FROM SOCIAL EVENTS TO Women’s sports have evolved since Title IX By Sarah McAdams
It wasn’t so long ago that colleges and universities could discriminate against women by denying them the benefits of competing in sports. Women were too delicate for athletics, the reasoning went. “Many doctors supported the idea” that playing sports would harm a woman’s ability to bear children, said JUDY GEORGE, who came to DePauw in 1965 to teach women’s physical education. Then, 49 years ago last month, on June 23, 1972, Congress passed Title IX, the federal law authored by U.S. Sen. Birch Bayh of Indiana that prohibited sex discrimination in educational programs that received federal funding, including schools’ athletic teams. Neither attitudes nor the situation changed overnight, but they evolved. George, who as a Miami University student had participated in field hockey and basketball, part of the Women’s Recreation Association, liked the competition and wanted women at DePauw to experience athletics. “I was the only one at the very beginning who felt that way at DePauw,” said George, who became the field hockey club adviser in 1966 and, after field hockey became a varsity-level sport, coached for more than 30 years. “… It kind of blows my mind to think of some of those attitudes when I first came here.”
22 I DEPAUW MAGAZINE SUMMER 2021
1897 DePauw women’s basketball team
