscale, a company that tracks wage data.

The gap narrows when you compare men and women with similar job titles, education, experience, industry and hours worked. This subset of women earns 99 cents for every $1 men make.

That sounds great, doesn’t it? And it is progress — in the early days of my career the number was 75 cents. But these numbers don’t paint a true picture. Many women aren’t making that 83 cents, let alone the 99 cents.

“Many women and people of color are still segregated into a small number of jobs such as clerical, service workers, nurses, and teachers,” said a spokesperson for the National Committee on Pay Equity. “These jobs have historically been undervalued and continue to be underpaid to a large extent because of the gender and race of the people who hold them.”*

She starts the wheels turning

While there’s still a long way to go, some of the progress that’s been made is due to the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009. It was the first law President Barack Obama signed when he took office.

In 1979, Lilly Ledbetter took a management job at a Goodyear tire plant in Gadsden, Alabama. She was hired as a supervisor and later promoted to an area manager’s job.

Pay was a taboo subject at the company.

“I was told to never discuss my pay, and if you did discuss your pay, you would no longer work there,” she said. “There was no way to find out where I stood, how I rated according to my peers.”**

But two years before she planned to retire, someone — she doesn’t know who — passed along a note to Lilly with the salaries of the four area managers. She discovered she was being paid thousands less per year than the other three, all of them men.

“It was so devastating. It didn’t just impact my pay, it impacted my overtime, my family and my future,” she said.

Lilly had a 401(k) plan into which she made contributions matched in part by Goodyear. Contribution caps meant that she hadn’t been able to sock away as much as her male peers, so her retirement benefits would be less. The reduced salary also meant that her Social Security benefits were less as well.

Her legacy lives on

All along, Lilly had thought that because of the Equal Pay Act of 1963, she was being paid fairly.

“I was young and naïve when I started at Goodyear,” she said. “I thought I was being paid equally…. Clearly, no one enforced [that law].”

Lilly filed a lawsuit six months before her early retirement in 1998. She won more than $3 million in federal court, but the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the ruling. The Supreme Court ruling was canceled out when the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act became law.

The act requires employers to ensure they don’t discriminate in pay practices and that they keep records proving fairness. It allows employees to file lawsuits under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act. The act eliminates any filing period, so an employee can at any time challenge her starting or subsequent pay.

Lilly will never see anything from Goodyear for all her years of activism, but still, she feels that she is the victor.

“I’ll be happy if the last thing they say about me after I die is that I made a difference,” she said.***

______________________

* Greg Daugherty, “That women make less than men remains a sad fact in 2021,” Investopedia (January 20, 2021).

** An interview with pay activist Lilly Ledbetter, Tory Burch Foundation. All of her quotes come from this article unless noted otherwise.

*** https://www.lillyledbetter.com

Suzyn Waldman goes yard

I’ve been listening to Suzyn Waldman and John Sterling on WFAN radio this year while I watch Yankees games on television. (The announcers they’re trying out in the YES network booth are wretched! Give me Michael Kay, David Cone and Paul O’Neill for every game!) Why didn’t I tune in to the radio broadcasts years ago? I love the pair’s insights into the game.

This week, Suzyn Waldman was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame. She has been a sports broadcaster (both television and radio) for 36 years and the Yankees color commentator for the last 18 years. In her career, she has covered both the Yankees and the New York Knicks, among other gigs.

Let’s talk about her firsts. Hers was the first voice heard on WFAN when it premiered in 1987, the first all-sports radio network. She was also the first woman to become a full-time broadcaster for a Major League Baseball team.

Suzyn is more than aware of the role she has played as a female “first.”

“When we talk about women in baseball, and beyond that, one of the most important concepts, to me, is representation. If you can see it, you can be it,” she said. “Representation makes the trailblazers, the ‘firsts,’ even more important.”*

The silent treatment

Yet a career like Suzyn’s in sports broadcasting would have been unimaginable prior to Title IX. In fact, it wasn’t until 1984 that the first female sports broadcaster was hired. That year, Lesley Visser began her sports broadcasting career as an NFL sideline reporter.

Even post-Title IX, Suzyn has had to fight for her place in broadcasting. The male-dominated sports world didn’t let her in without a struggle. She says that for her entire first season with the Yankees, no one in the press box spoke to her.

