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Turning Points in American Sports Spring 2010

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The Impact of Title IX

By barbara winslow.

It’s hard to imagine that just forty years ago, young women were not admitted into many colleges and universities, athletic scholarships were rare, and math and science was a realm reserved for boys. Girls square danced instead of playing sports, studied home economics instead of training for "male-oriented" (read: higher-paying) trades. Girls could become teachers and nurses, but not doctors or principals; women rarely were awarded tenure and even more rarely appointed college presidents. There was no such thing as sexual harassment because "boys will be boys," after all, and if a student got pregnant, her formal education ended. Graduate professional schools openly discriminated against women. In every area of athletics, girls and women faced discrimination, racism, homophobia, prejudice, and ridicule. Women were warned that physical activity was not only unfeminine but proof of lesbianism. Female athletes were depicted as physically unattractive and women were told that competitive sports would hurt reproductive organs as well as a woman’s chances of marriage. Women were seen as more "selfish" and not as team-oriented as men. Marginalized and trivialized, girls’ teams had to raise their own money through bake sales or carwashes, wear their school gym suit or make their own uniforms. School cheerleaders received more attention than female athletes. Girls played in empty gymnasiums. Parents who would come to see their sons wouldn’t watch their athlete daughters. Those who defied the ridicule and institutional barriers did so because they loved their sport and to compete. Lynn Colella, who would go on to be an Olympic silver medalist in swimming, commented that female swimmers during her days at the University of Washington "ha[d] to be mean to themselves. There [was] no incentive for them to keep going. A boy ha[d] the possibility of college scholarships. There [weren’t] opportunities like that for women." Her brother, also a swimmer, had a full scholarship to UW. Katherine Switzer, a 20-year-old Syracuse University junior, showed up to run the Boston Marathon in 1967. She wanted to prove to herself and her coach she was capable of running 26.2 miles. Women were not allowed to officially run the marathon, so no one questioned "K. V. Switzer" as it appeared on the application. In the middle of the race, Jock Semple, a Boston marathon official, jumped off a truck, ran toward Switzer and shouted, "Get the hell out of my race." Switzer managed to finish. She entered the Marathon with no agenda to promote women’s running. Her experience radicalized her, changing her outlook on women in sports. Today, Switzer serves as an official commentator for the New York City Marathon. Another female athlete, Marge Snyder, remembers, "I played on my Illinois high school’s first varsity tennis team from 1968 to 1970. We were 56-0 over my three years. We were permitted to compete as long as we made no efforts to publicize our accomplishments and personally paid for our uniforms and equipment." Snyder would go on to work for the Women’s Sports Foundation. And another female athlete who faced adversity, C. Vivian Stringer, currently works as head coach of the championship Rutgers University women’s basketball team. Stringer began coaching at the historically black college Cheney State in 1971. She spent her own money to recruit players and had to drive her teams to their games in an unreliable, used prison bus. The 1960s feminist movement, the black freedom struggle, a more active and aware youth culture, and other sources of social unrest roiled the nation as a whole and the sports world in particular. Equal rights, social justice, and equal opportunities in education and employment were dominant and popular themes. Patsy Mink of Hawaii rose in this cultural climate. As the first woman of color to be elected to Congress, she was no stranger to race and sex discrimination. Turned down by twenty medical schools, Mink pursued law. But no law firm would hire her. She entered politics in order to fight for gender and racial equality. In 1972 Mink and Edith Green, a Democrat from Oregon who focused on women’s issues, education, and social reforms, introduced Title IX, and were responsible for its passage. Fellow politician Daniel Patrick Moynihan would later state that Title IX was one of the most important pieces of education legislation in the history of the Republic. The passage of the bill got very little attention until one event brought the issue of women’s sports and feminism to the national stage. Billie Jean King, who couldn’t get a tennis scholarship when she was a student Cal State Los Angeles, campaigned for higher pay and professional treatment for women tennis players. Opposed by sports media and even some women tennis players, she organized successful professional leagues for women. But she is most famous for defeating former Wimbledon champion and tennis hustler Bobbie Riggs in the so-called "Battle of the Sexes." The 1973 match captivated and changed the way women looked at themselves. "I just had to play," she said in a later interview with Newsweek . "Title IX had just passed, and I . . . wanted to change the hearts and minds of people to match the legislation." The women’s movement, King’s leadership, and the passage of Title IX led to an outpouring of interest and participation in as well as funding for women’s sports. Marge Snyder related the impact of Title IX on her college career: "In one short year things changed dramatically. The passage of Title IX in 1972 meant that by 1973 there were college scholarships at the larger schools, money for equipment and uniforms, and expanded travel schedules. It also meant my small school’s tennis team was no longer competitive with the larger schools’ teams." Sue Gunter, the third-winningest women’s basketball coach in NCAA history, called a meeting of her squad at Stephen F. Austin University in 1972. "I told my kids they could be on a scholarship the next year." "Wow, you’ve got to be kidding, Coach, why?" they asked. "Because of Title IX." "I can’t remember what I ate for dinner last night, but I can remember those kids’ faces in 1972. Title IX kick started us. It gave us the juice to go on." In 1971, fewer than 295,000 girls participated in high school varsity athletics, accounting for just 7 percent of all varsity athletes; in 2001, that number leaped to 2.8 million, or 41.5 percent of all varsity athletes, according to the National Coalition for Women and Girls in Education. In 1966, 16,000 females competed in intercollegiate athletics. By 2001, that number jumped to more than 150,000, accounting for 43 percent of all college athletes. In addition, a 2008 study of intercollegiate athletics showed that women’s collegiate sports had grown to 9,101 teams, or 8.65 per school. The five most frequently offered college sports for women are, in order: (1) basketball, 98.8% of schools have a team, (2) volleyball, 95.7%, (3) soccer, 92.0%, (4) cross country, 90.8%, and (5) softball, 89.2%. Since 1972, women have also competed in the traditional male sports of wrestling, weightlifting, rugby, and boxing. Parents have begun to watch their daughters on the playing fields, courts, and on television. A recent article in the New York Times found that there are lasting benefits for women from Title IX: participation in sports increased education as well as employment opportunities for girls. Furthermore, the athletic participation by girls and women spurred by Title IX was associated with lower obesity rates. No other public health program can claim similar success. However, as part of the backlash against the women’s movement, opposition quickly organized against Title IX. Worried about how it would affect men’s athletics, legislators and collegiate sports officials became concerned and looked for ways to limit its influence. One argument was that revenue-producing sports such as college football should be exempted from Title IX compliance. Another was that in order for schools and colleges to comply, they would have to cut men’s sports such as wrestling. Others argued that federal legislation was not the way to achieve equality or even parity. Finally, conservative opponents of women’s rights believed that feminists used Title IX as an all-purpose vehicle to advance their agenda in the schools. Since 1975, there have been twenty court challenges to Title IX in an attempt to whittle down greater gender equity in all fields of education—mirroring the ups and downs of the women’s movement at large. According to the National Federation of State High School Associations, female students received 1.3 million fewer opportunities to participate in high school athletics than their male peers in the 2006–2007 school years. Yet as a result of Title IX, women have benefited from involvement in amateur and professional sports and, in turn, sports are more exciting with their participation.

Barbara Winslow   is a historian who teaches in the School of Education and for the Women’s Studies Program at Brooklyn College, The City University of New York. Her publications include  Sylvia Pankhurst: Sexual Politics and Political Activism  (1996) and  Clio in the Classroom: Teaching US Women’s History in the Schools  (2009), co-authored and co-edited with Carol Berkin and Margaret Crocco. She is the founder and director of the Shirley Chisholm Project of Brooklyn Women’s Activism, 1945 to the Present (chisholmproject.com) and is currently completing a biography of Shirley Chisholm as well as writing about the Seattle Washington Women’s Liberation Movement.

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Lindsay Crouse

We Can Do Better Than Title IX

By Lindsay Crouse

Ms. Crouse is a writer and producer in Opinion who focuses on gender, ambition and power. She is a competitive distance runner.

When it was enacted on June 23, 1972, Title IX was the greatest thing ever to happen to girls’ and women’s sports in America.

The law, which prohibits discrimination based on sex in education programs or activities that receive federal financial assistance, was meant to ensure that American girls would enjoy the same opportunities in school sports as boys. Even though it was inconsistently applied and many have pointed out racial disparities in its enforcement , by several measures, it worked: It transformed the United States into an unrivaled incubator of female athletic talent. At the Olympics, American women now consistently claim enough medals on their own to top most nations. The law has also been life-changing for generations of American women even off the sports field. One survey found that more than nine in 10 female C-suite executives were athletes in school.

But in some ways, Title IX was a Pyrrhic victory. For all its successes, the groundbreaking legislation has failed to allow girls and women to excel on terms independent of boys and men. Like so much in our culture, sports are still based on a male model — a man’s body, a man’s interests. Current models of success in mainstream sport leave women competing on standards that exclude us, where in most cases we are not set up to thrive.

Fifty years after Title IX’s enactment, we have an opportunity to reimagine women’s sports altogether. If we accept that women’s bodies are not holistically inferior to men’s but rather fundamentally different, we have to value female athletes and women’s sports on their own terms.

What would this look like? I propose a New Deal for women’s sports — with a women-first approach. This must go beyond creating entitlements and enforcing parity, as Title IX does. We must dismantle the grandfathered-in systemic advantages that male athletes and male-dominated sports infrastructures continue to enjoy. We must cultivate tastes for other sports, the ones that women excel in and even dominate. And we must broaden our definition of what athletic prowess looks like.

A New Deal for women’s sports would bring more women into leadership roles — in coaching, management and media. It would expand investment in women’s sports categorically. It would increase athletic and other brand endorsement opportunities . It would transform the broadcasting and coverage of women’s sports, elevating female sports journalists and improving the quantity and quality of reporting on women’s sports. Women’s sports would be built for women, with athletic feats that suit our bodies.

Men’s bodies are different from women’s; men are generally bigger, faster and stronger. And currently, the sports that make the most money and see the largest audiences in the United States are suited to a male body’s physical strengths: football tackles, basketball dunks. Sports built for women’s bodies would be different. Compared with men, women have superior flexibility and resilience . Women excel at enduring.

So let’s start with a paradigm shift. The reason a slam dunk is better than a triple axel or a home run is more thrilling than a sprint at the end of a mile comes down to one thing: Our culture has told us so. Women’s sports have only a fraction of the overall viewership and revenue of men’s sports, but men’s sports are not inherently more exciting or fun to watch than women’s are. The joy or beauty of one sport or another is subjective, not an objective truth.

In 2017 more than a third of Americans said football was their favorite sport to watch, for example, and each fall, Americans glue themselves to their screens to watch it. But is the male-dominated sport of football really that much more compelling than the less gendered game of soccer? That’s a sport the rest of the world seems to enjoy much more than Americans do, and it’s one in which American professional women’s teams win more on the international stage than our men’s teams.

Part of the problem is the way we think about sports is a vestige of our fixation on nationalism and military strength — spheres that men also have dominated. Traditional American public school physical education, with the pull-ups and push-ups of the Presidential Fitness Test, began amid Cold War fears that we were not producing enough combat-ready American men. The sports events we stage today continue to pantomime militarism and war — complete with societally enforced adherence to prescribed behavior during the national anthem. Our sports showcase our strength, and Americans generally see strength as a male trait.

The few women who do penetrate bastions of male athletic power are lavishly praised. The college football and soccer player Sarah Fuller , for example, gained far more attention by kicking for Vanderbilt’s winless men’s team and becoming the first woman to play and score in a Power 5 football game than she did for being a goalie on Vanderbilt’s conference-winning women’s soccer team. I worry that these purported success stories are really distractions. The reason these women capture our attention is that they are exceptions, not scalable models.

When Fuller took to the field to kick for the football team, her helmet was triumphantly inscribed, “Play like a girl.” It was an inspiring moment, but it didn’t last long. She was invited to play because the team was out of options: The school doesn’t have a Division I men’s soccer team to draw from, and coronavirus restrictions had left the football team without a man to do the job. After two games with Fuller, it was back to normal.

