Bayh fathered Title IX, inspired by Marvella

Former Senator Birch Bayh, the father of Title IX, died on March 14, 2019, marking the end of an era. His life shows us how people can break free from prejudices of their generation yet simultaneously remain trapped by them. It’s a humbling truth we all share, like it or not. Bayh is the last of the major players in Title IX’s creation to leave this earth. Rep. Edith Green, the mother and primary author of Title IX, died in 1987 without even a mention of Title IX in her obituary (though, to be fair, Title IX was decimated at […]

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Fake news generates fake history

Pop quiz: Who said, “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” Go ahead, google it. You’ll find lots of sources all over the Web and social media agreeing that the quote came from poet and writer Maya Angelou. But they’re all wrong. The modern crisis of fake news has a corollary in fake history, which is why I find myself returning to original (“primary”) sources as I research the history of Title IX. It’s difficult to discern the fakeness of the quote above by online searching because it’s been repeated so often that it dominates search results. Eventually, another source […]

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Lobbyists, Congressional staff influenced Title IX

[Videos feature Judy Norrell, former lobbyist for the League of Women Voters, and Barbara Dixon, former staff person for Sen. Birch Bayh.] Title IX wasn’t just an act of Congress, nor did it come simply from the demands of women’s activist organizations. There’s plenty of overlap between insiders and outsiders in Washington, D.C. and varying degrees of insider- or outsider-ness depending on the person and the situation. Women were small in number compared with men working in the nation’s capitol in the 1970s, which made it easier, in some ways, to find each other and collaborate as both insiders and outsiders. Female […]

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