“It was strange to realize that half the world thinks you’re an idiot because you’re female,” she said. “I never realized that. I grew up, I did whatever I wanted. I didn’t know I was an idiot. It was startling to realize that people didn’t want you there because you’re a female.”**

And getting the cold shoulder wasn’t the worst she had to endure.

“I got feces and used condoms in the mail, terrible things,” she recalled. “In 1989, I had a police detail at the stadium because someone was trying to kill me. There’s lots that went on that I will never tell anyone.”***

When Suzyn reflects on the changes that have come about in the three-plus decades of her career, she says one things stands out to her as progress.

“I was alone, I was totally alone. Women like me, we had to make it work on our own,” she said. “If I didn’t handle it, then they’d say, ‘We’ll get someone who can.’ Nobody helped me. Today, younger women have help. You all have people that support you.”^†

Kudos from the industry

Her induction into the Hall of Fame was lauded by everyone in the industry.

“We applaud the well-deserved recognition, particularly for Suzyn’s trailblazing leadership that has been an example to so many fans and women working in our game,” a WFAN spokesperson said.^††

“This accomplishment is the deserved result of decades of hard work and dedication to her craft, and we would be remiss to not laud her professionalism and resolve while staring down countless obstacles as a pioneering woman in her field,” the Yankee organization said.^†††

At 75 years old, Suzyn is still going strong. I say — may she be the voice of the Yankees for many years to come. I’ll be listening!

_____________________

* Sarah Langs, “A discussion with trailblazer Suzyn Waldman,” MLB.com (March 19, 2021).

** Lauren Gardner, “Suzyn Waldman on her career,” MLB Tonight (March 30, 2021). Video interview.

*** Dylan Svoboda, “Trailblazer Waldman elected to Radio Hall of Fame,” MLB.com (July 25, 2022).

† Gardner, “Suzyn Waldman.” (The asterisks were getting out of hand.)

†† Lou DiPietro, “Yankees, MLB release statements on Suzyn Waldman’s induction into Radio Hall of Fame” WFAN Sports Radio 101.9 FM (July 25, 2022).

††† Svoboda, “Trailblazer Waldman.”

Claiming her place in the canon

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.

Let’s hear it for “the girls”

The next Summer Olympic Games aren’t until 2024, so there’s still time for broadcasters to rethink their coverage of female athletes. Broadcasts of the Olympics reach massive audiences, giving athletes a thrilling moment on the world stage. Yet broadcasters often take the opportunity to minimize women’s achievements.

This was especially noticeable at the 2016 Rio Summer Olympics — so noticeable that for the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics (played in 2021 because of the pandemic), the International Olympics Committee issued “portrayal guidelines” that included such advice as to not focus on athletes’ looks, clothing or intimate body parts and to refrain from broadcasting wardrobe malfunctions.

“You will not see in our coverage some things that we have been seeing in the past, with details and close-up on parts of the body,” said Olympic Broadcasting Services chief executive Yiannis Exarchos.*

Even so, female athletes at the 2020 Olympics staged protests over the skimpy uniforms some sports’ ruling bodies require. German gymnasts wore unitards that covered them from head to toe. And, after verbal protests at the Olympics, Norwegian women refused to play in bikini bottoms at a European beach handball event, instead donning skin-tight shorts. They were fined for breaking the rules.

So, what did broadcasters say in 2016 that ticked people off?

Target: gymnasts

Because of their petite size, female gymnasts in particular were the frequent target of sexist comments. When NBC cameras panned over the world-beating Olympic gymnastics team on the sidelines, commentator Jim Watson said, “They might as well be standing around at a mall.”^**After all, he apparently wanted the audience to know, they’re just vapid teen girls.

Simone Biles, the most decorated gymnast in U.S. history, was also reduced to average teen girl status in 2016. In NBC’s promotional video, “Better Know an Athlete,” Simone was shown getting a manicure, and an interview with her parents was reduced to comments about her love of shopping.

Commentators also attacked gymnast Gabrielle Douglas for her hair, repeating criticism she faced at the 2012 London Olympics. Never mind that she’s a world-class athlete and the first African-American gymnast in Olympic history to be named Individual All-Around Champion.

When female athletes achieve feats of strength or speed, they are often compared to men, whose achievements clearly are thought superior. In 2016, both commentators and viewers compared Simone Biles to runner Usain Bolt and swimmer Michael Phelps, but she batted away the comparisons.