If the male athletic ecosystem is the only arena that matters, women are all but set up to fail, and their achievements in female-dominated arenas are trivialized. Sports don’t just reflect our culture and its biases; they reaffirm it. Is this really what we want “playing like a girl” to mean?

Meanwhile, many sports in which women excel on their own terms — gymnastics, distance running, skiing — draw large audiences when they are broadcast at international competitions such as the Olympics, but their stars generally lack the opportunities for gigantic league salaries or lucrative brand sponsorships that male athletes have. The tennis star Naomi Osaka is the world’s top-paid female athlete, but she has 18 men ahead of her. Serena Williams comes in at No. 31.

When American women triumph over women from other countries, interestingly, the link between sports and nationalism gives women an edge. News outlets cover them resoundingly as bringers of glory to our country. Women’s soccer accounted for more than a quarter of women’s sports coverage in 2019, the year that the US women’s soccer team won the World Cup, according to one study . Those bursts in coverage historically have not translated to increased coverage of women’s sports overall. It seems women need to be the best in the world to warrant coverage by our national media.

As in the rest of society, women are traditionally valued in sports such as gymnastics and figure skating that often encourage them to make themselves smaller, whereas men are embraced for making themselves bigger to play football or basketball. Athletic girls are still subjected to harmful practices such as enforced weight loss , high-tech body fat scans and regimented diets so inadequate that they can damage girls’ bodies. And girls’ and women’s sports remain rife with abuse. For female athletes, sports can make adolescence less a rite than a gantlet. And the scars are slow to fade.

In a world where women’s sports were valued on their own terms, training would be informed instead by a science-driven understanding of what physical fitness for women really means — with an understanding that healthy women’s bodies naturally retain more fat than men’s and that women’s long-term performance and health is contingent on their doing so. Historically, the study of women’s athleticism has been neglected; it is often tacked onto research that is largely conducted by men and largely concerns men.

Extreme dieting would be actively discouraged in female athletes instead of being praised as hard work, as it still sometimes is. Athletes would value regular menstrual cycles as vital to their physical health and performance. As women age, pregnancy would not be viewed as a career ender but rather as a natural break that, with proper support, enables women to achieve the full arc of their athletic careers, not to mention live full human lives.

But more important than the sports themselves is our willingness to see women’s sports as opportunities for investment in their own right, not simply as derivative activities tacked on for equality’s sake.

That starts with rethinking leadership in sports. Ironically, while Title IX naturally boosted women’s participation as players, it sidelined them as coaches. Before Title IX, women made up more than 90 percent of head coaches on women’s college teams. Afterward, when money was pumped into women’s college sports administration, as required under Title IX rules, men took many of these now high-paying jobs, created under the auspices of a law that was meant to empower women. By 2019, only 42 percent of Division I head coaches for women’s teams were women . Men also, of course, coach almost all men’s sports teams.

But hiring and retaining female coaches isn’t as easy as recruiting and paying them more (although those things wouldn’t hurt). Currently, the coaching model is not built to accommodate pregnancy, child care or family responsibilities, leading many women to drop out when they want to start a family — at the very point when men are often promoted into higher level coaching positions. As in many workplaces, female coaches also face double standards as leaders; what’s viewed as tough but fair coaching in a man can be viewed as more problematic behavior in a woman.

A women-first approach to coaching and team administration would build in flexibility and benefits for parents and include recruitment of women at every level of the coaching pipeline, from the most junior positions to head coach posts.

One crucial thing that would be totally different in a women-first sports model would be broadcasting and coverage of women’s sports: how much they’re shown on TV, as well as how we talk about female athletes in the media. Currently most sports journalists, team owners and TV industry executives are men; they make lucrative broadcast deals for the sports they enjoy, the athletes they feature and themselves. Much of this has to do with outdated business models, which also overwhelmingly favor men.

Take baseball, a male-dominated sport that, as Matthew Walther wrote recently , for more than a decade has been treading a steady path toward obsolescence. From 1975 to 2021, the World Series audience has decreased by two-thirds, from 36 million viewers per game to 12 million, on average. But cable television has helped to ensure that salaries for many of the men who play in Major League Baseball remain generous, because the game has been bundled into cable packages among an array of other channels. These deals amount to self-fulfilling prophecies of audience interest — or even, arguably, subsidies. Simply put, we watch this fading sport because it’s what’s on television. No matter how dazzling its players are, a women’s league like the W.N.B.A. will never get ahead as long as men have better established airtime deals.

In a 2021 paper , researchers reviewed 30 years of sports coverage on televised news and highlights shows and found that 80 percent omitted women’s sports. In 2019 , 95 percent of the sports coverage they studied focused on men. In one segment from that year that covered the W.N.B.A., more airtime was given to a hot dog eating contest. “Mainstream sports media works to actively build and maintain audience knowledge, interest and excitement for these men’s sports,” the study authors wrote. One of the authors put it bluntly: “Our analysis shows men’s sports are the appetizer, the main course and the dessert, and if there’s any mention of women’s sports, it comes across as begrudging ‘eat your vegetables’ without the kind of bells and whistles and excitement with which they describe men’s sports and athletes.”

There are bright spots that provide glimpses of what a female-first model of sports promotion could look like — less “eat your vegetables” than a bona fide feast. In what’s been called the Suni Effect, college gymnastics is enjoying a moment of fan appeal, driven by the Tokyo Olympics gold medalist Sunisa Lee, who is a freshman at Auburn University. Her school said it sold out every regular meet this season, and even as online ticket prices increased, more tickets to gymnastics meets were sold on the secondary market than for the university’s men’s basketball games.

This didn’t happen by accident — it took a TV network, in this case, the SEC network, which televised meets — and it took coaches who understood that to build an audience for women’s sports, they needed to rewrite the rules. That meant prioritizing two things: entertainment (gymnastics are a phenomenal show!) and community (it’s not every school that can count an Olympic gold medalist as one of its own). Now at meets, the stands are full of women screaming their heads off, as well as many men.

Women are driving much of this work themselves: In a recent panel discussion, the South Carolina Gamecocks women’s basketball head coach Dawn Staley told me that years ago, after she started coaching college basketball in South Carolina, the school told her it wanted to sell tickets to her games for only a dollar, showing how low its expectations were for turnout and profit. “I said, no, we’re not going to cheapen our product,” she recalled. She realized that cultivating a fan base would be crucial to her team’s success and to proving to her school it was worth investing in.

But she had no structural advantage to rely on; she would have to do it herself. She worked with her team to build direct relationships with fans, through events, meet and greets, and social media. In turn, those fans rewarded the team with steadfast loyalty and support. “We are revenue producing,” she said. Now Staley has the largest turnout of any women’s college basketball team in the country — and is the first Black coach, male or female, to be a multiple N.C.A.A. champion.

But this success has yet to translate into the money that men’s leagues enjoy, once again at least in part because of bureaucratic legacies in broadcasting rights. That could change: Once current broadcasting deals expire in a few years, the women’s tournament could be worth more than $100 million a year in broadcast rights alone, according to a gender equity review of N.C.A.A. basketball last year. This could mark a turning point: investing in women’s sports based on the projected audience and revenue, not simply for the sake of equality.

Even without large marketing budgets, some female athletes are seeing considerable success building their own brands. They are doing this by leveraging the new tools at their disposal, especially social media, to appeal and reach out directly to fans. The new changes to N.C.A.A. endorsement rules — which allow athletes to earn money off their name, image and likeness — are a big part of this.

According to the endorsement platform Opendorse, as of the end of May, female student-athletes were making more than a quarter of name, image and likeness compensation. This March Madness, the top two Sweet 16 athletes, in terms of metrics like social media follower counts and engagement, were women.

These women are making money by becoming their own storytellers. But that also means they have to work twice as hard, devoting effort not only to their game but also to marketing it.

Lauren Fleshman, who is writing a book about her experiences as a former professional track athlete, warned against “premature high fives” on the success of Title IX. “We still aren’t done with the primary objective of Title IX: equal opportunities,” she told me. “So many of the experiences of women and girls in sport are taboo, invisible or erased.” She added that we need to identify “the friction points between their bodies and the sports system not built for them.”

When Title IX was passed 50 years ago, just under 300,000 girls nationwide played high school sports every year. Now that’s more than three million. But if Title IX has set those girls up to believe they could be treated as equal to boys on the playing field or off, that delusion dissolves when real money or power is at stake. That’s when the bulk of the athletic resources go to men, leaving the women those girls become to discover where our society’s values really lie.

As we muddle through the great unfinished business of Title IX, sports are teaching girls the truth. We may be allowed to play, but we are still not equal.

Lindsay Crouse ( @lindsaycrouse ) is a writer and producer in Opinion who focuses on gender, ambition and power. She produced the Emmy-nominated Opinion Video series “Equal Play,” which brought widespread reform to women’s sports.

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Regions & Countries

Most americans who are familiar with title ix say it’s had a positive impact on gender equality.

Fifty years after the passage of Title IX , which prohibits high schools and colleges that receive federal funding from discriminating based on sex, most Americans who have heard about the law say it’s had a positive impact on gender equality in the United States (63%). Still, 37% of those who are familiar with Title IX say it has not gone far enough in increasing opportunities for women and girls to participate in sports, according to a February Pew Research Center survey of U.S. adults.

Men and women who have heard about Title IX are about equally likely to say that the law has had a positive impact on gender equality. However, women (46%) are more likely than men (29%) to say the legislation has not gone far enough to increase opportunities for women in sports. A majority of men (54%) say the progress has been about right, compared with 41% of women.

Views on the impact of Title IX vary along party lines: 75% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents who have heard of Title IX say it has had a positive impact on gender equality, while 49% of similar Republicans and GOP leaners say the same. Republicans, in turn, are more likely than Democrats to say the law has had a negative impact on gender equality (25% vs. 10%).

Pew Research Center conducted this analysis to better understand Americans’ views on gender equality in sports and the impact of sports participation surrounding the 50 th anniversary of Title IX legislation. This analysis is based on 9,388 U.S. adults; the data was collected as a part of a larger survey conducted Feb. 7-13, 2022. Everyone who took part is a member of the Center’s American Trends Panel (ATP), an online survey panel that is recruited through national, random sampling of residential addresses. This way, nearly all U.S. adults have a chance of selection. The survey is weighted to be representative of the U.S. adult population by gender, race, ethnicity, partisan affiliation, education and other categories. Read more about the ATP’s methodology .

Here are the questions used for this analysis, along with responses, and its methodology .

Democrats who are familiar with Title IX are also far more likely than Republicans to say the law has not gone far enough to increase opportunities for girls and women in sports (51% vs. 19%), while Republicans are more likely to say things are about right (57% vs. 41%) or that the law has gone too far (22% vs. 6%).

Democratic women are especially likely to say Title IX has not gone far enough: 60% of Democratic women say this, compared with 42% of Democratic men, 27% of Republican women and 13% of Republican men.

Roughly half of Americans say they have heard a little (37%) or a lot (13%) about Title IX; 50% say they have heard nothing at all about the law. Men (55%) are more likely than women (44%) to say they have heard at least a little about it, and older Americans are more likely to have heard about it than younger Americans. The age gap is especially pronounced among women: Women under age 50 are less likely than women ages 50 and older to have heard of Title IX (41% vs. 48%). 

Most Americans say women’s and men’s college sports should get about equal funding

The survey also found about six-in-ten Americans (61%) say funding for women’s and men’s college sports should be roughly equal, but a sizable share (21%) says it should be based on the amount of money brought in by the team. Relatively small shares say either men’s sports should receive more funding than women’s (5%) or women’s sports should receive more than men’s (3%).

Women (71%) are more likely than men (50%) to say that college sports should be equally funded regardless of gender, while men are more likely than women to say funding should be based on the amount of money brought in by the team (30% vs. 14%, respectively). Still, half of men say funding should be equal across genders.

Partisan gaps are also pronounced when it comes to views of funding for college sports. Democrats (69%) are more likely than Republicans (51%) to say men’s and women’s college sports should get about equal funding, while Republicans are much more likely than Democrats to say funding should be based on the amount of money brought in by the team (31% vs. 15%).

