Too Strong

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My mother then began collecting data about sex discrimination in academe, comparing the percentages of female students to the percentages of female doctorates. Letters and stories poured in. The numbers were stark and showed pervasive sex discrimination. This formed the basis of the administrative complaints. In the 1960s, 22% of the doctorates granted in psychology were to women. By 1970, the last woman hired by the Department of Psychology at UC Berkeley was in 1924. Of the 42 members of the Cal faculty, all were male.

Complainants were requested to contact Congress and ask for enforcement of the Executive Orders. Their letters were also sent to the Departments of Labor, Health, Education and Welfare. So much mail began arriving that the departments had to hire several full-time employees just to deal with the letters and the complaints.

Within a few months, the first federal investigations of sex discrimination in academe began. The floodgates were opened, and more investigations would follow.

Congresswoman Edith Green was on WEAL’s advisory board and my mother sent her copies of all the complaints. Representative Green was the Chair of a Subcommittee on Education and she introduced legislation that eventually became Title IX. She also convened the first Congressional hearings on sex discrimination at colleges and universities. My mother testified at the hearings and suggested many of the witnesses. She was also hired after the hearings to assemble the written record, becoming the first person appointed to the staff of a

Congressional Committee to work on women’s issues.

Title IX provides: “No person shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any educational program receiving Federal financial assistance.” Just 37 words, but they would have a gigantic impact.

Representatives of educational institutions were invited to testify, as the legislation would affect their work. They knew of no sex discrimination on campuses so they did not think this legislation would be a big deal.

As the legislation neared passage, several people offered to lobby for it, but Representative Green counseled against that, because if people paid too much attention, they might realize the impact this legislation would have, and oppose it.

Title IX was shepherded through Congress by Representative Green, Senator Birch Bayh, and Representative Patsy Mink. President Nixon signed it into law in June 1972. Very few people noticed. There was one sentence about it in the Washington Post.

After Title IX became law, regulations were released which made clear the impact that the new law would have on educational institutions and athletics. The male athletic establishment suddenly became aware that Title IX was poised to upend the system and require that women be treated equally – and they fought back hard, trying to weaken or overturn Title IX, or at least exempt football. These efforts failed.

Similarly, very few people expected this legislation to have any impact on athletics because the amount of sex discrimination in athletic programs in academe was not widely known. Surprisingly, very few people had any idea of the impact Title IX would have. There was no mention of sports in this legislation, or at these hearings, yet Title IX drastically changed the world of sports, opening up countless opportunities for women to have equal funding and equal representation. My mother’s initial understanding of the impact of Title IX on athletics was that on Field Day, girls might participate in a few extra games. My mother had no idea of what was coming.

In 1974, my mother and her colleague Margaret Dunkle conducted the first national study of sex discrimination in athletics in academe. The disparities between men’s and women’s athletic programs were huge –some men’s departments had over a million dollars in funding while the women had zero. Most men’s programs had supplies, locker rooms, clean fields, and paid staff. Most women’s programs had nothing. And women were getting angry about it – One example was the 1976 protest by the Yale Women’s Crew, which painted “Title IX” on their bodies and appeared nude before the athletic director, after being denied showers and changing rooms in sub-freezing weather.

The Government adopted a threepronged set of criteria schools could use to develop more equitable athletics programs: (a) accommodate the abilities of the discriminated group, (b) have a continuing pattern of increasing the athletic opportunities of the discriminated group, or (c) provide proportional numbers of opportunities based on the percentage of the discriminated group in the school’s population. Schools began to struggle with these criteria and began to change.

Title IX’s passage in 1972 gave millions of girls and women the opportunity to compete and excel in athletics. The numbers of female athletes is growing at every level. By 2007, my mother observed that participation of girls and women in athletics had skyrocketed by 800% or more. The numbers have risen since then.

Title IX also applies to sex harassment. Bunny began speaking and writing about the “chilly climate” in classrooms, some of which came from sex harassment, and some of which came from discrimination against women students and women faculty. She became an educational policy expert, traveling all over the country to give speeches at colleges and universities, and to advise on anti-discrimination and anti-harassment policies. She frequently served as an expert witness, gave over 2,500 speeches (two to the CCCBA), received many honorary degrees and awards, and in 2013 was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame. Near the end of her life, she said that at first she thought it would only take a year or two to get rid of sex discrimination, but finally realized it would take many lifetimes to get it done. Her work continues.

Deborah Jo Sandler has practiced family law in Contra Costa County for 37 years. Her practice emphasizes consensual out-of-Court dispute resolution such as mediation, co-mediation with other professionals, collaborative divorce, cooperative outof-Court family law cases, and consulting attorney work for clients undergoing mediation. She serves on the Steering Committee of Collaborative Practice East Bay, and on the Board of Directors of the Contra Costa County Bar Association Senior Lawyers’ Section. She also mediates family law contempts at Court through a program administered by The Congress of Neutrals.