In the spring of 1972, Congress passed Title IX of the education amendments. It was signed into law by President Richard Nixon on June 23 of that same year. The amendment reads: “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.”
What does that mean? That any school that receives federal money must provide fair and equal treatment of all students, no matter their sex, in all areas of education. Since its creation in 1980, the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights (OCR) has had oversight of Title IX.
Female athletes
One of the first and most effective uses of Title IX was to correct the imbalance between male and female student-athletes. Before Title IX passed, in 1971, only 1% of college athletic budgets went to women’s sports programs, and male high school athletes outnumbered their female counterparts at a rate of 12.5 to 1. Only one in 27 girls played sports.
Today, two in five girls play sports, according to the Women’s Sports Foundation. There has been a 545% increase in the percentage of women play college sports and a 990% increase in the percentage of women playing high school sports since the legislation was passed.
The benefits of this increased participation on women are clear. Multiple studies show that girls who play sports have higher levels of confidence and self-esteem and lower levels of depression, have a more positive body image, and are more likely to get better grades in school and graduate than girls who do not play sports.
Pushback and wins over the years
Since 1972, Title I has received quite a bit of scrutiny in Congress and via lawsuits. Notably, former Sen. Jesse Helms (NC-R) introduced S. 2146, which would have prohibited Title IX protections from athletics at institutions in which sports are not a required part of the curriculum. He reintroduced the bill in 1977 as S. 535; neither bill was passed.
In 1976, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) filed a lawsuit challenging the legality of Title IX, stating that sports that produce revenue and do not receive federal funding should not be protected by the law. In 1978, the suit was dismissed.
In 1984, after hearing a case called Grove City v. Bell, the Supreme Court concluded that only programs that receive federal funding could get protections from Title IX. Thankfully, in 1987, the Civil Rights Restoration Act, signed by President Ronald Reagan, restored these protections across educational institutions.
Another significant win for Title IX happened in 1996, when a federal court upheld a lower court’s decision in Cohen v. Brown University that Brown had discriminated against female athletes. (The university had demoted its gymnastics and volleyball teams from university-funded to donor-funded varsity programs.) Per Public Justice, this decision set a precedent when it came to universities’ compliance with Title IX in athletics.
Campus sexual assault
In recent years, Title IX has also been elevated by campus sexual assault activists, who argue that sexual violence and harassment are forms of gender discrimination prohibited by the legislation. 2017 Interim Guidance from the U.S. Department of Education acknowledges the obligations schools have to address campus sexual violence. Title IX also requires schools to have Title IX coordinators, who are tasked with reporting incidents of sex discrimination, harassment, and/or violence and coordinating investigations and disciplinary processes related to these instances, according to Know Your IX.
Under the Clery Act, another federal law that intersects with Title IX, colleges and universities are required to aid student survivors of such treatment by notifying them of counseling resources, their options for reporting, providing accommodations, and notifying them of the final outcome from any disciplinary proceeding.
Unfortunately, even in the past decade, several American universities have been involved in sexual assault-related in lawsuits for violating Title IX. For more information on how Title IX protects the rights of sexual assault survivors, read RAINN’s guidelines here.
Title IX Today
The first Trump administration rolled back Title IX guidance in 2020 by, among other things, requiring schools to hold live hearings in sexual misconduct investigations, during which accused students could cross-examine their accusers. At the time, the Trump White House lauded these new rules as “even-handed justice” and said that its updates “provide due process protections to students facing accusations of sexual misconduct.”
In the final months of his administration, President Joe Biden rescinded the Trump administration’s rules and added new regulations to Title IX, which, among other protections, included:
- Eliminating the requirement for live hearings, during which students could cross-examine their accusers.
- Making clear that Title IX has always and should protect LGBTQ+ students based on gender, sexuality, or sex characteristics (applicable to intersex students).
- Broadening the definition of “sex-based harassment” so that it includes a student’s right to learn and feel safe in school.
- Extending legal jurisdiction to sexual assault events that happen off-campus and internationally.
- Designating all non-confidential employees as mandated reporters who must report harassment to the school’s Title IX coordinator or tell the student how to contact that office.
- Requiring a school to respond to an allegation from a student, even if that student is no longer attending at that institution.
- Expanding the definition of “discrimination” to include pregnancy (including current, past, potential pregnancies and related conditions, as well as abortion).
During the first few weeks of his presidency, Donald Trump reverted to the sexual assault rules from its previous administration.
Most notably, the Trump administration has dismantled protections against trans students. In an executive order titled the “No Men in Women’s Sports Executive Order,” Trump prohibited trans women from participating in female sports. The NCAA is complying with those directions from the White House, barring trans women from participating in sports. As NBC notes, this could apply to fewer than 10 athletes across the country.
Learn more about Title IX at Know Your IX.
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