The gender gap persists in both parties, though it is particularly wide among Republicans. About two-thirds of Republican women (65%) say funding should be about equal regardless of gender, compared with 37% of Republican men. Republican men, in turn, are about twice as likely as Republican women to say funding should be based on the amount of money brought in by the teams (42% vs. 20%). Among Democrats, majorities of men (61%) and women (75%) say funding should be about equal.

Views on this issue also differ by age, with older Americans more likely than younger Americans to say that men’s and women’s college teams should get about equal funding. Women ages 50 and older are particularly likely to hold this view: 75% say funding should be about equal, compared with 68% of women under 50, 57% of men ages 50 and older and just 44% of men under 50. 

More than one-third of Americans say there is too much emphasis on boys participating in youth sports and too little emphasis on girls

Some 36% of Americans say there is too much emphasis on boys participating in youth sports, while 45% say there is about the right amount of emphasis and just 5% say there is too little emphasis. By contrast, when asked about the emphasis placed on girls’ participation, roughly one-third (35%) say there is too little emphasis, while 42% say there is about the right amount and 6% say there is too much emphasis. In both cases, similar shares say they are not sure (13% and 16%, respectively).

Women are more likely than men to say there is too much emphasis on boys participating in youth sports (42% vs. 29%) and that there is too little emphasis on girls participating in youth sports (39% vs. 31%). Men, on the other hand, are more likely than women to say there is the right amount of emphasis on participation for boys (50% vs. 41%) and girls (45% vs. 39%).

The partisan gap in views about gender and youth sports participation is even wider. Democrats are much more likely than Republicans to say there is too much emphasis on boys participating in sports (45% vs. 25%). And Democrats are also much more likely to say there is too little emphasis on girls’ participation: 44% say this, compared with 26% of Republicans. About half or more Republicans say there is the right amount of emphasis for boys (55%) and girls (51%).

Democratic and Republican women are more likely than their male counterparts to say there is too much emphasis on boys participating in sports and too little emphasis on girls participating in sports. Some 32% of Republican women say there is too much emphasis on boys participating in sports, compared with 17% of Republican men. Among Democrats, 50% of women see too much emphasis on boys and sports, while 40% of Democratic men say the same.

Most former high school and college athletes say participating in sports had a positive impact on them, especially when it comes to confidence and physical health

When it comes to people’s own participation in sports, 48% of Americans say they took part in organized, competitive sports either in high school or college – 39% say they participated in high school sports and 9% say they competed in sports in college (including 7% who say they did both).

Men are more likely than women to say they participated in high school or college sports (56% vs. 41%). Among women, those under 50 are more likely than those ages 50 and older to have participated in high school or college sports (48% vs. 33%). Some 11% of men say they did college sports, compared with 7% of women.

Among people who participated in organized, competitive sports in high school or college, most say that their involvement in sports had a positive impact on their health and confidence or self-esteem. More than four-in-ten (46%) say playing sports had a very positive impact on their physical health, and 38% say the same about the impact on their confidence or self-esteem. A smaller share (18%) say participating in competitive sports had a very positive impact on their career or job opportunities. Just over half of competitive athletes (54%) say participating in sports had no impact on their job opportunities. Very few athletes say their participation in sports had a negative impact on their confidence (6%), physical health (5%) or job opportunities (3%).

Across all three measures asked, athletes who played sports in college were more likely than those who only participated in high school sports to say their participation had a very positive impact. For example, 53% of college athletes say that their participation had a very positive impact on their physical health, compared with 44% of athletes who only played in high school.  

Assessments of the personal impact of sports differ by race. Larger shares of Black and Hispanic athletes (44% each) than White athletes (36%) say their participation in sports had a very positive impact on their confidence or self-esteem. Black athletes are also more likely than White athletes to say playing sports had a very positive impact on their job opportunities (27% vs. 16%). There are no differences across racial and ethnic groups in reported impact on physical health. There were not enough Asian American athletes in the sample to analyze their experiences separately.

Men and women are roughly equally likely to say that playing competitive sports very positively impacted their health and career opportunities. Men are somewhat more likely to say it had a very positive impact on their confidence (40% vs. 36%).

Note: Here are the questions used for this analysis, along with responses, and its methodology .

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For Women’s History Month, a look at gender gains – and gaps – in the U.S.

Key takeaways on americans’ views on gender equality a century after u.s. women gained the right to vote, most americans support gender equality, even if they don’t identify as feminists, activism on gender equality differs widely by education among democratic women, 61% of u.s. women say ‘feminist’ describes them well; many see feminism as empowering, polarizing, most popular.

About Pew Research Center Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world. It conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, media content analysis and other empirical social science research. Pew Research Center does not take policy positions. It is a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts .

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Rep. Patsy Mink (center), the first woman of color elected to the U.S. House, helped push Title IX through Congress. She’s joined at a 1979 press conference by Bella Abzug (left) and Gloria Steinem, other leading figures in the women’s rights movement.

AP File Photo/Harvey Georges

How Title IX transformed colleges, universities over past 50 years

Alvin Powell

Harvard Staff Writer

Upended intercollegiate sports but also touched many corners of campus, forcing shifts in hiring, promotion, admissions, reckoning on sexual harassment, assault

A half century after its enactment, Title IX, the federal law that bars discrimination against women in education, has forced a leveling of the playing field on campus, though advocates say its work is still not done. In recent years, the law has forced a reckoning over sexual harassment and assault on campus, and its protections have been extended to cover bias on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. Those impacts follow on others, particularly in women’s sports, where the changes it forced have been described as “transformative.” The Gazette asked Jeannie Suk Gersen, the John H. Watson Jr. Professor of Law and an expert on gender and the law, and Susan Ware, A.M. ’73, Ph.D. ’78, historian and author of “Title IX: A Brief History With Documents” (2014) to discuss the legacy of the law. The two were interviewed separately for this piece, and both interviews were edited for clarity and length.

Jeannie Suk Gersen and Susan Ware

Gazette: Why was Title IX needed when it passed in 1972? Didn’t the Civil Rights Act of 1964 ban discrimination in several areas based on sex?

Gersen: Women faced blatant educational inequality, such as exclusion from certain colleges and universities or from certain programs and spaces within those schools, higher admissions standards than men, more frequent tenure denials than men, and myriad other imposed disadvantages relative to men. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act had prohibited sex discrimination in employment but didn’t cover education, and Title IV had prohibited discrimination in federally funded entities but didn’t cover sex discrimination. So Title IX followed up in 1972 to fill the gap and directly address sex discrimination in education.

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Gazette: Were there fierce partisan battles over the passage of Title IX?

Gersen: Title IX was passed with bipartisan support and was signed into law by President Richard Nixon. But it was wrapped in controversy as part of the wider controversial debate of the era about what equality would mean for women’s traditional roles in the home and in society, exemplified by the fight over the Equal Rights Amendment, which was ultimately not ratified and did not become a constitutional amendment.

Gazette: After 50 years, does it remain controversial?

Gersen: Title IX remains controversial because even as the ideal of equal opportunity and prohibiting sex discrimination are widely accepted as a general matter, what constitutes discrimination on the basis of sex has been fiercely debated. The meaning of “discrimination” and the meaning of “sex” have also become less settled over the decades, particularly as young people on campuses in each generation question what these concepts mean and breathe new and urgent meaning into the promise of Title IX. These debates keep the interpretations of Title IX controversial, even among people who have no trouble agreeing that sex discrimination in education is prohibited and unacceptable.

For decades, the general public associated Title IX with equal opportunity for female students in sports because athletic excellence had traditionally been associated with males, and girls’ and women’s sports were often neglected in terms of funding and support.

“The meaning of ‘discrimination’ and ‘sex’ have also become less settled over the decades, particularly as young people on campuses in each generation question what these concepts mean and breathe new and urgent meaning into the promise of Title IX.”

— Jeannie Suk Gersen, the John H. Watson Jr. Professor of Law

Photo courtesy of Harvard Law School

In the 1990s, the federal government made explicit that Title IX’s prohibition on sex discrimination covers sexual harassment, including sexual assault, because such misconduct impairs equal educational access. That tracked our evolving understanding of the various ways in which sex discrimination harms people, but it also set the stage for future controversy. In 2011, the Department of Education, along with the work of student activists, put a spotlight on sexual harassment and sexual assault, and colleges and universities were explicitly warned that if they did not investigate and adjudicate cases of sexual harassment or sexual assault appropriately, they may be violating Title IX, putting their federal funding at risk.

In the past decade there has been plenty of controversy over whether schools, including Harvard, are handling these issues appropriately. And what started as concern about whether victims were being fairly treated also became concern about whether accused individuals are being subject to fair procedures for investigating and adjudicating allegations against them because Title IX is supposed to protect both women and men, and both complainants and respondents, from sex discrimination. For some people, the idea that a law that protects women from discrimination also addresses discrimination against men, let alone people accused of sexual misconduct, is controversial.

Gazette: How would you characterize the impact on women’s sports?

Ware: Absolutely huge because women’s sports started with so little. This really gave them a chance to demand many more resources and participation opportunities. Once you point out that the men’s crew team has its own boathouse and the women have to change in their van and they don’t have showers, anybody can see that’s not fair, and it’s not equal. So just making a list of things that need to be addressed and having Title IX to back you up was a very effective way to get change. A lot happened really quickly because a lot of schools found that they could come up with more cash for the women’s programs, could get them uniforms and things like that. So you see an immediate jump forward. Once it inched up to women getting around 40 percent of the resources — they really should be getting at least 50, if not more — it’s been really hard to take that next step. It plateaued as early as the 1980s. There’s been a huge amount of change, but there is so much that needs to happen.

“Especially in terms of sports, Title IX is often presented as a zero sum game — if women gain, men lose.”

— Susan Ware, A.M. ’73, Ph.D. ’78

Photo by Tony Rinaldo

Gazette: Did the progress stall over concerns that more money for women’s programs could mean less for big money men’s sports like football and basketball?

Ware: That’s what it comes down to. One of my favorite quotes is, “There’s men, there’s women, and there’s football.” When it comes to intercollegiate sports, football is in a class by itself. From the very beginning, the NCAA was totally opposed to Title IX because it feared that it would upset their money-making arrangements. Especially in terms of sports, Title IX is often presented as a zero-sum game — if women gain, men lose. That is a very simplistic way of thinking about it because it is up to athletic departments to figure out what resources they have and how to distribute them. It doesn’t have to be simply, “We’re going to kill a men’s team because we have to add a women’s team.” There are ways to do this, yet very often Title IX gets blamed for cuts in men’s programs. The unfortunate thing is that collegiate sports have become basically semiprofessional in the big marquee sports — basketball and football — and they get a huge amount of resources. What are often referred to as men’s minor sports — things like tennis or wrestling or swimming — are competing along with all of the women’s teams for a tiny piece of the athletic pie.

Gazette: College campuses are clearly different places today compared to the 1960s. How much of that change is due to the impact of Title IX?

Gersen: Title IX had an enormous impact on educational access for women. Its meaning has also evolved over the decades in reflecting live debates about what constitutes sex discrimination and sex equality. So the influence of Title IX on campus and of campus debates on the meaning of Title IX has been a two-way street.

Graphic by Judy Blomquist/Harvard Staff

Gazette: Where do you think its greatest impact has been?

Gersen: Title IX’s most palpable impact has been the one that was most obviously envisioned by Congress: the prohibition of formal inequality in the treatment of males and females by schools that partake of federal funding. It’s important not to take that impact for granted. But in our era, the deepest impact of Title IX has been on schools’ bureaucratic and administrative structures and practices in order to implement the federal government’s expectations, based on its interpretations of Title IX, for dealing with campus allegations of sex discrimination, sexual harassment, and sexual assault.

Ware: It is clear that Title IX has had a transformative impact on many aspects of women’s experience in higher education, starting with sports but then later engaging with issues of sexual harassment and sexual violence on campus. It really has made a very large difference. It’s also proven handy having a law on the books that you can point to when something is wrong at your university. You can say, “This violates Title IX,” or “I’m going to file a Title IX complaint.” If you compare now and 1972 and look at the state of women’s sports, which were nonexistent, basically, and at the number of women faculty at Harvard or any other institution, the number of women in professional schools — just a whole range of things — it really has been a huge change.

