Title IX, As Necessary As Ever, 37 Years Later

This week, Legal Momentum commemorates the 37^th anniversary of the landmark enactment of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, which guaranteed that no person will be excluded from educational programs and extracurricular activities in federally funded schools.  Legal Momentum recognized the significant and widespread changes that would result from Title IX and organized the Project on Equal Education Rights (PEER) which, for eighteen years, almost singlehandedly ensured effective implementation of Title IX.  As PEER argued in a series of reports in 1985, equal education for girls broadens their opportunities in the workforce and is effectively “poverty prevention for women.” 

 

Undoubtedly, Title IX opened doors for women everywhere, most notably in athletics and higher education.  After the law was passed and executed, the number of female high school athletes rose from 294,000 to 2 million, and the number of female interscholastic college athletes rose from 32,000 to 160,000.[1]  Graduate and professional schools finally opened to admit women, and today, women comprise more than half of college students nationwide.[2]

 

But serious inequities continue to exist in our schools and sports.  Opportunities for women to participate in athletics are significantly lower than opportunities for men.  At NCAA institutions, male athletes receive 36 percent more scholarship funds than female athletes.[3]  Additionally, gender disparities in higher education are overwhelming in the fields of mathematics, sciences, engineering, and technology.  In 2003, women composed only 30 percent of the doctorate degrees in science and only nine percent in engineering.[4] 

Legal Momentum has focused on the the gender imbalance in vocational schools and is currently working to end sex segregation in the Career and Technical Education schools in New York City.  Given that adult women are 40 percent more likely to be poor than adult men, ending sex segregation in CTE schools is one method of providing important economic opportunities for young women.[5] With training in the skilled trades, they can access higher wage jobs with more benefits what are traditionally male-dominated careers. 

 

Since the passage of Title IX, huge strides have been made in the past 37 years for women’s rights, and Legal Momentum will continue to advance those rights to ensure economic and educational equality for all women and girls.

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[1] Louise A. Gikow, Kathy Rodgers, and Lynn Hecht Schafran, Women:  A Celebration of Strength (2007).

[2] Greg Toppo, Anthony DeBarros, “Women feed the jump in college enrollment,” USA Today, at http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2007-09-12-census-college-enrollment_N.htm (September 12, 2007).

[3] Louise A Gikow, Kathy Rodgers, and Lynn Hecht Schafran, Women:  A Celebration of Strength (2007).

[4] Lauren McGlothlin, “This Week in Civil Rights History:  Title IX Becomes Law,”  Civilrights.org, at http://www.civilrights.org/archives/2009/06/451-title-ix.html (June 22, 2009).

[5] Francoise Jacobsohn, “Mayoral Task Force on Career and Technical Education Innovation’s Preliminary Recommendations,” at http://www.legalmomentum.org/assets/pdfs/task-force-on-public-comments.pdf (June 12, 2008).