Title IX history going and coming

This month, October 2023, marks two milestones in Title IX history — one of a Title IX foremother going to her rest and one marking 10 years of today’s youth coming into the next chapter of Title IX advocacy. Margot Polivy, a crucial player in Title IX’s early years, died at the age of 85 on October 7. Along with another Title IX foremother, Margaret Dunkle, Polivy did more that almost anyone else to ensure that Title IX would provide fairer treatment for girls and women in school sports. Above is an excerpt of my video interview with her in […]

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Schools ignore Title IX with impunity

Many schools ignore Title IX with impunity, a stellar investigation by USA Today found. In the final installment of its 2022 series of investigations for Title IX’s 50th anniversary, USA Today reported on its year-long study of letters and agreements between the federal Office for Civil Rights and universities in the NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision. (An aside: USA Today deserves a Pulitzer for this series, imho.) Schools that practice sex discrimination have little to fear from the Office for Civil Rights (OCR), which is charged with enforcing Title IX and other civil rights laws. Too many universities brashly […]

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Bill could fix flaw imposed by Supreme Court on Title IX

A federal bill could repair a flaw imposed by the Supreme Court on Title IX more than 20 years ago that makes it harder to address sexual harassment in education than in employment. Senators Bob Casey (D-PA) and Mazie Hirono (D-HI) introduced the SAFER Act with multiple co-signers and support from the likes of the National Women’s Law Center, Know Your IX, and other women’s advocates. The Students’ Access to Freedom and Educational Rights (SAFER) Act would bring management of sexual harassment under Title IX closer to management under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which covers […]

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Women’s Equality Day includes education

Women’s Equality Day on August 26 includes the struggle for equity in education, which handily illustrates how movements for various aspects of women’s rights are never really separate from each other. On that date in 1920, U.S. women won the right to vote, though racism limited access to voting mainly to white women for the following 44 years until Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Author and activist Betty Friedan surprised her feminist allies in 1970 by calling for a Women’s Strike for Equality, urging women to pour into the streets on August 26. And they did all […]

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37 Words coming to Korea

Good news — The publisher Wisdom House has licensed the rights to publish a translation of 37 Words in Korea! I’m surprised, I’ll admit. I figured that my history of Title IX and the struggle against sex discrimination in U.S. schools would be of interest only in the United States. I was wrong. Korea has a vibrant feminist movement. Not only will the book be coming to Korea, but this week Tel Aviv University in Israel held a conference on women in sports featuring a Zoom panel with me and others discussing Title IX. Apparently, some people in Israel feel […]

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Potential big deal for Title IX lawsuits

A little-noticed legal ruling this week could be a big deal for Title IX lawsuits going forward. If I’m reading this right, colleges and universities could be held accountable not only for cases in which they were deliberately indifferent to reports of sexual harassment and assault after they happened. They could also be held accountable for inadequate management of campus sexual violence before the next attacks occur because their actions (or lack of them) increased the risk for more victims, violating Title IX. What does that look like in real life? The ruling from a three-judge Appeals Court panel gave […]

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Confronting child sex trafficking on campus

Child sex trafficking isn’t the first thing most people think of when they consider sexual harassment and assault in higher education. But it’s more common than you may think. And perpetrators are almost all white, male academics, according to a study by Lori Handrahan, Ph.D. More than half held leadership positions on campus. It’s perhaps significant that the findings come from an independent scholar, meaning she currently holds no faculty position. Here’s her report in the Journal of Human Trafficking with more. You can see a concise summary of her findings that she posted on Medium. And here’s the awesome […]

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Congress mandates surveys on sexual violence

Once again the federal Education Department is stepping in to do something that all colleges should have done but many haven’t — surveys about sexual violence on campus. Hooray for the feds. Under a provision tucked into a 3,000-page Congressional bill to fund the federal government for six months, the Education Department will develop an online survey to measure students’ experiences with sexual harassment and assault, the Chronicle of Higher Education reported. Any college receiving federal funds will be required to conduct the campus-climate survey every two years, and the Education Department will publish aggregate results. The legislation also calls […]

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37 Words for 47 weeks

Tuesday, National Girls and Women in Sports Day, also was World Read Aloud Day and the second day of National Library Lovers Month. That’s a hodgepodge, I admit. But it’s perhaps a fitting way to introduce the first of a series of weekly blog posts honoring this 50th year of Title IX, the revolutionary law that prohibits sex discrimination in education and is the subject of my book 37 Words. If you haven’t already, subscribe to my blog “37 Words” and you’ll get a weekly note in your email inbox with a hodgepodge of my takes on a variety of […]

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New book explores Sexual Justice

Probably the most important book in 2021 related to Title IX looks at how we get to sexual justice both for survivors of sexual assault and for the people accused of assaulting them. This Tuesday, August 24, at 7:30 p.m. ET you can hear author Alexandra Brodsky at a virtual book launch discussing Sexual Justice: Supporting Victims, Ensuring Due Process, and Resisting the Conservative Backlash. The New Yorker magazine published an adapted excerpt from the book: “Meeting ‘the other side’: Conversations with men accused of sexual assault.” Check it out. Brodsky co-founded the national student activist organization Know Your IX […]

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It’s not okay, but we’re getting there

He ran from behind me and body slammed the woman in front of me. The boy looked to be about eight or nine years old, white, with the restless energy of a bored kid. Seemingly trying to amuse himself as his family strolled onto the campus of Yale University, he wanted something to do, and he wanted attention. The woman said nothing. Ahead, the father saw none of this, more intent on the camera and a paper map in his hand. The boy ran back, 10 paces behind me, and launched himself again. He zoomed by within inches to my […]