I think there should have been more change. With sports it went from zero to 40 percent, but I’d like it to keep going, and I’d love it if half the faculty at Harvard or any other place were women. But it’s much better than when I was there in graduate school, when just the thought of having a woman faculty member in the History Department seemed like shooting for the moon. I think one of the best characterizations I’ve heard about Title IX is that it’s sort of like the guillotine out in the courtyard: It has an impact just because of its existence that is different from having complaints filed against the school and threatening to withdraw funds. It says, “Sex discrimination is illegal in higher education.” I think a lot of the change has come from that.

Gazette: How about the rights of transgender students?

Gersen: One of the signature Title IX debates of our decade is how the law’s prohibition on sex discrimination in education applies to transgender students. Last year, the Supreme Court interpreted Title VII’s prohibition on sex discrimination in employment to apply to discrimination against transgender individuals because it reasoned that treating a person differently because they are transgender is a form of discrimination on the basis of sex. It is unclear exactly what this means for the currently controversial issue of transgender female athletes competing in girls’ and women’s sports. On this issue, we have a lot of debate ahead on what it means to discriminate on the basis of sex, and what it means to provide the sexes equal educational opportunity.

Gazette: Do you think it has impacted you and your academic career?

Gersen: Of course Title IX has impacted the opportunities afforded me as a student and a professor, and the fact that Title IX was sponsored by Patsy Mink, the first Asian American congresswoman, has been meaningful to me as well. I think the simplicity of the promise of equal opportunity in Title IX combined with the complexity of its meaning, evolution, and implementation — and the work that is needed to explicate and apply it in a changing society — have deeply impacted my academic career.

Ware: I graduated from college in 1972, and I’m a good athlete. I run. I play tennis. I would have loved to play on a team, but I never got a chance to. In terms of my own professional advancement as a scholar, I have been in academia for my whole career, and I have seen the changes in the acceptance of women faculty, their numbers and pay equity and things like that. But I’m also well aware that you have to pay attention because if you start comparing salaries in a history department, you realize that the men are still getting paid more than the women, sometimes with rather large discrepancies. You just have to keep at it. Maybe some time we won’t still need to, but it doesn’t seem like it’s going to happen in my lifetime. Change happens slowly.

Gazette: What do you see ahead for the law’s continuing implementation?

Gersen: It is difficult for me to imagine a time when the meaning of Title IX will be completely settled.

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Analyzing the Department of Education’s final Title IX rules on sexual misconduct

Subscribe to the brown center on education policy newsletter, r. shep melnick r. shep melnick tip o’neill professor of american politics - boston college, author - "the transformation of title ix: regulating gender equality in education".

June 11, 2020

• 33 min read

On May 6, 2020, the Department of Education released its long-awaited Title IX rules on sexual harassment. This was the culmination of a process that began nearly three years ago. In 2017, the department withdrew the Obama administration’s guidance documents on the subject; a year later it issued a lengthy notice of proposed rulemaking under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA). This was the first full rulemaking on a major Title IX issue since 1975, and the only one ever dedicated to sexual harassment. The department received over 124,000 comments on its proposal and held scores of meetings with interested parties. Its detailed explanation of the final rule ran to more than 2,000 pages.

The regulations were immediately condemned by a number of women’s advocacy groups and by leading Democrats, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and former Vice President Joe Biden. The rules have already been challenged in court, and Democrats in Congress will probably try to use the Congressional Review Act to overturn them. But neither effort is likely to prevent the rules from going into effect as scheduled in August. Even if the Republican Senate were to join the Democratic House in passing a joint resolution to void the rules, that resolution would inevitably be vetoed by President Trump. Federal judges are unlikely to find the regulations “arbitrary and capricious.” Not only was the Education Department’s rulemaking process extraordinarily extensive and its response to comments meticulous, but its final rules return to the legal framework established by the Supreme Court over two decades ago. If Joe Biden is elected president in November, his administration will undoubtedly seek to change many parts of these regulations. But to do so, it would need to go through the same time-consuming process the department just completed. In the meantime, educational institutions that receive federal funds—which means all public elementary and secondary schools, and virtually all colleges and universities—will be expected to follow the new rules.

The context

Why is federal policy on so controversial an issue being established through administrative rulemaking? The short answer is that the law on which the federal government’s authority is based—Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972—says nothing about sexual harassment. Indeed, the term did not come into common use until several years after Congress passed that little-noted amendment to an omnibus education bill. Title IX simply states: “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.” In the 1980s, federal courts held that sexual harassment constitutes a form of sex discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, and they began to establish liability rules for employers. In the 1990s, courts applied similar rules to schools under Title IX. The Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) subsequently issued a series of guidance documents building upon these judicial precedents.

In 1998 and 1999, the Supreme Court handed down two key Title IX decisions that established the context for the current debate: Gebser v. Lago Vista Independent School District and Davis v. Monroe County Board of Education . The justices held that any school receiving federal money can be held liable for sexual harassment of students by their teachers or peers only if it (1) had “actual knowledge” of the misconduct and (2) responded with “deliberate indifference.” Moreover, the misconduct in question must be “so severe, persistent, and objectively offensive that it effectively bars the victim’s access to educational opportunity.” The Supreme Court’s interpretation of Title IX was narrower than judicial interpretations of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act and previous administrative interpretations of Title IX. Many worried that these decisions strengthened schools’ incentives to “stick their head in the sand”: They could avoid responsibility for addressing sexual misconduct by making it hard for students to report it. OCR agreed: In January 2001, it rejected the Supreme Court’s framework. The court’s interpretation, it maintained, applied only to lawsuits for money damages, not to the conditions attached to federal funding. It imposed more demanding requirements on educational institutions, but for over a decade it made little effort to enforce its mandate.

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In 2011, the Obama administration launched a concerted attack on the problem of sexual assault on college campuses. OCR issued a lengthy “dear colleague letter” (DCL) spelling out the many measures schools must institute to “end any harassment, eliminate a hostile environment if it has been created, and prevent harassment from occurring again.” OCR followed up with more detailed guidance in 2014, hundreds of investigations of prominent colleges, and scores of legally binding resolution agreements. Underlying this effort was the contention that “one in five college women is sexually assaulted in college” as a consequence of campus culture. Assistant Secretary of Education for Civil Rights Russlynn Ali explained that OCR’s “new paradigm” for sexual harassment regulation was designed to “change the culture on the college campuses, and that is hugely important if we are to cure the epidemic of sexual violence.” As I explained in a previous Brookings brief and at greater length in my book, “ The Transformation of Title IX ,” this “new paradigm” replaced the courts’ focus on identifying and punishing the perpetrators of on-campus sexual misconduct with a much broader effort to change social attitudes and to mitigate the effects of sexual assault wherever it occurs.

The most controversial elements of OCR’s policy required schools to use the lenient “preponderance of the evidence” standard (“50% plus a feather”) in disciplinary hearings and discouraged live hearings and cross-examination. Both OCR and the White House pressured schools to employ a “single investigator” model that gives one person appointed by the school’s Title IX coordinator authority not just to investigate alleged misconduct, but to determine guilt and innocence. OCR’s expansive definition of sexual harassment included “verbal conduct” (i.e., speech) such as “making sexual comments, jokes or gestures,” “spreading sexual rumors,” and “creating e-mails or Web sites of a sexual nature.” OCR told schools that it expected them to “encourage students to report sexual harassment early, before such conduct becomes severe or pervasive, so that it can take steps to prevent the harassment from creating a hostile environment.” Its guidelines devoted many pages to the remedies schools must offer to “the broader student population” and to prevention programs—which must be “sustained (not one-shot educational programs), comprehensive, and address the root individual, relational and societal causes of sexual assault.” Schools that failed to institute all these programs and policies voluntarily were subjected to lengthy, costly, and well-publicized investigations.

This regulatory effort was praised by sexual-assault survivor groups that had formed on college campuses during the preceding decade, and by many congressional Democrats. At the same time, it came under attacked from civil libertarians (including a past president of the American Civil Liberties Union), law professors (including four prominent female legal scholars at Harvard), and the American Bar Association for endangering the due process and free speech rights of students and faculty. The American Association of University Professors called on OCR to narrow its definition of sexual harassment in order “to adequately protect academic freedom.”

“That the Trump administration would withdraw the Obama administration’s Title IX guidance and revise its investigation strategy was a foregone conclusion. Less clear was what would replace these policies.”

The 2016 Republican platform devoted an entire section to Title IX, charging that the Obama administration’s “distortion of Title IX to micromanage the way colleges and universities deal with allegations of abuse contravenes our country’s legal traditions and must be halted.” That the Trump administration would withdraw the Obama administration’s Title IX guidance and revise its investigation strategy was a foregone conclusion. Less clear was what would replace these policies.

The general outline of the new approach was laid out in the November 2018 proposal. Its central feature was a return to the framework established by the Supreme Court in 1998-99. No longer would schools have broad responsibility “to take effective action to prevent, eliminate, and remedy sexual harassment” by “changing the culture.” Now the focus was on schools’ responsibility to address particular cases of serious sexual misconduct. At the same time, though, the new rules have gone far beyond the Supreme Court in establishing what constitutes harassment, what schools must do to identify and adjudicate cases of misconduct, and the remedies they must provide to victims of such misconduct. As a result, the new administrative regulations are less radical—and more demanding—than the Education Department’s critics often suggest.

So far, almost all the commentary has focused on the live hearing/cross-examination question. Editorials in the Los Angeles Times and Wall Street Journal have praised the department for “curbing some of the excesses of the previous system” and making “university kangaroo courts a thing of the past.” In contrast, Catherine Lhamon—the former assistant secretary of education for civil rights who played a key role in establishing the Obama administration’s policies—claimed that the new rules are “taking us back to the bad old days, when it was permissible to rape and sexually harass students with impunity.” In a short tweet , former secretaries of Education Arne Duncan and John King argued that the regulations “unnecessarily burden victims and deepen trauma for students by increasing the chance of victims being exposed to their accused assailants.” The presidents of the National Women’s Law Center and the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights—Fatima Goss Graves and Vanita Gupta, respectively— each offered harsh evaluations. Other than two useful articles in The Chronicle of Higher Education, so far little attention has been paid to the range of issues addressed in the final regulations.

This policy brief attempts to fill this gap by examining seven features of the regulations to which schools at all levels—from kindergarten to graduate—must pay attention. The first two sections look at the procedures that colleges and universities must put in place for investigating and adjudicating misconduct claims. The next summarizes the different rules established for K-12 schools. The fourth section explains how the new regulations narrowed the definition of sexual harassment, and the fifth how they define the activities covered by Title IX. The sixth reviews the procedures for reporting misconduct and filing formal complaints. The final section examines schools’ responsibilities for remedying and preventing sexual harassment.

School officials should keep in mind that, for the most part, the regulations only set forth the minimum steps they must take to comply with Title IX. For example, although colleges are not required to make professors and coaches “mandatory reporters,” nothing in the regulations prohibits them from placing this responsibility on any employee. The Education Department has also determined that Title IX does not give it authority to cover sexual misconduct in study abroad programs. But schools can still cover these programs in their own student conduct codes, and they can always provide additional services to those injured by such misconduct. Previous OCR guidelines included an ambiguous and often confusing mix of legally binding requirements and “best practices” suggestions. Since the new rules have gone through the rigorous APA rulemaking process, they are unambiguously legally binding. They establish what educational institutions must do and cannot do—not what might be a good idea.

Live hearings and cross-examination

The most controversial element of the new regulations is the requirement that postsecondary institutions (but not elementary and secondary schools) hold live disciplinary hearings in sexual misconduct cases and allow cross-examination of witnesses. The Obama-era guidelines did not prohibit live hearings and cross-examination; they “discouraged” but did not prohibit the accused from personally cross-examining their accuser. (For the sake of clarity, I will henceforth adopt the language of the new regulations by referring to the target of the alleged misconduct as the “complainant” and the alleged perpetrator as the “respondent.”) During its negotiations with individual schools, though, OCR strongly opposed live hearings and cross-examination, and encouraged them to adopt the “single investigator” model. About one-third of the schools targeted by OCR adopted that approach.

