Title IX Gave Women Greater Access to Education. Here’s What It Says and Does.

President Richard M. Nixon signed the Omnibus Education Bill on June 23, 1972. It would make a significant impact on the lives of millions of American girls and women. The sweep conveyed in the words can be difficult to see at first glance.

Title IX was one of many education amendments included in the 1965 Higher Education Act reauthorization. It was buried among anti-busting policies and the outline of federal financial aid funding. The statute guarantees equal access to education for all women in just 37 words.

The United States prohibits anyone from using the following: On the basis of sex, a person cannot be excluded from, denied the benefits of, discriminated against in any educational program or activity that receives Federal financial assistance.

Lawmakers used the Civil Rights Act for framing but intentionally downplayed the policy’s significance to assure its passage through Congress. Fifty years later, Title IX continues to reverberate around the country, ushering in a new era of women’s sports and a framework for handling sexual misconduct complaints on campus.

“Part of the beauty of Title IX is its breadth and comprehensiveness. It’s a ban without creating an exhaustive list,” said Wendy Mink, whose mother, Rep. Patsy Mink, a Democrat from Hawaii, was one the legislators who spearheaded the policy. The official name of Title IX was changed to the Patsy T. Mink Equal Opportunity in Education Act after Mink’s death in 2002.

“It’s open to interpretation and application,” Wendy Mink said. “She wanted to make sure each of the interpretations would not only be applied but enforced.”

The most visible changes were seen in gymnasiums, fields and courts across the United States — young women were entitled to the same athletic opportunities as their male counterparts at schools. According to a study by the Women’s Sports Foundation, high school participation rose from 294,015 in the 1971-72 school year to 3.4 million in 2018-19 (participation by boys was 3.67 million in 1971-72 and 4.53 million in 2018-19). N.C.A.A.A. participation was higher at the collegiate levels. schools rose from 29,977 athletes in women’s sports in 1971-72 to 215,486 in 2020-21. Men’s sports had 275,769 athletes in 2020-21.

“Even my father couldn’t have predicted the profound impact it has made over the last 50 years,” the former Senator Evan Bayh, Democrat of Indiana, said. His father, Senator Birch Bayh (Democrat of Indiana), sponsored Title IX in Senate. “He had hopes; he had aspirations,” Evan Bayh said. “I think he would be very pleased and pleasantly surprised to see the difference it’s made.”

What’s in the law?

Title IX prohibits discrimination against sexes in educational institutions that receive federal funding for primary, secondary, and higher education. Although the statute is relatively short, the Supreme Court of the United States and the U.S. Department of Education have expanded its scope to include sexual assault and harassment on school campuses. Title IX is applicable to approximately 17,600 local school district and more than 55,000 postsecondary institutions. It also applies to charter schools, for profit schools, libraries and museums. It is applicable to both students and employees.

Title IX was first enacted in 1972. However, the Office of Civil Rights didn’t adopt an intercollegiate athletics policy until 1979 to determine compliance.

How is it enforced

The Education Department’s Office of Civil Rights oversees compliance with Title IX and investigates multiple types of discrimination, including with regards to admissions, athletics, recruitment, discipline, gender harassment, scholarships and sexual harassment and sexual violence.

Title IX regulations require that every educational institution that receives federal funds designate at least one employee as its Title IX coordinator. The coordinator is responsible to ensure compliance and investigate any Title IX complaints. There are approximately 3,600 pending investigations at the Education Department, of which 1,300 include a Title IX issue.

Schools are rarely denied funding and often resolve Title IX problems on their own.

Dr. Courtney Flowers, an associate professor of sport management at Texas Southern University and a co-author of the Women’s Sports Foundation report, said that compliance could improve, as could the shortfalls in sports that aren’t addressed by Title IX.

“Across the board, we’ve all won,” Flowers said. “But sometimes, we have to recalibrate and make sure that in the next 50 years we’re not saying the same thing and advocating for the same thing and figure out what does equity look like now?”

What’s missing from Title IX?

While Title IX’s intentions to be broad and encompassing have ensured rights for many women and girls, white women have benefited the most.

Title IX does NOT directly address race, gender identity or disabilities. The Women’s Sports Foundation found that Asian, Black, Indigenous, Hispanic and other girls and women of color participate in sport at lower levels than white women do. The same holds true for women with disabilities as for men with disabilities.

Athletic leadership is also a weak area for women of color.

Title IX includes transgender students. But sports remain a question mark and a subject of lively debate.

Title IX is under the executive branch, and therefore is open to interpretation by any administration. The Education Department stated that Title IX protection would now be available to transgender students in 2021. This was a reverse of a policy implemented by Donald J. Trump.

Biden administration will soon announce new regulations. They will most likely look like the 2021 telecast. As proposed, the guidance would make Title IX’s protection of transgender students a federal law requirement.

Still, it is not clear what that might mean for sports participation, amid contentious debate throughout the sports world about whether transgender women should be allowed to compete in women’s divisions.

Some major sports federations have heavily restricted transgender women from competing in women’s divisions. FINA, which is the world’s governing body for swimming, decided to ban transgender females from participating in competitions unless they had received medical treatments to reduce testosterone production prior to entering puberty. It established one the most stringent rules against transgender participation at international sports.

Nearly 20 states Have passed laws or issued statewide guidelines that restrict or ban transgender sports participation.

Title IX, for now, is unlikely to be used specifically by lawmakers either to push for more inclusion or exclusion of transgender women in women’s divisions. The law, which is a education policy at its core enjoys broad support from the public and both Republican as Democrat lawmakers.