Reflection Post: Title IX

Through course 556 in our administrative program I recently

completed an assignment tracking one educational policy or law from the
time of its origin to current practices today. I chose to research and follow
Title IX as I had never heard of it before and it seemed like an interesting
law to follow.
I was very shocked by how education was for women prior to Title IX’s
passage in the 1970s. Prior to the passage of Title IX, there was so much
discrimination against women in education. In certain colleges, the
amount of women that were admitted were capped to very small numbers.
Cornell School of Veterinary Medicine had a cap of only 2 students that
were women per year no matter how many qualified applicants there were.
In the 1960s, Virginia State Colleges and Universities rejected 21,000 women
from attending their universities while at the same time period they
rejected zero men.
In 1964, Title XI and XII were passed under the Equal Rights Act which
protected individuals from discrimination based on their race; however it
did not protect women and female minorities from being discriminated
against on the basis of gender.
In the 1970s, Representative Edith Green began having hearings on
the topic of sex based discrimination and was one of the main leaders in
pushing the 1972 Title IX into congress. In June of 1972, Nixon signed the
amendments into law that would prohibit any education program who
received federal funding to discriminate based on sex.
Title IX has seen many changes since 1972 when it was signed into
law. One major change came in the 2000s under President Obama.
President Obama made changes so that Title IX also included protections
against discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation.
Under the Biden administration, Title IX set to further expand to protect
transgender individuals from discrimination.
I’m very glad that Title IX has come to protect so many individuals
throughout its signing into law. Women today have many of the same
opportunities to access education throughout their educational career.
Without Title IX’s passing we would still see even greater differences
between men and women in terms of education, pay, and standing in
society. We have a long way to go with regards to equal treatment of men
and women in education and society in general but we have made great
improvements in this century.
 One question that arises from my research of Title IX lies in the
future of Title IX. A very hot topic of today’s time is transgender athletes.
Currently there is still a lot of discrimination against these student athletes
and I wonder how Title IX will transform to protect them? My research also
showed that even though Title IX applies to sports in universities and
schools as well there is still lots of disparities between men’s and women’s
sports. Access to weights might be the same but the kinds of weights and
the quality of the materials varies greatly between men’s and women’s
areas. How can we evaluate programs for equality and equity when the
program’s are different? Will Title IX continue to make sure that the gaps
between genders in both sports and education are smaller to allow for
complete equality or is that impossible to achieve?

https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1193&
context=clevstlrev

https://repository.uchastings.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2036&contex
t=hastings_law_journal

https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2022/06/how-title-ix-transformed-c
olleges-universities-over-past-50-years/#:~:text=In%20the%201990s%2C%20t
he%20federal,misconduct%20impairs%20equal%20educational%20access.

https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/docs/qa-201404-title-ix.pdf