What is Title IX?
Title IX of the education amendments came out of the Civil Rights movement and protects us from any sex-based discrimination from the school. This includes protection for your gender identity, sexual orientation, or if you end up pregnant. The Title makes any federally funded programs in schools accessible to all students. The passing of this title was a big turning point, because of this girls were no longer required to take home economics, and boys were no longer required to take shop in schools. Students could now choose which one they would like to do. Everyone was able to participate in all activities that the school offered. This happened because of Pasty.T. Mink, who wrote most of the act and sponsored it. Helping to balance out female sports and educational opportunities. President Richard. M. Nixon passed Title IX, which requires public schools to provide equal opportunity.
King was one of the most prominent people to help Equality for women’s sports. She played tennis at a tennis club not liking the unfair rules for females. Dress codes, pay cuts, or unequal prize money from tournaments are all things King experienced before Title IX was in place. King would work tirelessly on fixing this, she was a main force in the strive for equality: “You don’t understand inclusion,” King said, “unless you’ve been excluded”. In 1974 two years after Title IX King formed The Women’s Sports Foundation and the Billie King Foundation to protect the female sports side of the title, where she would defend the education amendments in the public eye and the lawsuits against it. The Billie King Foundation focuses on protecting female athletes and helping foster the next generation of women’s activism to keep Title IX strong.
With the help of King and Title IX, more paid opportunities and full-ride scholarships started to appear for female athletes. This made it so that people like King could play sports in college after high school and make it a full-time job without getting less prize money or general pay just because of their gender.
In the late 19th century leading up till the 1970s, there were more active opportunities for girls, but most activities women could do leading up to the 1970s were non-competitive and nonathletic. This would include country clubs or informal sports clubs such as croquet and tennis which were common for aristocratic women. The disadvantage for women at this time was tremendous, and if you had very little money or no social status, most physical activity outside of basic housework or chores was not available.
The Impact On Sports
Most high schools and colleges did not officially “ban” girls from playing but were heavily restricted on the opportunities they were presented. With social stigmas such as no other girls playing, and being made fun of for wanting to play a “masculine” sport. There were also places where female sports were not allowed at all. Female high school students were officially allowed to play sports without barriers from the school or coaches on June 23, 1972. The beginning effects of Title IX being passed was phenomenal growth in female sports, both high school and college which has only increased every year since 1972 till the current day. In 2018 a study was done that showed 42.9% of U.S sports teams in high school are female. Title IX also makes it so females are more likely to get scholarships with more money dedicated to them, because of this women also became more likely to seek higher education throughout their lives.
Even though Title IX was passed for high school and college kids to be able to participate in school activities, the side effect was the number of female players in America went from only 310,00 who had to compete with their male counterparts and against the school, to 3,373,000 people across America. Extreme gender bias was normal, and for the most part, allowed to happen very frequently in schools by teachers, coaches, and other students before Title IX passed.
Title IX was passed fifty years ago, but the lasting effects are still seen today. Many incredible Female athletes would not have found this passion without being allowed to play, and more female teams are showing up in strongly male-dominated sports such as football, rugby, and wrestling, with their leagues forming following this.
This did not stop peer pushback, and many people had problems with this act being passed. The main people who had a problem with Title IX when it was first passed were male coaches. Some of the coaches thought that having girls also do the same sports would take the opportunity away from the boys. One of the main arguments people have brought up with Act Nine is that male sports teams should be dissolved to be equal in number with the female teams, or “boys’ sports will suffer.”
This changes with the number of males and females present in the school. Even though most people can agree that having equal funding for male and female sports is beneficial to both, the two have the same chance to grow in their sports and into their future careers. Both boys’ and girls’ sports are positive things that can have a great impact on those who play sports. Equal funding for both is deserved to benefit the players.
The Future
Over the last fifty years, many things have improved in the direction of equality because of Title IX and the education amendments. Athletes can always have more support, to lift them. Athletes can still be encouraged in many ways, things like going to both male and female games not excluding one or the other, and not putting down our players, but rather encouraging them to find something that they find to be enjoyable to them.