“The most controversial element of the new regulations is the requirement that postsecondary institutions (but not elementary and secondary schools) hold live disciplinary hearings in sexual misconduct cases and allow cross-examination of witnesses.”

The Education Department’s new rules explicitly prohibit postsecondary schools from employing the “single investigator” model: “Fundamental fairness,” it claims, requires that “no decision-maker be the same person who serves as the Title IX Coordinator or the investigator.” (1247) Those “decision-makers” must not only review the record created by investigators, but also hear live testimony from the witnesses upon whom investigators have relied. Decision-makers cannot rely upon the statement of any witness who is unwilling to submit to cross-examination by the advisors appointed to represent the complainant and the respondent. These advisors can be but need not be lawyers.

Throughout the rulemaking process, the department has insisted that cross-examination is indispensable for determining the credibility of witnesses, especially in circumstances when other forms of evidence are unavailable. This position has received support from a number of state and federal courts, which have ruled that some form of cross-examination is required to protect the due process rights of students in both public and private institutions.

The department’s critics have argued that cross-examination threatens to “re-traumatize” complainants, discourage the reporting of misconduct, make the process unnecessarily adversarial, and give an unfair advantage to those who can hire lawyers. To mitigate these significant dangers, the proposal required cross-examination to be conducted by the parties’ advisors, never by the parties themselves. It also allowed either party to request that they remain in separate rooms, with cross-examination conducted remotely. The final version added several other precautions. Most importantly, those conducting the hearing must screen each cross-examination question to ensure that it is both relevant and civilly presented. Almost all questions about either party’s prior sexual behavior are off-limits. Those who conduct the hearing must follow their state’s rape shield laws and respect the confidentiality of the parties’ health and education records. The hearings will be recorded but not open to the public.

These modifications have not mollified many critics, who will not only challenge the cross-examination requirement in court, but also try to eliminate it through legislation and subsequent administrative action. Since several courts (most notably the Sixth Circuit ) have held that cross-examination is constitutionally required, it is unlikely that courts reviewing the regulations will hold that the Department of Education does not have statutory authority under Title IX to do the same. Whether or not this requirement has the deleterious effects predicted by critics no doubt will generate extensive analysis and heated debate for many years.

Other due process requirements

The new rules also include several additional due process requirements that conflict with some of the practices adopted by colleges in response to the Obama-era mandates. Students and employees accused of misconduct must be presumed innocent until proven guilty. That means not only that schools bear the burden of proof in disciplinary hearings, but also that pre-hearing accommodations cannot place a heavier burden on the respondent than on the complainant. (The Obama administration’s guidelines had allowed schools to place more interim restrictions on the former than the latter.) To ensure impartiality, decision-makers cannot be employees of the Title IX coordinator. The materials used to train investigators and decision-makers must be available on the school’s website. (Schools’ failure to disclose such training material has generated substantial criticism over the last several years.)

The Obama-era guidelines required all schools to use the “preponderance of the evidence” standard of proof rather than the somewhat more demanding “clear and convincing evidence” standard previously used by some schools. The new rules offer schools the choice of either standard—but with a crucial caveat: They must apply the same standard to all sexual harassment cases, including those against faculty members and staff. At many schools, collective bargaining agreements, tenure rules, and academic freedom codes require use of the “clear and convincing evidence” standard in disciplinary proceedings against employees. Since the standard of proof “should not vary based on the status of the respondent (i.e. student or employee),” many schools will be required to apply the “clear and convincing” standard to everyone.

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The new regulations also require that all school rules governing sexual harassment proceedings and all the training provided by the Title IX coordinate be “gender neutral,” free of any “sex bias” or “sex stereotyping.” They prohibit investigators or decision-makers from “drawing conclusions about credibility based on a party’s status” since this would “inevitably prejudge the facts at issue.” (809) While this might seem obvious, it conflicts with the frequently repeated view that investigators and decision-makers should “believe the victim” and that “trauma-informed” training requires them to disregard inconsistencies in complainants’ stories. According to the new rules, from the outset complainants should not be considered any more credible than respondents. Any investigator or decision-maker who questions this equivalence cannot be considered “impartial.” Even those sections of the rules that might seem like mere platitudes could become the source of considerable controversy.

The procedural mandates included in the final regulations are more detailed than those in the Obama administration’s 2011 and 2014 guidelines. At the beginning of an investigation, a school must provide both parties with a written explanation of the allegations with “sufficient details known at the time and with sufficient time to prepare a response before any initial interview.” If the nature of the allegations changes over the course of the investigation, that, too, must be communicated in writing to both parties. Both parties have a right to see all the evidence collected by the investigator. At least 10 days before the hearing, both parties must receive a written report that “fairly summarizes the relevant evidence.” At the conclusion of the hearing, the “decision-makers” must provide “a statement of, and rationale for, the result as to each allegation.” Either party can appeal that decision on the basis of (1) procedural irregularity, (2) new evidence, or (3) bias on the part of the investigators or decision-makers. The 2018 proposal did not allow the complainant to appeal punishments she or he considers too lenient. The final version deleted this prohibition, allowing schools to decide “whether severity or proportionality of sanctions is an appropriate basis for appeal.” But following the general rule that the complainant and the respondent must be given identical rights, it added that “any such appeal … must be offered equally to both parties.”

Elementary and secondary schools

When the courts and OCR first addressed the sexual harassment issue in the 1990s, their focus was on elementary and secondary education (ESE). All the Supreme Court decisions on the topic involved K-12 schools. The Obama administration’s guidelines, in contrast, were designed primarily for colleges and universities; its investigations were limited to those institutions. Yet federal Title IX rules have always applied to ESE as well. The 2018 proposed regulation suggested that it might be appropriate to write separate rules for the two types of institutions. The final rule did not take this step, but it did make several important distinctions between the requirements appropriate for each.

Most importantly, the grievance procedures established by K-12 schools “may, but need not” include live hearings and cross-examination.” For the most part the regulations “require only that schools provide an equal opportunity to the parties,” leaving schools with the flexibility “to make the grievance process less formal or intimidating for students.” (1683) Live hearings and cross-examination might be appropriate for students approaching age 18, but certainly not for younger ones. Because “the Department agrees that schools themselves know best how to engage with their students,” school officials are “encouraged to use their discretion and expertise within the confines of the final regulations.” (1685) Nonetheless, schools must provide to each party—and their parents—a description of the allegation and a copy of the investigative report on the incident. They also “must afford each party the opportunity to submit written, relevant questions that a party wants asked of any party or witness, provide each party with the answers, and allow for additional, limited follow-up questions from each party.”

The other major difference is that the regulations do not specify who must be deemed a “mandatory reporter” in colleges and universities, but they require all ESE teachers and staff to report allegations of misconduct that they have witnessed or heard about. According to the Education Department, college and graduate students are mature enough to decide for themselves whether to report misconduct to the Title IX office. We cannot expect that of younger children. Moreover, K-12 schools and their employees “stand in a special relationship regarding their students, captured by the legal doctrine that school districts act in loco parentis with respect to authority over, and responsibility for, their students.” (1676) In many instances, sexual misconduct that targets children is a criminal offense, triggering states’ mandatory reporting requirements. The proposal had made only ESE teachers “mandatory reporters.” Persuaded by commenters that one cannot expect children to know which employee is a mandatory reporter, the final rules extended this to other staff members.

The rules applying to ESE became more important when the department announced in February that it will devote more resources to investigating sexual misconduct in these schools. OCR’s investigation of Chicago schools uncovered serious problems, and culminated in a detailed 2019 agreement specifying how the school system must respond to sexual harassment complaints. Other school districts can expect to come under similar scrutiny in coming months and years.

What constitutes “sexual harassment” under Title IX?

What forms of harassment require a response from educational institutions? Occasional name-calling on a school playground? Probably not. Sexual assault in a college dorm? Definitely yes. But there are many types of misconduct that fall between these extremes. While the Supreme Court held that harassment must be “severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive” to trigger Title IX, the Obama OCR pushed schools to address harassment before it “becomes severe or pervasive” in order to prevent the creation of “a hostile environment.”

“[T]he department has attempted to steer a middle path between the Supreme Court’s narrow definition of sexual harassment and the Obama administration’s more expansive understanding.”

Protecting freedom of speech is a major theme in the Department of Education’s justification for its regulations. The agency claimed that “evidence that broadly and loosely worded anti-harassment policies have infringed upon constitutionally protected speech and academic freedom is widely available.” (506) To address this problem, the department has attempted to steer a middle path between the Supreme Court’s narrow definition of sexual harassment and the Obama administration’s more expansive understanding. Its definition has three parts. First, any form of quid pro quo harassment—that is, conditioning any educational opportunity or benefit on the granting of sexual favors—constitutes a per se violation of Title IX, regardless of its severity or pervasiveness. Quid pro quo harassment constitutes conduct without any constitutional protection. Second, the final version of the regulations added the proviso that any form of sexual assault, dating violence, domestic violence, or stalking as defined by the Clery Act constitutes sexual harassment. These forms of misconduct are so serious in themselves that no finding of “pervasiveness” is required.

The third element is more controversial. To violate Title IX, all other forms of “unwelcome conduct” must be “so serious, pervasive, and objectively offensive that it effectively denies a person equal access” to an educational program. The Education Department rejected the position that Title IX requires schools to prohibit comments that might seem minor in themselves but contribute to a broader “hostile environment”:

The Department understands that research shows that even “less severe” forms of sexual harassment may cause negative outcomes for those who experience it. The Department believes, however, that severity and pervasiveness are needed elements to ensure that Title IX’s non-discrimination mandate does not punish verbal conduct in a manner that chills and restricts speech and academic freedom, and that recipients are not held responsible for controlling every stray, offensive remark that passes between members of the recipient’s community. (470-71)

Title IX, it argued, “does not represent a ‘zero tolerance’ policy banning sexual harassment as such,” but rather offers “effective protections to individuals against discriminatory practices, within the parameters set forth under the Title IX statute and Supreme Court case law.” Schools remain free to include more restrictive provisions in their student conduct codes—for example, prohibiting microaggressions—but they may not include them in their Title IX rules.

How far do schools’ Title IX responsibilities extend?

Title IX covers all elements of a school’s “educational programs and activities.” OCR’s 2014 guidance required schools to “process all complaints of sexual violence, regardless of where the conduct occurred, to determine whether the conduct … had continuing effects on campus.” Schools were expected to address those “continuing effects” by providing “appropriate remedies for the complainant, and, where appropriate, the broader school population.” That meant that schools must provide remedies even for sexual harassment that they have no power to prevent. Both the 2018 proposal and the 2020 final rule, in contrast, hold schools responsible only for harassment that occurred within their program.

“The 2018 proposal was criticized for defining ‘program or activity’ too narrowly. Most importantly, it seemed to relieve colleges of responsibility for what happens in fraternity houses, the site of many campus sexual assaults.”

The 2018 proposal was criticized for defining “program or activity” too narrowly. Most importantly, it seemed to relieve colleges of responsibility for what happens in fraternity houses, the site of many campus sexual assaults. The Department of Education responded by amending the regulations to specify that the phrase “education program or activity” includes “locations, events, or circumstances over which the recipient exercised substantial control over both the respondent and the context in which the harassment occurs” as well as “any building owned or controlled by a student organization that is officially recognized by a postsecondary institution.” This leaves open the possibility that misconduct that takes place in fraternities not “officially recognized” by colleges will not be covered by Title IX rules. But schools retain the authority to prohibit misconduct in such “unrecognized” frat houses in their student conduct codes.

