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Implementing Title IX
Title IX passed with little controversy in
1972. Soon after Title IX passed, however, the National
Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and high school administrators
complained that boys' sports would suffer if girls' sports
had to be funded equally. Regulations about how to implement
the law were not released until two years later, and these
regulations did not go into effect until July 1975. Even
then, the Office of Civil Rights (OCR) did not enforce the
law. Few complaints were investigated and resolved.
Under Presidents Reagan and Bush, enforcement
of Title IX came to a halt. First, the agencies in charge
of enforcing the law - the Department of Health, Education,
and Welfare, and later the Department of Education - dragged
their feet. Then, in a 1984 decision, Grove City v. Bell,
the U.S. Supreme Court gutted Title IX. In that ruling,
the court said Title IX did not cover entire educational
institutions - only those programs directly receiving federal
funds. Other programs, such as athletics, that did not receive
federal funds, were free to discriminate on the basis of
gender.
But women's rights groups fought back. Four
years later, over Reagan's veto, Congress passed the Civil
Rights Restoration Act of 1988. This act nullified the effects
of the Grove City ruling by outlawing sex discrimination
throughout an entire educational institution if any part
of the institution received federal funding. In addition
to the Act, the OCR publicly renewed its commitment to ending
gender discrimination, calling Title IX a "top priority,"
and publishing a "Title IX Athletic Investigator's Manual"
to strengthen enforcement procedures.
In February of 1992, the Supreme Court further
Franklin v. Gwinnett County Public Schools held
that victims may be awarded monetary damages in sex discrimination
cases. The case involved a high school woman who said she
was sexually harassed and abused by a teacher. She filed
for damages in Federal District Court, which dismissed the
complaint, saying Title IX does not authorize an award of
damages. The Court of Appeals agreed. But the U.S. Supreme
Court held that compensatory and punitive damages were available
under Title IX.37 This case was crucial in putting "teeth"
into Title IX, allowing women to find lawyers willing to
take their cases because of the possibility of damages awards,
and threatening colleges in their pocketbooks if they refused
to comply with Title IX.
One problem with bringing Title IX complaints
against colleges is not knowing how much money a college
or university is putting into women's and men's sports.
Thanks to a 1994 amendment to the Elementary and Secondary
Education Act introduced by Senators Carol Moseley-Braun
(D-IL) and Edward Kennedy (D-MA), colleges and universities
are now required to disclose funding and participation rates.
(This amendment contains the same language as a bill Congresswoman
Cardiss Collins (D-IL) introduced in the House in 1993,
but which was trapped in committee). The amendment went
into effect in 1996. Students and prospective students can
now ask a university's athletics department for a report
on expenditures and participation rates broken down by gender.
. . .
Taking the Law Into Our Own
Hands
Because the federal government has not strongly
enforced Title IX, women all over the country have filed
civil rights complaints and lawsuits against their colleges
and high schools in order to force their institutions to
implement gender equity. These lawsuits and complaints have
been quite successful.
Since 1990, hundreds of lawsuits and Civil
Rights complaints have been filed under Title IX and state
Equal Rights Amendments charging gender discrimination in
sports in high school and college. Most of these have been
resolved in favor of women, resulting in women's teams being
reinstated that were scheduled to be cut, women's club sports
being upgraded to varsity status, and women coaches receiving
equal pay. Almost all of the cases that were dropped or
lost involved men suing or complaining that they were being
discriminated against.38
In 1993, Howard University head women's basketball
coach Sanya Tyler sued Howard for sex discrimination
under Title IX and the D.C. Human Rights Act, saying she
was paid much less than the men's head basketball coach.
Breaking new ground with the first monetary award given
by a jury in a Title IX case, Tyler was awarded $2.4 million
(later reduced to 1.1 million) in damages.
The California Chapter of the National
Organization for Women (NOW) has also made significant
strides for girls and women athletes by taking offenders
to court. Finding the entire California State University
system in violation of the 1976 California Education Code
mandating immediate progress in gender equity in CSU intercollegiate
athletics, California NOW filed suit against all twenty
University campuses. In an out-of-court settlement, CSU
officials agreed to provide equal opportunities and funding
for women's and men's athletics on all campuses by the 1998-99
school year.
Title IX has been used by women athletes
at Brown University as well. Following the decision
by the athletic department to cut two men's and two women's
sports from their varsity roster, the women gymnasts took
Brown to court. The students argued that the two women's
teams combined cut $62,000 from the women's sports budget
while the two men's teams only amounted to a $16,000 detraction
from the men's budget. These cuts were even more enraging
because Brown was already in violation of Title IX. The
students' argument has prevailed in both the District and
Appeals Courts. Brown University may appeal the case to
the U.S. Supreme Court. The Brown case has gone further
in court than any other Title IX case.
Title IX has indirectly affected athletic
decision-making at schools such as the University of Iowa,
Harvard, and Stanford University. These schools initiated
women's sports enhancement programs. These programs set
a deadline for achieving gender equity by creating new women's
teams, elevating others and providing additional funding
in a broad spectrum of areas. At least sixteen other colleges
and universities have also taken such action to comply with
Title IX.39
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