BY MARTHA BURK | “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.”
This year marks the 50th anniversary of those few words that have drastically changed the landscape for girls’ and women’s educational opportunities over the last half century.
Title IX flatly prohibits institutions that receive federal funding from practicing gender discrimination in educational programs or activities. Because almost all schools receive federal funds, the law applies in nearly every educational context.
Even though it covers all educational programs, most people associate Title IX with athletics, where it has indeed had a profound effect on girls and women. Before Title IX, women and girls were virtually excluded from most athletic opportunities in schools. Just 7 percent of all high school athletes were girls, and females received a paltry two percent of school athletic budgets. Athletic scholarships for women were simply nonexistent.
There’s no question the law changed school athletic programs and practices, but did it change people’s minds about gender and equal opportunities in sports? To find out, The Pew Research Center in Washington, D.C. did a national survey to gauge awareness and attitudes about Title IX 50 years after its passage.
While much of the survey is encouraging, it also shows there is still a ways to go when it comes to full public support of equal athletic opportunities for women and girls. For starters, many are just not paying attention. Of the original sample of 9,388 people chosen for polling, only 50 percent had “heard of or read” about Title IX (37 percent said “a little” and only 13 percent said “a lot”).
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