The Education Department’s rules have also been criticized for failing to cover harassment that takes place in study abroad programs. The agency maintains that its authority is limited by the clear words of Title IX: It applies only to persons “in the United States.” Moreover, the Supreme Court has established a strong presumption against extraterritorial application of federal law. Here again, nothing prevents schools from including study abroad programs in their student conduct codes. Just as schools can punish students for plagiarism, they can punish them for forms of sexual misconduct not covered under Title IX—as long as they respect students’ due process rights. But OCR will not investigate complaints from study abroad programs, and federal courts will probably not hold schools liable under Title IX for misconduct in those programs.

Reporting misconduct and filing complaints

According to the framework established by the Supreme Court and adopted by the Department of Education, a school bears responsibility for redressing sexual harassment only when it has “actual knowledge” of such misconduct. To address the possibility that schools would take a “hear no evil, see no evil” approach to the problem, the new rules require them to establish a clear, well-publicized, and easy-to-use reporting system. As noted above, at the ESE level, all employees are “mandatory reporters,” which means that they must report all instances of misconduct that they have witnessed or heard about to the person responsible for investigating such allegations. At the postsecondary level, the rules do not dictate who must be categorized as “mandatory reporters.” Schools can place this responsibility on teachers, coaches, resident assistants, and others, but need not do so.

The new rules emphasize the importance of respecting the “autonomy” of the targets of sexual harassment by giving them substantial control over when to file an initial report with the Title IX coordinator and whether to take the further step of lodging a formal complaint. Whenever the Title IX coordinator receives a report about possible misconduct—whether from the person subject to the harassment or from anyone else—the coordinator must contact the complainant and immediately offer “supportive measures.” These may include: “counseling, extensions of deadlines or other course-related adjustments, modifications of work or class schedules, campus escort services, mutual restrictions on contact between the parties, changes in work or housing locations, leaves of absence, [and] increased security and monitoring of certain areas of the campus.” These steps “are designed to restore or preserve equal access to the recipient’s education program or activity without unreasonably burdening the other party.” Whether the aggrieved individual takes the further step of filing a formal complaint that triggers a full investigation is up to them. Except in cases involving allegations of quid pro quo harassment, the two parties can agree to engage in an “informal resolution process” in lieu of a formal investigation.

“To address the possibility that schools would take a ‘hear no evil, see no evil’ approach to the problem, the new rules require them to establish a clear, well-publicized, and easy-to-use reporting system.”

Critics have charged that this places too much responsibility on the victims of misconduct to report harassment and lodge formal complaints. Schools, they warn, have subtle ways of discouraging students from taking such action. The Department of Education contends that its approach gives complainants more control over how their case is handled, providing them with immediate “supportive services,” helping them resolve the conflict informally if they so choose, and giving them the option of initiating a process that could impose disciplinary sanctions on the respondent. Nonetheless, the Title IX coordinator retains discretion to initiate a formal investigation over the objection of the complainant—recognizing, of course, the difficulty of pursuing the investigation without the cooperation of the alleged victim.

These reporting rules place few new demands on schools that had previously instituted procedures to comply with OCR’s 2011 and 2014 guidelines. College and universities retain control over who within their institution is considered a mandatory reporter, and when Title IX coordinators can initiate investigations. What they can no longer do, though, is issue restrictions that fall more heavily on the respondent than on the complainant before there has been a formal finding of guilt. That practice, the department now contends, conflicts with the presumption of innocence that must underlie all disciplinary proceedings. Schools can take emergency measures to remove a student or employee from campus only when there is an immediate threat to the physical health and safety to those on campus.

Remedies and prevention

One of the biggest differences between the Obama-era Title IX guidance and the 2020 regulations is what the latter do not say. The 2011 and 2014 guidance documents contained long lists of services that schools must provide to those determined to have been the victims of misconduct. That included free “comprehensive, holistic victim services, including medical, counseling, and academic support services such as tutoring,” “arranging for the complainant to re-take a course or withdraw from a class without penalty,” and “providing an escort to ensure that the complainants can move safely between classes and activities.” OCR’s 2014 guidance document devoted two single-spaced pages to a list of remedies “for the broader student population.” Other sections spelled out the “preventive measures” that schools were expected to institute. These include extensive training for employees and students, and regular “climate checks” to determine if these preventative measures have been effective. OCR offered extensive advice on “best practices” for such training and evaluation.

“One of the biggest differences between the Obama-era Title IX guidance and the 2020 regulations is what the latter do not say. “

Beyond the list of possible pre-hearing “supportive services” cited above, the new rules say almost nothing about the remedies that schools must offer either to aggrieved individuals or to the student body as a whole. Nor do they address prevention. In particular, the Education Department “decline[d] to list prevention and community educational programming as a possible option schools can utilize as a remedy after the conclusion of a grievance process, or to add a requirement of educational outreach and prevention programming elsewhere within the final regulations.” It left these matters to each educational institution, explaining that “the final regulations are focused on governing a recipient’s response to sexual harassment incidents, leaving additional education and prevention efforts within a recipient’s discretion.” (600)

The department responded obliquely to the charge that the Obama-era guidelines had led colleges to establish extensive and intrusive “sex bureaucracies.” According to a well-known article by Harvard Law School professors Jacob Gersen and Jeannie Suk Gersen, the “college sex bureaucrats” empowered by OCR’s guidelines “are not simply training students on the rules of rape, sexual assault, and sexual harassment,” but are “instructing on, advising on, counseling on, defining, monitoring, investigating, and adjudicating questions of sexual desire.” Such training “is rapidly morphing into the sex instruction reminiscent of guidance provided by sex therapists like Dr. Ruth.” As to the propriety of such activity, the department remained agnostic: It “does not intend, through these final regulations, to encourage or discourage recipients from governing the sex and dating lives of students, or to opine on whether or not recipients have become the ‘sex police;’ whether such a trend is positive or negative is outside the purview of these final regulations.” What schools can no longer do, though, is claim that such training is mandated by the federal government.

What’s next?

A week after the Department of Education released the new regulation, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Know Your IX, and other advocacy groups filed suit in federal district court in Maryland seeking to overturn them. Soon thereafter, 18 state attorneys general filed a brief in another federal court attacking virtually every aspect of the department’s regulation and its process. Under the APA, reviewing courts can strike down agency rules only if they are “arbitrary and capricious,” “in excess of statutory authority,” or promulgated in a procedurally deficient manner. Although this is a demanding standard, courts have placed on agencies the responsibility to respond to all “significant” comments, explaining why it made some changes in the proposal and refused to make others. Much of the agency’s 2,000-page explanation is designed to protect the new rules from legal challenge. (For example, the Education Department offered a seven-page response to the preposterous claim that Betsy DeVos is not really the secretary of education because her nomination was confirmed only when President of the Senate Mike Pence broke the tie.) Since the ACLU’s central argument is that the department erred in adopting the Supreme Court’s “actual knowledge”/“deliberate indifference” framework, this is unlikely to be a winning argument—especially if the case makes it all the way to the Supreme Court.

Oddly, the plaintiffs in this case did not challenge the most controversial part of the regulations, its cross-examination/live hearing mandate. It is possible, though, that additional challenges raising stronger arguments will be filed in other federal district courts. The APA does not specify which court should review agency regulations, opening the door to forum-shopping by challengers.

“Much of the agency’s 2,000-page explanation is designed to protect the new rules from legal challenge.”

If Democrats win the presidency, the House, and the Senate in November, it is possible (but not likely) that they could use the Congressional Review Act to overturn the regulations. The CRA applies to rules issued within the past 60 “legislative days.” If COVID-19 sharply limits the number of days Congress remains in session during 2020, the new Democratic majorities might have a shot . A more plausible scenario is that they would try to pass legislation or an appropriations rider preventing their enforcement. During this session of Congress, four Democrats introduced a bill to prevent the Education Department from implementing the regulations, and the leading Democrat on the Senate education committee, Patty Murray (Wash.), indicated that she might try to add an amendment to the Higher Education Act that would return to the policies of the Obama administration. Whether Democrats will have enough votes or enough interest to pursue this option is anybody’s guess. More likely is that a Biden administration would initiate another long rulemaking process, one that would be followed by yet another round of judicial review.

The most immediate question is how colleges and universities will respond to the new rules. Despite the fact that many schools initially opposed the Obama-era policies, few are eager to go through another round of revision. They will inevitably find themselves caught between the Department of Education on the one hand and student activists on the other. The president of the American Council on Education, the umbrella organization representing college presidents, accused the department of exercising “appallingly poor judgement” when it issued its rule in a period of “high stress, heroic efforts and extraordinary adaptation” to COVID-19. But university lawyers and Title IX offices have had ample time to prepare for this moment: Many state and federal courts have already required cross-examination in sexual harassment cases; nearly a year and a half ago, the Department of Education left little doubt that it would narrow the definition of sexual harassment and require live hearings and cross-examination. Although many colleges and universities will need to make substantial changes in their grievance procedures, most of the other practices they established in response to the Obama administration’s guidelines and investigations can remain in place. Indeed, on most matters, schools have indicated their intent to stand pat.

Given the frequency with which the Trump administration has acted precipitously, erratically, and without appropriate respect for legality or expertise, the Department of Education deserves credit for going through a transparent, time-consuming, and rigorous rulemaking process and respecting the Supreme Court’s interpretation of Title IX. This process not only generated more public participation than any other rulemaking in Title IX history, it also forced the Department of Education to address a number of problems with its 2018 proposal. It revised that proposal in ways both large and small. Just as importantly, its 2,000-page explanation of the regulations clarified a multitude of issues that schools will inevitably confront in coming months. For example, those pages include lengthy discussions of how Title IX rules mesh with the requirements placed upon schools by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act, and state criminal statutes and rape shield laws. No such public participation, deliberation, and explanation was available when the department tried to rule through dear colleague letters.

Thanks to Professor Evan Gerstmann of Loyola Marymount University for his helpful feedback and review of this report.

The Brookings Institution is a nonprofit organization devoted to independent research and policy solutions. Its mission is to conduct high-quality, independent research and, based on that research, to provide innovative, practical recommendations for policymakers and the public. The conclusions and recommendations of any Brookings publication are solely those of its author(s), and do not reflect the views of the Institution, its management, or its other scholars.

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Educ 300: Education Reform, Past and Present

an undergraduate course with Professor Jack Dougherty at Trinity College, Hartford CT

Title IX: Shift in Focus from Education to Athletics

In 1972 Title IX was passed, which is a portion of the Education Amendments of 1972 stating “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance…” (OASAM).  Although this portion of the Education Amendments was not specifically aimed at fixing discrimination in athletics, Title IX became most known for and had one of the greatest effects on ending sexist inequity in sports.  In fact, the words “athletics” or “sports” were not even mentioned in this section of the amendment, which beckons the questions, when Title IX was originally debated among policymakers, how much was the focus on academics versus athletics? To what extent has this balance shifted over time, and what were its consequences?

Title IX originally came to passage in order to specifically battle gender inequity and discrimination in education. Those who advocated the enactment of Title IX spotlighted sex discrimination issues in education and the workplace such as equal pay, sex bias in school texts, and tenure track opportunities.  However, women’s athletics quickly became one of the most hotly debated topics of the 1970s and 80s shortly after the passing of Title IX. Currently, Title IX is practically synonymous with women’s athletics.  Over time, the focus of Title IX shifted from gender inequity in education to gender inequity in sport, launching a revolution in women’s athletics.

Although Title IX is widely known as a catalyst for advancements in women’s sports, the focus on athletics was unintended.  Initially, its supporters focused on the demand for gender equality in education and the workplace, with no real thought put into the question of athletics.  The impetus behind Title IX was the prevalent discrimination women faced in all aspects of the educational experience, including students, administrators, and professors.  The law was purposely designed to specifically cover the banning of sex discrimination within educational institutions because previous laws like Title VII and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 did not apply to education but instead focused solely on discrimination in employment (Ware, 3). These issues were discussed without mention of athletics during a 1970 hearing in the House of Representatives before the Special Subcommittee on Education on discrimination against women:

prohibit[ing] discrimination against women in federally assisted programs and in employment in education; to extend the equal pay act so as to prohibit discrimination in administrative, professional and executive employment; and to extend the jurisdiction of the U.S. Commission of civil rights to include sex. (Congress)

During these hearings and debates about the law, athletics had barely been mentioned, and Representative Edith Green of Oregon predicted in 1971 that Title IX would “probably be the most revolutionary thing in higher education in the 1970s” (Ware, 4).  Another female Representative, Patsy Mink of Hawaii, stated in hindsight, “When it was proposed, we had no idea that its most visible impact would be in athletics.  I had been paying attention to the academic issue.  I had been excluded from medical school because I was female” (Ware, 4). No one involved in the legislation and passing of Title IX could have foreseen the enormous splash it would make in the future of women’s sports.  However, almost immediately after the passing of Title IX in 1972, the switch in focus on athletics occurred for several reasons.