“I’m not the next Usain Bolt or Michael Phelps,” she insisted. “I’m the first Simone Biles.”^***

Not satisfied to confine their sexism to just one sport, Fox News ran a segment on whether all female Olympians should wear makeup — inviting two men to weigh in with their opinion. They declared that the only way for women to snag sponsorships was by wearing makeup.

“Would you put money behind a gal that won the gold medal that looks like a washed out rag?” asked commentator Bo Dietl. “No. If she looked beautiful, and looked a little happy-looking, then you’d support her.”^****

So there!

The good news is that female athletes are persevering and thriving. At the 2020 Olympics, women comprised almost 54 percent of Team USA and won 58.4 percent of the medals, including 23 gold medals. NBC spent 59.1 percent of its broadcast time on women’s events.

Still, 82 percent of commentators were male, and female athletes were ten times more likely than male athletes to be visually objectified with camera angles. Female athletes were also seven times more likely than men be referred to using diminutive language such as “girl” or “lady,” according to Power Play’s #RespectHerGame Olympic report.

Let’s hope broadcasters get the message going forward, because people are watching. In 2016, one tweet on this very failing went viral.^*****

“Seriously commentators stop calling women girls. From: pretty much everyone.”

______________________________

* Graham Dunbar, “Olympic broadcasters curb sexual images of female athletes,” Associated Press (July 26, 2021).

** Carole Glines, “Tarnished Olympics? NBC Blasted for Blunders as Ratings Tumble,” Fox News, August 9, 2016

***Megan Garber, “The Olympic Quote (That Should Be) Heard ‘Round the World,” The Atlantic, August 12, 2016. In 2020, Simone withdrew from the women’s team final and the women’s all-around final, due to mental health concerns.

**** Jihan Forbes, “Male Commentators Offer Some Very Important Opinions on Female Athletes’ Wearing Makeup,” YahooSports, August 11, 2016. Dietl is a retired New York City Police Department detective and media personality who was a frequent guest on Fox News programs. He held no credentials in the sporting world.

***** Tweet by Chris Mayer (@chrismayer), Twitter, July 8, 2016.

An athlete turned author

Title IX slashed a definitive before-and-after dividing line. But recently I’ve been reminded that women did play sports long before the 1972 law. Today, let’s go back to the early 1900s.

A hundred-plus years ago, golf was one of the few sports “approved” for women. It was a genteel pursuit that didn’t involve sweat. But, of course, it was a sport only for the privileged. There were tony country club golf courses and golf pros back then as now. Only a few dozen women competed at an elite level.

But one woman not only played golf, she excelled at it and she wrote about it!

A teen sensation

In the early 1900s, Genevieve Hecker topped the charts of the women’s golf circuit. She was born in Darien, Connecticut, in 1883, and began playing at the Wee Burn Golf Club in Noroton.* Her success at the game led to her eventual election as captain of the women’s team. In 1901, the family switched its membership to Apawamis, a course in Rye, New York, named with the Native American words for “covering tree.”

Genevieve was only 16 years old when she won her first tournament, the 1900 Women’s Metropolitan championships. She won again in 1901. That year, and in 1902, she also won the Women’s National Golf Tournament sponsored by the United States Golf Association (USGA), the highest achievement a woman could attain in those times.

“It is admitted by every critic who has ever seen her play that in style and grace, she is absolutely in a class by herself,” one sportswriter declared.**

But Genevieve also was eager to test her skill against men. In 1902, she led the Apawamis Club’s women’s team against the men’s team in an intramural match. She won her match by three holes against Maturin Ballou, the USGA secretary at the time.*** (And here I thought that the Billie Jean King v. Bobby Riggs “Battle of the Sexes” tennis match was the first ever gender battle in sports!)

Sharing the good stuff

That year, Genevieve also began writing about golf. In 1902, Harper’s magazine published a series of her articles. Two years later, in 1904, she wrote the first book of golf instruction for women, Golf for Women, published by Baker & Taylor. It cost $2, was a bestseller and went into many subsequent printings. (The publisher thought it necessary to identify the author on the cover not only by her own name but in parentheses as Mrs. Charles T. Stout. It’s only proper, right?)

