Tag Archives: #TitleIXat50

Guest Post: Heath Hardage Lee

Recently, I read Heath Hardage Lee’s book, The League of Wives, about a group of determined women who forced the American government to bring their POW husbands home from Vietnam. I loved this book! When I saw that Heath had moderated a Title IX panel at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library, I asked if she’d share her thoughts. So, here she is on the blog today, and again, I love what she has to say!*

On February 6, 1969, President Richard Nixon faced the second press conference of his new administration. He fielded questions on a wide range of topics from a room packed with reporters. However, when Washington bureau chief for the North American Newspaper Alliance Vera Glaser got her turn, she asked him a question no one had expected.

            “Mr. President, in staffing your administration, you have so far made about 200 high-level Cabinet and other policy position appointments, and only three have gone to women. Can you tell us, sir, whether we can we expect more equitable recognition of women’s abilities, or are we going to remain a lost sex?”

            Glaser’s question became part of the push that the new administration needed to prioritize women’s rights and gender equity. In response to Glaser’s query, the President’s Task Force on Women’s Rights and Responsibilities was rapidly organized. The completed Task Force report, entitled “A Matter of Simple Justice” was sent to the President on December 12, 1969. 

Righting the ratio

            Among the major action items in the Task Force report was this recommendation: “The President should appoint more women to positions of top responsibility in all branches of federal government to achieve a more equitable ratio of men and women.” Barbara Hackman Franklin, one of the first female graduates of Harvard Business School and rising star in the banking world was appointed as Staff Assistant to the President in April 1971. Within this role, Franklin would lead all efforts to fulfill the Task Force recommendation. Her work would prove critical to the success of the administration’s efforts for women. 

            One of the many ripple effects of the Task Force recommendations and Franklin’s work was the proposal of the landmark Education Amendments, primarily authored by Rep. Patsy Mink, and strongly supported by Rep. Edith Green and Sen. Birch Bayh. These amendments include the now famous Title IX. President Nixon signed these amendments into law fifty years ago on June 23, 1972.

            When the final regulations were issued in 1975, Title IX covered women and girls, students and employees, protecting them all from discrimination. This included sexual harassment, admissions policies, basically every aspect of education K-12 for institutions that receive federal funding.

            Today Title IX is most often equated with women’s sports, but it was part of this broader movement towards women’s rights and gender equity across the board that began with Vera Glaser’s question, the Presidential Task Force for Women, and Barbara Hackman Franklin. This potent push meant that equity for women went from an afterthought under previous administrations to high priority under President Nixon.

Hearing from the athletes

            On June 23 of this year, I helped celebrate the 50th anniversary of Title IX (renamed the Patsy T. Mink Equal Opportunity in Education Act in 2002) at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum. I was honored to set the historical context for the event and interview Barbara Hackman Franklin. Our chat was followed by a panel of outstanding Olympians:  three-time gold medalist Kerri Walsh Jennings (beach volleyball), four-time gold medalist Janet Evans (distance swimming), and two-time gold medalist Courtney Mathewson (water polo).

            What these young female athletes had to say was heartening. Each of the women noted that they had never felt discriminated against in the sports world due to their gender. Not once had any of them felt the sting of sexism that some of their athlete mothers had warned them about. Thanks to Title IX, all three women had grown up feeling safe, supported and empowered in their respective arenas. These Olympians had never known a world without the benefits and protections of consequential legislation which allowed each of them to soar athletically.

             Thanks to women like Vera Glaser, who asked President Nixon that first question about women’s equality, and Barbara Hackman Franklin, who implemented that first real push for women inside the U.S. government, female athletes today enjoy the same playing field as their male counterparts. They are no longer “the lost sex” in the sports arena.

                                                ___________________________

* Get to know Heath Lee at her website. https://heathleeauthor.com/

PHOTO (left to right): Kerri Walsh Jennings, Heath Lee, Barbara Hackman Franklin, Janet Evans and Courtney Mathewson.  