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Speak your mind on DeVos and Title IX

We’re at a pivotal moment in Title IX history. Not since 1975 has the Department of Education changed the regulations governing Title IX, the 1972 law prohibiting sex discrimination in education. The Trump Administration now is going all-out to see that its definition of sex discrimination becomes the law of the land and to limit how schools are allowed to respond to it. Women’s advocates are fighting back, but Education Secretary Betsy DeVos gave the public only until Jan. 29, 2019 to submit comments for or against her new Title IX rules. Groups like Know Your IX, End Rape on […]

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Fresno’s robust Title IX history documented

I want to understand Title IX‘s history not only at elite East Coast universities and in the Washington, D.C. halls of power (where much of its story gets told) but in other settings too. When you think of Title IX’s 46-year-history, Fresno, Calif. may not be the first place to come to mind, yet its extensive and robust Title IX history illustrates the evolution of the law’s application and feminism in the U.S. heartland. Feminism shapes Title IX (and vice versa) in all corners of the United States, in all income brackets, and in diverse populations. I could have picked […]

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Scientists say Title IX isn’t enough

Title IX doesn’t always work. It won’t save a student from being deported if she’s an undocumented immigrant. Title IX has never given women a fair share of athletics funding or coaching jobs. As a legal tool, Title IX isn’t much help to students, staff, or faculty who feel too vulnerable to complain about sex discrimination. A new report highlights its weaknesses in stopping sexual harassment in academic sciences. While this civil rights law produced many, many important changes in society, it’s worth noting its weak spots as we celebrate the 46th anniversary of Title IX on June 23. Title […]

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So long, Shakespeare; adios, Aziz Ansari

One of the byproducts of immersing myself into researching Title IX is an altered personal tolerance for sex discrimination. More and more, I don’t. Tolerate it, that is. And that means letting go of some formerly cherished cultural reference points and practices. In this time of upheaval between the sexes, a lot of people may be experiencing something similar. This isn’t a new phenomenon. People — and our society — change as we not only get our eyes opened to injustices but begin to empathize with those who suffer under them. The latter is more “woke” than the former. This […]

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Get ready for more Title IX fireworks

Happy 2018! In the new year, the backlash against Title IX will make more headlines as the Trump Administration continues to change regulations dealing with sex discrimination in education. Advocates for girls and women will push back and eventually move society two steps forward for every step back. We’ve seen this before, many times. Let’s take a look at the challenges that Title IX faced and overcame at this point in previous decades. It’s been a wild ride toward equity in education. The fun isn’t done. This timeline leaves out a lot, yet you can see patterns and progress: 1968 […]

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Men complain things to me

Writer Rebecca Solnit brilliantly described the commonplace phenomenon of mansplaining in her book Men Explain Things To Me. There’s a similar phenomenon — menplaining? dudespouting? — in which men co-opt women’s grievances to complain that they’re the victims of sexism when some advance in women’s rights constrains male advantages. Title IX‘s current battles and its history are full of menplaining in the courts. Male student athletes sued in the 1990s and 2000s. They complained of sex bias in the Title IX regulations  because they forced — forced! mind you — athletic directors to cut some men’s teams when budgets got tight. […]

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Systemic sexism cracking under #MeToo

We’re in a #metoo cultural moment that’s removing blinders about systemic sexism. Let’s look at how we got here and explore what comes next. If we do that honestly, feelings come up — anger, embarrassment, shame, regret. There’s probably not one of us who doesn’t wish we had understood things better earlier, hadn’t gone along with some of the sexist confines of our culture, had behaved differently in particular situations, or had been heard by others sooner. This goes for both men and women. It’s important to recognize these feelings, and equally important to channel them into positive action. Anyone […]

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When schools ignore Title IX, children suffer

Title IX issues that start in colleges and universities inevitably make their way to K-12 schools, opening society’s eyes to the pervasiveness of the problem at all ages. A year-long investigation by Associated Press reporters provides the latest example — a “hidden horror” of 17,000 sexual assaults by students against other students in grades K-12 over a four-year period. Too often in these cases, students and their parents must rely on Title IX to amplify their cries for help. Student sexual assaults have been the top headline-grabbing Title IX complaint in higher education over the past 6 years or so. The […]

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Framing Title IX controversies: New or old?

The media and anti-Title IX pundits are fond of framing controversies around campus sexual assaults as a relatively “new” phenomenon that started in 2011. Too often that leaves out the 45-year history of schools and colleges unfairly ignoring, obstinately defying, and only reluctantly complying with Title IX’s mandate to fight sex discrimination in education. A case in point: The Chronicle of Higher Education, which probably has the best and most extensive Title IX coverage of any media outlet over the years, published a lengthy and very interesting article (available to subscribers), “One Letter Changed Colleges’ Response to Rape Cases.” The article described events since the Office for Civil […]

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Title IX case bridged Black, women’s movements

Pamela Price entered Yale University in 1974 as a Black nationalist with an Angela Davis-style afro. She’d never heard of Title IX and wasn’t attracted to any of the women’s organizations on campus. She put her heart and energies into the Black community and working for civil rights. By the time she graduated in 1978, though, Price was one of a handful of women at the heart of a pivotal legal case that established for the first time that Title IX covers sexual harassment — Alexander v. Yale. Her involvement bridged the Black rights and women’s rights movements on campus. Thus began a chain […]

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