“No woman player, however skilful, can fail to profit by a careful study of it,” reported the New York Post in its review.****

Although Genevieve remained an enthusiastic player, she bowed to the conventions of the time and left competition while she bore and raised children. But in 1925, at the age of 41, she won a New York Women’s Metropolitan Golf event. Once a champion always a champion!

Today, around 25 million people play golf, according to the National Golf Foundation. About a quarter of the players are women. And, if you want, you can still pick up a copy of Genevieve’s book***** — it was reprinted as recently as 2017!

_____________________

* Genevieve’s father, John V. Hecker, was a flour miller in New York City, and no ordinary one at that. He was described at the time as a millionaire.

** W.E. Burlock, Jr., “Genevieve Hecker Tells Post Readers How Famous Women Golfers Are Preparing for Championship Tournament to be Played at Brookline This Week,” Boston Post (Sept. 28,1902), p. 48. However, Burlock also believed that Genevieve didn’t always play her best, “owing more, I have always thought, to indifference and carelessness than to lack of ability.”

*** But the men won the handicap competition 8-6.

**** Associated Press, “She Wrote the Book,” New York Daily News (June 19, 2022), p. 70.

***** Here’s one copy on AbeBooks. https://bit.ly/3yv4cPD

Put me in, coach

In the early years of Title IX, one 11-year-old girl and her family took a gender equality case all the way to the Supreme Court.

From an early age, Karen O’Connor Self was an outstanding athlete. Basketball was her main sport, but she also played soccer and baseball. She was skilled enough that she often played on boys teams. And if a coach objected, Karen’s mother set him straight.

“If a coach told my mother I couldn’t play on his team, she told him about Title IX and made him put me on the roster,” Karen says.*

Karen started playing basketball as a toddler. She learned the game from an uncle who was an assistant coach at Harvard and later head coach at Connecticut’s Fairfield University.

We’ve got a problem

All was going along swimmingly until Karen entered sixth grade at MacArthur Junior High School in Prospect Heights, Illinois. The school had a girls basketball team, but the level of play wasn’t challenging enough for her. She wanted to play on the boys team.

In August 1980, Karen’s father asked the school board to allow her to try out for the boys team.

“My feeling was, ‘Let me try, Coach,’” Karen says. “If I’m not good enough, you can cut me.”

The coach refused.

Karen and her family considered the refusal a form of discrimination that ran afoul of both her constitutional rights — of the kind guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment — and of Title IX. And so they sued.

Separate and unequal?

The school’s position was that single-sex teams didn’t discriminate. The girls had a separate but equal chance to participate in sports, so the school wasn’t in violation of either the Fourteenth Amendment or Title IX, it said.

Karen’s family won in a lower court, but the decision was overturned on appeal. Surprisingly, the case went all the way to the Supreme Court.

In the end, the Supreme Court left the verdict of the appeals court intact, and the school was victorious. The school had a right to offer “separate but equal” teams segregated by sex, the Court said.

“In essence, the Supreme Court was saying that I — that girls — had a right to participate, but not a right to grow as an individual,” Karen says.

Many people saw this ruling as the right one for girls sports. If the most skilled girls played on boys teams, girls teams wouldn’t thrive. And, conversely, if boys played on girls teams, girls would be shut out.

“Letting in one girl here or there doesn’t really help the overall picture of women in sports,” said Jennifer Nupp, then of the Women’s Equity Action League. “Equal opportunity for the individual can even retard equal opportunity for the group.”**

It turned out okay

Karen never played for MacArthur’s sixth grade girls team. The next year, her father’s job took the family to California, where she was welcomed onto the junior high boys team. But by eighth grade, the boys were gaining in height and weight, making it harder for her to compete.

“That was the first year I wasn’t the leading scorer,” she recalls.

After another move, this time to New York State, Karen had a stellar high school career at Hyde Park’s Franklin D. Roosevelt High School. She made the girls varsity team as a 14-year-old freshman. Playing with 17- and 18-year old girls provided all the competition she needed to up her game. And as a senior, she helped coach the freshman boys basketball team.

Karen went on to play basketball at Arizona State University, but a back injury ended her playing days. At age 23, she became head coach at Seton Catholic Preparatory in Chandler, Arizona. In her 30 years at the school, she has taken the team to the championships 17 times, winning 12 state titles.

“I’ve built a life around coaching girls sports,” she says. “Title IX came around at just the right time for me. We were just adjusting to the right to play, and it opened up so many doors for us.”