The idea of gender equity in athletics was originally not considered during debates leading up to the passing of Title IX because athletic programs themselves did not receive federal funding, so this issue was not seen as a likely target for enforcement.  However, since the law applied to the entirety of an institution receiving federal funds, not just a specific program, athletics fell under its jurisdiction and therefore needed to be addressed (Ware, 4).  College athletic administrators, coaches, and directors began to realize the potential enormity this legislation could have on athletics, and soon enough many ordinary Americans also began questioning the obvious gender inequity in the field of sports. The social context of the time was also crucial to the shift in thinking about women’s participation in athletics.   The Women’s Liberation Movement was at its peak, and female athletes were becoming increasingly visible in the public sphere.  Billie Jean King, a tennis icon who famously beat Bobby Riggs in a battle of the sexes tennis match, testified in congressional hearings in 1973 and became the first female athlete to ever win $100,000 in one year (Ross Edwards).  In the late 1960s, a female ran the Boston Marathon for the first time. These public acts helped inspire the argument for gender equality in athletics.

The shift from gender equity in education to athletics was also spurred by the visibility of sex discrimination in sports.  The widespread feminism of the 1960s had a great impact on equalizing athletics because for the first time, it opened the nation’s eyes to the disparities between men’s and women’s opportunities.  The sex segregation in athletics was much easier to see after the nation’s consciousness was raised by modern feminism (Ware, 2). Margot Polivy, an attorney for the American Intercollegiate Athletic Association for Women (AIAW), argued that inequality was easier to explain and understand through sport than through everyday sex role stereotyping and discrimination (Ross Edwards).  Some modes of discrimination are “subtle, almost invisible- not that in athletics” (Ware, 2).  Generally speaking, the policymakers and officials in D.C. were not the original ones pushing for more attention on women’s athletics, it was a movement from the bottom up where women’s groups and common Americans were fighting from the athletic standpoint.  For example, there was a series of court cases brought by fathers of athletically gifted daughters in the early 1970s (Ross Edwards).  However, not all men were as inclined to extend equality to women in sports as these eager fathers.

Ironically, the opponents of Title IX, mostly men, actually drew positive attention to the fight for equity in athletics through their lobbying against it.  The supporters of Title IX targeted athletics as a direct result of all the attention opponents brought to the issue.  For instance, men’s opposition caused women in AIAW to take a strong position in favor of the regulations regarding athletics sooner than they otherwise might have (Ross Edwards).  Many female athletic administrators, some of whom were originally ambivalent towards the law, began to sense its power when they saw how angry it made men (Ware, 13). The NCAA was one of the greatest original opponents of the law, and they took a strong stance against holding collegiate championships for women.  However, after they saw all the attention and progress women’s athletics had made in such a short period of time, NCAA officials decided to accept the idea of women’s sports, not out of an honest desire for equity, but because they sought profit.

The booming focus on gender equity in athletics had great success in the 1970s.  As journalist Candace Lyle Hogan observed at the time, “Fueled by an almost chemical interaction of a federal anti-sex discrimination law, the women’s liberation movement, and what is called the temper of the times, women’s sports took off like a rocket in 1972” (Ware, 7).  The number of women’s teams at both the high school and college levels dramatically raised, reaching a 66 percent increase in women’s college teams by 1999 (Simon, 4).  From 1971 to 2002, there was an 847 percent increase in high school female athletes, from 294,015 participants to a whopping 2.7 million participants (Simon, 4).  The period from 1972 to 1981 witnessed the greatest growth in women’s participation and the amount of money spent on female athletic programs, but this is also relative to the extremely poor state women’s athletics was in before.  Any amount of progress feels like leaps and bounds when starting from practically nothing.  This growth, however, did not continue throughout the 1980s, and many aspects of women’s athletics saw substantial setbacks during this time period.

The 1980s is considered a stalemate in the advancement of women’s athletics for several reasons.  By 1981-1982, the AIAW, which prided itself in focusing on the “student” aspect of student-athletes, had collapsed and the NCAA had taken over women’s collegiate sports.  As author Susan Ware wrote of this turnover, “A significant chance for a different kind of women’s athletics- less commercial, more focused on education and participation, potentially less exploitative- had been lost” (Ware, 12).  Because men were accepting the new changes in athletics, they started to take advantage of the new opportunities in employment.  For instance, because of Title IX, jobs coaching women’s teams became better compensated and therefore more attractive to men, and the gap between men’s and women’s coaching salaries since the 1970s has actually widened (Ware, 15).  Additionally, most institutions merged their previously segregated athletic departments, naturally resulting with men in charge of administrative positions in athletic departments. Women had coached 92 percent of women’s teams in 1973, but by 1984 this had dropped to 53.8 percent and in 2002 it was only 44 percent (Ware, 15).  Title IX inadvertently resulted in reverse effects on employment opportunities in athletics for women during the 1980s, and female student athletes similarly suffered.

Politics had a significant influence in the backsliding of progression in women’s sports in the 80s.  Not only did the Equal Rights Amendment fail in 1982, but also the Republican takeover of presidency of 1981 proved detrimental to the civil rights cause, as Ronald Reagan attempted to scale back big government and limit federal initiatives (Ware, 14).  In specific, one court case in 1984 had the most damaging affect in enforcing Title IX.  The Grove City Supreme Court decision held that only particular college departments that received federal funds directly were subject to Title IX; therefore, if a department did not receive direct federal funding they could dismiss the ideals of Title IX (Simon, 71).  The New York Times called this a pure example of “judicial activism”, and it resulted in schools cutting recently added women’s teams and scholarships, and the Office for Civil Rights cancelled twenty-three investigations (Ware, 14).  This stalemate continued until 1988 when the Civil Rights Restoration Act was passed in Congress over Reagan’s veto, which restored the broad coverage of Title IX (Ware, 15).  This brought the future of women’s athletics back on track, but in the years to come, more consequences ensued.

Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, a significant problem emerged that has yet to fully disappear. Many schools were still following the methods they adopted in the 70s, which dealt with Title IX by linking participation opportunities to the proportions of male and female enrollments. In an attempt to end sex discrimination in education, many schools were admitting significantly more women than men.  In the fall of 1998, women comprised 59 percent of the student body at Providence College (Hogshead-Makar, 198).  This situation was extremely common in schools, and by 2000, 57 percent of all bachelor’s degrees were earned by women (Simon, 4).  Although this was a tremendous success for women, it conflicted the original intentions of Title IX because now the scales were unfairly tilting in the opposite direction.  For example,  to keep up with schools’ enrollment proportion policies, more and more women’s teams were being added to collegiate athletic programs.  Since most schools had tight budgets, many programs cut men’s “minor” sports teams, like gymnastics and wrestling, in order to fund these new women’s teams (Simon, 72).  Many men and women alike viewed this as reverse discrimination and intolerable. One lawyer who studied the effects of Title IX called this elimination of men’s non-revenue sports “the least fair and least educationally sound means of resolving the dilemma of Title IX compliance” (Ware, 17).  This debate over funding between men’s and women’s sports continues in schools across the nation and although the practice of cutting men’s sports has somewhat diminished, it has not fully disappeared.

While athletics has historically been focused on in discussions of Title IX, advancements in gender equity in education have also had a significant impact on the learning experiences of women as well as on the subsequent job opportunities. The debate of women’s athletics has seemed to overshadow the progressions made in educational experiences of women because of the popularity of the topic of athletics and its enormous strides made in such a short time.  While the issues in women’s athletics stole the spotlight over the years following Title IX, the quest for gender equity in education and employment in education was always continuously under way and advancing- it was just more behind-the-scenes. As Nancy Hogshead-Makar, law professor at Florida Coastal School of Law and 1984 Olympic gold-medalist, noted, “Title IX is working every bit as hard in the classroom as it is on the athletic field” (Kilman).  Since its enactment in 1972, Title IX has worked to lawfully end sex discrimination in schools by requiring safe and accessible learning environments for both sexes, guaranteeing pregnant and parenting students equal opportunities, and requiring that course offerings and career counseling not be limited by gender (Kilman).  Students are also protected against sexual harassment by faculty members as well as against gender bias in standardized testing, textbooks, and in the use of technology.

Title IX and the fight for gender equity in education has seen much success, as well as many drawbacks.  Early advances were made between 1970-1975, when about 150 women’s studies programs were established across the country for the first time (Hanson, 85).  In addition to the high rates of bachelor’s degrees earned by women, today women make up 58 percent of graduate students and more than half of all medical and law students are women (Hanson, 83).  By 2004, women composed almost one half of all the teachers in two- and four-year colleges (Hanson, 83).  One of the most powerful examples of changes after Title IX is the amount of women in math and science courses, earning degrees in these subjects in record numbers.  In the mid-eighties, women earned a high of 36 percent of computer science degrees, and in 2005, women earned slightly over half of the doctorates in life sciences (Hanson, 84-85).

However, many aspects of education were negatively affected by the intense focus on sports.  For instance, recruited athletes are given special advantages in admissions despite low SAT scores, and their education is not a priority.  As the Carnegie Commission Report investigating intercollegiate athletics stated, “The defects of American college athletics are two: commercialism, and a negligent attitude toward the educational opportunity for which college exists” (Ware, 26).  This statement reigns true today, where oftentimes the opposite effect that Title IX had intended occurs with students’ ignorance towards education and excessive focus on sports.  In academics, people first blame a female student’s lack of success on her gender, race, or family income. In sports, the female athletes themselves aren’t to blame for the failure of the system to provide them with opportunities- the answer is to change the system.  This answer should also be applied to education.  High school and collegiate athletes are called “student-athletes” for a reason, where “student” takes precedence.  However, nowadays this is often not the case.

Although the focus of Title IX has been predominantly on the discussion of athletics, the fight for gender equity is just as if not more important.  Originally, the discussions of the legislation targeted educational opportunities and working to end sex discrimination in educational employment.  Despite the successes seen in education, especially higher education, for women, the successes seen in women’s athletics has seemed to overpower those advancements over the years when evaluating the effects of Title IX.  Today, women are excelling in every realm of athletics and education as a direct result of Title IX.  Although the focus of debate between education and athletics has shifted over the years, both venues are extremely important in the overall end to sex discrimination in the United States.  Full gender equity in education and athletics has not yet been met, but by measuring the progress seen thus far, equity is surely in the near future.

Works Cited

Congress, House, Committee on Education and Labor, Discrimination Against Women: Hearings before the Special Subcommittee on Education, 91st Cong., 2nd sess., 17 June 1970

Hanson, Katherine, Vivian Guilfoy, and Sarita Pillai. More than Title IX: How Equity in Education Has Shaped the Nation . Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2009.

Hogshead-Makar, Nancy, and Andrew S. Zimbalist. Equal Play: Title IX and Social Change . Philadelphia, PA: Temple UP, 2007.

Kilman, Carrie. “Beyond the Playing Field.” Teaching Tolerance no. 42 (Fall2012 2012): 29-33. Education Full Text (H.W. Wilson), EBSCOhost

Pauline, Gina. “Celebrating 40 Years of Title IX: How Far Have We Really Come?” JOPERD–The Journal of Physical Education, Recreation & Dance 83.8 (2012) Questia .

Ross Edwards, Amanda. “Why Sport? The Development of Sport as a Policy Issue in Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972.” Journal of Policy History 22.3 (2010) Project Muse

Simon, Rita J. Sporting Equality: Title IX Thirty Years Later . New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 2005.