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.”

Vaulting to Title IX success

Gymnastics was one sport available for women long before Title IX. But that doesn’t mean it was free from discrimination. In fact, gymnasts at Brown University brought a precedent-setting lawsuit in 1992, two decades after Title IX became law.

            In 1991, Brown University cut women’s varsity gymnastics, along with three other teams. It wasn’t that the program was failing; just the year before, the team had won Brown’s first-ever Ivy League title for gymnastics.

            Amy Cohen, the incoming captain of the team, was devastated.

            “We begged for another solution; we suggested the athletics director ask all coaches to trim 5 percent from their budgets to spare these four teams,” she says. “He told us in no uncertain terms that he had made the decision and that his decision was final.”*

Who got rid of whom?

            The possibility remained of keeping the team at a club level, and the women got to work fundraising. Over the summer, they raised enough money — from the community, not the university! — to continue. In the fall, Amy arrived on campus proud of saving the team and expecting the athletic director to congratulate the women.

            Well, that didn’t happen.

            “He locked us out of our locker room and informed us that we could not see the athletic trainers, use the varsity weight room or hold home meets on weekends,” she said. “At one point, he even muttered, ‘I thought I got rid of you.’”**

            The university had cut the teams — men’s water polo and golf, and women’s gymnastics and volleyball — in response to a mandate to trim $1.6 million from its budget. It claimed it was acting fairly by cutting two women’s and two men’s teams.

            Amy saw it differently — women 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.

A civil rights warrior

            In 1992, Amy became the lead plaintiff in a Title IX lawsuit against the university. The case wound its way through the courts, handing the women victory after victory. In 1997, they finally won in district court, but Brown didn’t give up. It appealed to the Supreme Court.

            “The ruling leaves the university no choice but to set aside up to 51 percent of its varsity opportunities for qualified women because 51 percent of its students were women,” said a spokeswoman for the university. “That stark numerical quota was required without regard to the fact that women do not represent 51 percent of all interested athletes.”***

            This well-worn argument is sort of a chicken-and-the-egg line of thinking. Women aren’t as interested in sports as men are, one side says. Women would be just as interested in sports if they had as much opportunity as men, the other side says.

            When the women won their case in 1997, Amy was no longer a student. Then a second-grade teacher, Amy said her students likened her to civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks.

            “I think they understand Title IX better than most of the nation’s athletic directors,” she said.****

Fast forward to today

            Ultimately, the Supreme Court refused to hear the case and the ruling stood. The university set in motion a plan to increase minimum team sizes for women’s sports, cap team sizes for men’s sports, restore the four cut teams, and add a women’s lightweight crew team.

            That wasn’t the end of the story, though. In May 2020, Brown cut several women’s teams even though male athletes already had a larger share of the school’s athletic resources. The women went back to court and emerged with a settlement requiring the university to reinstate two of the teams and extend enforcement of the decree for several more years.

            For Amy, this decades-long battle for equality became bigger than just one team.

            “We realized that this case was about much more than just getting our gymnastics team back. We became Title IX warriors,” she said. “Over the past 50 years, progress has been made towards equality and equity in sports but, I am sad to say, we still have a long way to go. I hope that in my lifetime I will see true equity and equality.”*****

                                                ________________________________

* “Class Action Hall of Fame, Class of 2022: Title IX Champions for Equality in Women’s Sports,” Impact Fund (February 2022). Amy and her teammates were honored by this social justice organization for their activism. https://www.impactfund.org/social-justice-blog/cahof22

** “Class Action,” Impact Fund.

*** “Women gain a victory in access to athletics,” The Philadelphia Inquirer (April 22, 1997), p. 5.

**** Susan Ware. Title IX: A Brief History with Documents (Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press Inc., 2007), p. 85.

***** “Class Action,” Impact Fund.

PHOTO: Brown University women’s 1990 gymnastics team. Amy Cohen is in front, above the “O” in the sign. Source: National Museum of American History.