PDF Hope and a Tool: The History of Title IX of the Education ...

Hope and a Tool: The History of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972

By Margaret Nash ?

December 1993 (margaret.nash@ucr.edu)

Twenty-one years ago Congress passed the first legislation ever to prohibit sex discrimination in public education. Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 banned sex discrimination in all schools that receive federal funds. As a result of Title IX, the number and proportion of women enrolled in postsecondary institutions increased, and educational and employment opportunities for females became more equitable. In spite of the significance of this legislation, historians largely have ignored Title IX. When Title IX is discussed at all, it usually is solely in terms of athletics. This paper is an attempt to fill in this gap. The paper discusses how Congress passed Title IX, legislative efforts to weaken the law, and the Office for Civil Rights' enforcement of Title IX. Finally, the paper assesses changes in schools and in female educational experiences as a result of this legislation and weighs those changes against how far we still need to go to achieve gender equity in education.

Before Title IX, differential admission, treatment, and hiring of students, staff and faculty was commonplace. Vocational education programs were segregated by gender, and schools allowed girls entry into only a few programs. Programs open to girls included training for low-paying occupations in clerical fields and in homemaking programs that did not train students for wageearning occupations at all. Girls often were excluded from science and math courses and clubs. Guidance counselors routinely gave students interest inventories that were colorcoded; a boy and girl with similar interests were directed into gender-specific careers. Schools had sex-segregated water fountains, lunch tables, closets, toys, and even reading lists. School sports, at both the secondary and postsecondary levels, offered few if any programs and opportunities for girls and

women. As late as 1975 in high schools across the country, the average budget for boys' sports was five times more than that for girls'. At the college level, the proportion rose to 30 times more money for men's athletics than for women's.1

Scholarships to colleges could be awarded only to men, and financial aid, including loans, could be denied to women who were married, pregnant, or had children. Colleges and universities had quota systems limiting the number of women who could attend and had different standards for admission. For example, in the 1970s Cornell admitted women only if they had SAT scores 30-40 points higher than the male average, and at Pennsylvania State University men were five times more likely to be admitted than women. High schools and colleges expelled pregnant students, married or not, and elementary and secondary school systems fired pregnant teachers, including married ones. School systems routinely invested less in pension programs for women employees than for men.2 Clearly, discrimination against girls and women was rampant in school systems and institutions of higher education. The need for protective legislation was great.

Congress Passes Title IX

During the 1950s and 60s Congress passed a number of laws providing financial aid to institutions of higher education and their students. Many of these laws were set to expire in 1971, so in 1970 members of Congress introduced various bills to extend and expand these programs. Several key events led Congress to discuss legislation prohibiting sex discrimination in education in conjunction with the extension of these financial aid laws.

1 "Sex Discrimination Regulations," Hearings before the Subcommittee on Postsecondary Education of the Committee on Education and Labor. (Washington, DC: House of Representatives Committee on Education and Labor) 1975, 155, 74. 2 National Advisory Council on Women's Educational Programs, "Title IX: The Half Full, Half Empty Glass," (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education) 1981, 12, 15, 19, 21, 11.

In 1963 the U.S. Commission on the Status of Women issued a report documenting the secondary status of women in the U.S., with a special focus on women's economic disadvantages. One of the results of this study was the Equal Pay Act of 1963. The Federation of Business and Professional Women worked quickly to establish state-level commissions on the status of women that would parallel the U.S. Commission. This created a network of women and men on the state level who researched and documented discrimination against women across the country, and therefore helped to build grassroots support for legislation aimed at gender equity.3

In 1970 the Women's Equity Action League (WEAL) filed a class action administrative complaint against hundreds of colleges and universities that had contracts with the federal government and charged them with violating Executive Order 11246 prohibiting sex discrimination in federal contracts. Also in 1970, a presidential task force on women's rights and responsibilities issued its report that documented the existence of sex bias in American society and recommended legislative changes to ban sex discrimination in education and other areas.4

When various education bills were up for extension in 1970, Representative Edith Green agreed to sponsor a bill to outlaw sex discrimination in education if the need for such a bill could be documented. Such documentation was not hard to find, and at the hearings held by Green in June and July of 1970, 75 different statements documenting the problems related to sex role stereotyping and discrimination in education were made by educators and various women's groups. These hearings were not well attended, however,

3 Constance Threinen and Alice Weck, "Ten Years of Title IX" (Madison, WI: Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction) 1983, 2. 4 Andrew Fishel and Janice Pottker, National Politics and Sex Discrimination in Education (Lexington, MA: Lexington Books) 1977, 95; and Threinen and Weck, 6.

and the bill Green proposed never went

further than the hearing stage.5

In August, 1971, Senators Birch Bayh and

George McGovern introduced amendments to

ban sex discrimination in higher education.

Altogether, five amendments were

introduced, including amendments to the

Civil Rights Acts of 1957 and Titles IV, VI and

VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Opponents

disliked both the content of the proposals, and

the federal power these amendments would

give over states' operation of higher

education.