Ware, Susan. Title IX: A Brief History with Documents . Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2007. 

2 thoughts on “Title IX: Shift in Focus from Education to Athletics”

This essay raises a thoughtful question about the shifting balance in emphasis on 1972 Title IX gender equity legislation and its consequences over time. One suggestion for revising the introduction is to move your interesting claim (“the words ‘athletics’ or ‘sports’ were not even mentioned in this section of the amendment”) down to the second paragraph, after the research question, and merge it into your broader thesis on the shift from gender inequity in education to sport.

The body of the essay walks the reader through the historical transition of the impact of Title IX, beginning with its original emphasis on gender discrimination in education and the workplace. Rep. Patsy Mink’s quote about being excluded from medical school is very helpful here, but a richer essay would have provided more context about additional types of gender barriers that Title IX proponents sought to overcome. (A few of these barriers are discussed near the end of the essay, but placing them closer to the beginning would have made it more chronologically coherent.) Furthermore, the body of the essay discusses how “the switch in focus on athletics occurred for several reasons,” such as federal funding of higher education institutions, the women’s liberation movement, the rise of women’s participation in athletics, and increasing visibility of sex segregation in sports. All of these reasons are very strong, but could have been mentioned as part of a richer introductory thesis, as we illustrated how to do in class. The essay’s argument that opponents “actually drew positive attention to the fight” caught my attention, and the present-day consequences of the shift from education to athletics was thoughtful. Very good use of appropriate source materials, particularly Susan Ware’s book and its collection of documents.

My comments above are based on the Ed 300 research web-essay criteria: http://commons.trincoll.edu/edreform/assignments/research-essay-process/

Nice essay and a really interesting look at the shift from the original intentions of Title IX to its current focus on athletics. You did a good job addressing your thesis, and it was a very cohesive and thorough piece.

Structurally, it seemed weird to discuss the academic impacts of Title IX at the end of the essay after you went through the whole timeline of the athletic impacts. I would move that to the beginning as background information for the outcome of the intended goal of the legislation.

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Title Ix Of The Education Amendments Of 1972

10 Facts Everyone Should Know About Title IX

• August 23, 2017
• Laura Palumbo

As you or your children prepare to head back to school, it’s important to understand your rights under Title IX . You may have heard a lot about Title IX lately, and you might have some questions about what it is and what it does. We’ve rounded up some information on the basics of Title IX.

What Is Title IX?

1. Title IX is a federal civil rights law that says no institution of higher education can discriminate against anybody on the basis of their sex and gender. Initially drafted to ensure equal opportunities for women in sports, today Title IX applies to all forms of sexual harassment and assault, domestic violence, dating violence, and stalking.

2. Title IX is important because the law requires universities to respond promptly and effectively to address any report of sexual harassment or sexual misconduct and actively take steps to prevent it. Sexual violence on campus is viewed as a hostile environment and thus discrimination, since enduring harassment and victimization prohibits students from equal access to education.

Why is Title IX Important?

3. Title IX doesn’t just apply to undergraduate students — faculty, graduate students, staff, and visitors are also protected under the law. 

The antidiscrimination law also applies to public and private elementary schools, secondary schools, and school districts. An investigation by the Associated Press uncovered 17,000 reports of sexual assaults over a four-year period at schools across the U.S., including reports from victims as young as five.  

4. The law also does not just apply to female students. It also prohibits discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation, which is important for students who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT). Support of LGBT students is critical because a national campus climate survey conducted by the Association of American Universities found LGBT students face an increased risk of sexual assault.

Safety, Support & Reporting

Studies suggest campus sexual assault is not reported in the majority of cases. One survey found as few as five percent of students reported these crimes, and the Justice Department estimates only about 20 percent of those who experience campus sexual assault go to the police. Barriers to reporting sexual assault can be a variety of factors including shame, fear, and not wanting others to know. The reasons range from fear of not being believed and fear of reprisal to not understanding how to report or doubting the process.

5. Title IX obligates universities to disclose all of the options and resources available to students. Students who have experienced sexual misconduct are offered resources such as medical care, emotional support, and confidential counseling whether or not they decide to report to law enforcement. 

6. Additional supports universities must offer students range from academic and housing modifications, free immediate and long-term counseling, protections from disciplinary action if they were drinking underage or using drugs when the incident happened, and the prohibition of retaliation against students who report. Students can even choose to file a report anonymously or report on behalf of a peer they know has experienced sexual harassment or assault. 

7. Title IX recognizes all students have the right to due process. The guidance directs universities to balance being as supportive as possible to the student who has experienced the incident while being fair to the person who is reported and honoring their right to due process. 

8. Schools are required to be fair. Both parties have the right to present their case, both are allowed to have an advisor of their choice present during Title IX proceedings, and both must receive notification of the outcome.

Accountability

9. The Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights enforces Title IX and investigates complaints filed by students when a university’s response falls short. 

10. Schools may not retaliate against someone filing a complaint, and they must make an effort to protect the victim from retaliatory behavior and harassment.

Learn More About Title IX

Still have questions about Title IX? Check out these resources: Sexual Violence at School and on Campus Know Your IX End Rape on Campus

Home — Essay Samples — Law, Crime & Punishment — Laws & Regulations — Title Ix

Essays on Title Ix

Choosing the right title ix essay topic.

When it comes to writing an essay on Title IX, it's important to choose a topic that is not only interesting and engaging, but also relevant and thought-provoking. Title IX is a federal civil rights law that prohibits sex-based discrimination in education, and there are a wide range of issues and controversies surrounding this topic that can make for an impactful essay. In this article, we'll discuss the importance of choosing the right Title IX essay topic, offer some advice on selecting a topic, and provide a detailed list of recommended essay topics, divided into categories.

The Importance of the Topic

Writing an essay on Title IX can be an opportunity to shed light on important issues related to gender equality and discrimination in education. By choosing a compelling and well-researched topic, you can contribute to the ongoing conversation about the impact of Title IX and the challenges that still exist in ensuring equal opportunities for all students. Additionally, writing about Title IX can help raise awareness and educate others about the importance of this law and the work that still needs to be done to fully achieve its goals.

Choosing a Topic

When choosing a Title IX essay topic, it's important to consider your own interests and the specific aspects of Title IX that you find most compelling. You may want to start by brainstorming a list of potential topics and then conducting some preliminary research to see which ones have the most potential for exploration and analysis. It's also important to consider the current state of the conversation around Title IX and to choose a topic that is relevant and timely.

Recommended Essay Topics

Gender discrimination.

• The impact of Title IX on gender discrimination in sports
• The role of Title IX in addressing sexual harassment and assault on college campuses
• The challenges of enforcing Title IX in K-12 education

Equal Opportunities

• The impact of Title IX on access to STEM education for women and girls
• The role of Title IX in addressing disparities in educational funding and resources
• The impact of Title IX on access to leadership and mentorship opportunities for women in education

Transgender Rights

• The evolving interpretation of Title IX in relation to transgender students' rights
• The impact of Title IX on the inclusion of transgender athletes in sports
• The challenges of addressing gender identity discrimination in education under Title IX

Intersectionality

• The intersection of Title IX and race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status
• The impact of Title IX on addressing the needs of students with disabilities
• The challenges of addressing intersectional discrimination under Title IX

Choosing the right Title IX essay topic is crucial for creating an impactful and meaningful essay. By selecting a topic that is relevant, engaging, and thought-provoking, you can contribute to the ongoing conversation about gender equality and discrimination in education. With the recommended essay topics provided in this article, you can explore a wide range of issues related to Title IX and make a valuable contribution to the dialogue surrounding this important law.

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• Preparing for Compliance with the Final 2024 Title IX Regulations – What Colleges and Universities Should Be Doing Now

Colleges and universities across the country are anxiously waiting for the U.S. Department of Education (ED) to publish the Biden Administration’s final revisions to the Title IX regulations.

On February 2, 2024, the ED sent their proposed final revisions to the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA), a statutory part of the Office of Management and Budget. OIRA is reviewing the proposed revisions and meeting with interested parties through at least April 4, 2024.

Given this timeline, we expect that the final Title IX regulations will be published in late spring or early summer, with an implementation date of August 2024. Sound familiar? When ED last revised the Title IX regulations in 2020, they released the final regulations in May 2020 in the midst of the COVID pandemic, with an implementation date of August 14, 2020, just as most colleges were returning to hybrid or remote classes.

While we’re not worrying about the logistics of reopening schools under the cloud of a pandemic this time around, colleges and universities are already under strain due to the FAFSA delays, the gainful employment reporting expected this summer, and ongoing issues related to anti-Semitic and shared ancestry discrimination on campus.

So, what can in-house legal counsel and Title IX teams do now to prepare for compliance with the final Title IX regulations?

DETERMINE YOUR TEAM

Who should be involved in preparing for and ensuring your school’s compliance with the 2024 Title IX regulations? Who needs to be trained on the new policies and processes?

CONSIDER ENGAGING OUTSIDE LEGAL COUNSEL

Does your college have the capacity to delve into hundreds of pages of preamble for the final rule, as well as understand the changes that need to be made to your college’s policy to be consistent with Title IX as well as state law? Can your college revise its policies – and any related policies – over the summer while also developing and putting on trainings for the Title IX Coordinator, Title IX team, and others before the implementation deadline?

Many colleges benefited from using outside legal counsel in 2020 to outsource analyzing the new regulations and revising policies and procedures.

Outside legal counsel, such as Bowditch’s Higher Education Practice, can provide helpful, cost-effective resources to:

• Draft general policy templates based on the new regulations for a college to implement on top of their current policy, or draft college-specific revisions that overhaul the college’s policy for compliance with the new regulations.
• Analyze the new regulations and preamble in response to specific, discrete implementation questions from a college’s in-house legal counsel or Title IX team.
• Provide general Title IX training to a college’s Title IX team on the changes brought by the new regulations.
• Provide college-specific Title IX training for a college’s Title IX team and related staff, such as confidential resources on campus on the college’s own policy and process changes.
• Provide trainings for and communications to a college’s students, faculty, and staff generally about their responsibilities and expectations under a college’s new policy.

Remember, the proposed regulations include much more flexibility and options for colleges than the prescriptive 2020 Title IX regulations. Colleges may want to engage outside legal counsel to discuss discrete issues around implementation options and best practices. Outside legal counsel may be able to offer a breadth of knowledge about compliance efforts across higher education that could benefit your institution.

GET READY (OR SIGN UP) FOR TITLE IX TRAINING

Colleges will be inundated with Title IX webinars and trainings as soon as the final regulations are published. These webinars can be helpful in distilling lengthy commentary on regulations into practical help in understanding the regulations.

Rather than get overwhelmed by the number of webinars, home in on the ones that make the most sense for your college.

• If your team is revising your Title IX policies and trainings by themselves, attend webinars put on by industry groups and select experts in the field.
• If your team is relying on outside legal counsel to revise your Title IX policies and/or conduct trainings, attend webinars put on by your outside legal counsel and OCR at a minimum.

Remember, any employees who work in the Title IX space will need to be re-trained based on the new regulations and how your college implements those regulations in its policies. Schedule those trainings now! We all know how calendars can get busy early in the academic year.

CONTINUE YOUR TITLE IX WORK CURRENTLY UNDERWAY

Title IX case work will continue and likely ramp up as we approach the end of the academic year. When the new Title IX regulations are released, colleges will need to work on their ongoing cases while also juggling how to comply moving forward. Make sure that your Title IX team and others have the support they need to do this.

Keep all prior Title IX policies and procedures on file and readily accessible to help you in dealing with cases that may continue to arise from past incidents.

TAKE A BREATH

For those of us who have been practicing in the Title IX space for a decade or more, the whiplash around changing sub-regulatory guidance and the implementation of new regulations (again) can be exhausting. But dare we say that we’re used to it now? Having gone through a short implementation period just four years ago, remember that while the work is hard and exhausting, it does get better once your revised policy is in place.

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DISCLAIMER: Because of the generality of this update, the information provided herein may not be applicable in all situations and should not be acted upon without specific legal advice based on particular situations.

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