Through

parliamentary

maneuvering, Strom Thurmond managed to

get the Senate to approve unanimously the

higher education bill without considering the

sex discrimination amendments.6

At the same time the House was working on its own omnibus higher education bill. The subcommittee, headed by Edith Green, included a special provision banning sex discrimination, modeled on Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. Various members wanted the prohibition of sex discrimination to have limited coverage of admissions policies; finally they agreed to exempt all undergraduate college admissions policies from coverage. The bill next went to the Education and Labor Committee, where Green, with help from women's groups, lobbied to have that exemption deleted and replaced with one that would exempt schools that were 90 percent or more of one sex. That version passed the committee and was sent to the House, with an attached note from nine Republican members who objected to the sex discrimination policy. The stated basis of their objection was federal restrictions and controls of higher education.7

When the bill was sent to the House, once again the amendment exempting all undergraduate admissions was introduced, and passed. The House inserted this language in the Senate's bill and sent it back. In November 1971, with the bill in the Senate's Committee on Labor and Public Welfare, Bayh introduced an amended version of his earlier

5 Threinen and Weck, 7; Fishel and Pottker, 96. 6 Fishel and Pottker, 97-99. 7 Fishel and Pottker, 100-101.

proposal. Broader than the House version, it would exempt religious schools and predominantly one-sex schools. The Committee sent the bill to the full Senate in February 1972, still without a sex discrimination provision. Now Bayh proposed a new amendment; it required protection against sex discrimination in services available to students within an institution or in employment within an institution; in the area of admissions, it exempted academic elementary and secondary schools, military and religious schools, and private undergraduate colleges. This amendment was passed and sent to Senate-House conference.8

The conference committee took three months to resolve all the differences between the bills-250 in all, only eleven of which dealt with sex discrimination. Most of the higher education community spent their time trying to influence the outcome of other sections of the bill that they considered more important. Without any organized opposition, the Conference Committee adopted Title IX "without giving much consideration to its eventual impact."9 President Nixon signed the Education Amendments of 1972 in June, and they became effective July 1, 1972. The law simply says:

No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance.

Although Congress did not pass Title IX easily or enthusiastically, there was relatively little debate about it. Court-ordered busing was both more visible and more controversial than banning sex discrimination in schools. To a large extent, Title IX did not garner attention from the media, the public, or from Congress until it already was law. Once members of Congress realized what they had done, they

8 Fishel and Pottker, 102-103. 9 Fishel and Pottker, 103.

immediately began efforts to weaken the impact of Title IX.10

Legislative Efforts to Weaken Title IX Hot debates over busing may have overshadowed Title IX initially, but soon opponents of Title IX created sensationalistic press coverage of their own. The main targets of criticism were coeducational physical education classes, intercollegiate athletics, and traditional single sex organizations such as fraternities and sororities.

In 1974 Congress passed amendments that limited Title IX by excluding from coverage social fraternities and sororities, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, YMCA, YWCA, Camp Fire Girls and other voluntary youth service organizations. In 1976 Congress passed several other amendments limiting Title IX. These amendments allowed scholarships to be awarded as prizes for beauty contests, and allowed single-sex events, such as Boys' State and Girls' State programs and father-son and mother-daughter events, to continue to be sponsored by schools.11

The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) conducted the biggest lobbying campaign against Title IX. The NCAA argued that if colleges had to fund women's athletics more than they already did, implementation of Title IX would "destroy major college football and basketball programs."12 The NCAA continued to make this argument even after Congress passed the Javits Amendment in 1974, which stipulated, not that there should be immediate or total equality of expenditures in athletics (Title IX never called for such a plan), but simply that there should be "reasonable provisions" concerning participation in intercollegiate athletic activities.13 While the NCAA was worrying about the destruction of football and basketball, women's athletics were in sorry shape. In 1975, three years after Title IX

10 Rosemary C. Salomone, Equal Education Under Law (NY: St. Martin's Press) 1986, 124. 11 Salomone, 125; Fishel, 126. 12 "Sex Discrimination Regulations," 101. 13 Fishel and Pottker, 113, 114.

became law, women's programs accounted for about two percent of total collegiate athletic budgets.14

Another effort to limit the impact of Title IX was one proposed by Rep. Marjorie Holt. Her proposed amendment to a supplemental appropriations bill for the Departments of Labor and the Department of Health, Education and Welfare (HEW) would prevent HEW from gathering any information about sex and race discrimination in educational institutions, thereby effectively keeping HEW from enforcing Title IX and Title VI. This passed in the House in October 1974, but was deleted by the Senate Appropriations Committee. In November the amendment came up again in Conference Committee. The committee deleted the section that would have prohibited HEW from cutting off federal aid to schools that refused to maintain records on the sex and race of teachers and students, but approved the section prohibiting HEW from cutting off aid to schools that refused to carry out HEW orders concerning the assignment of teachers or students on the basis of sex or race. In December the House again passed the amendment. In response, Senators Mansfield and Scott cosponsored an alternative amendment that provided that no part of the Holt amendment would stop HEW from withholding aid when such a move was necessary to enforce antidiscrimination laws-making the Holt proposal meaningless. This passed the Senate in December 1974. The House was anxious to pass the appropriations bill before its winter recess to ensure that the President, who opposed it because the spending level was too high, could not pocket veto the bill while Congress was out of session. For this reason, the House finally gave in and approved the appropriation bill with the Mansfield-Scott amendment.15

In 1981, Senator Orrin Hatch introduced a bill to narrow the scope and coverage of Title IX. Citing the old controversy regarding federal intrusion into education, Hatch said his bill would be "a limited but significant start in restoring restraint" on the part of the federal

14 "Sex Discrimination Regulations," 70. 15 Fishel and Pottker, 114-117.

government. Hatch's bill would limit the scope of Title IX to those specific programs receiving direct federal aid, rather than covering the entire institution. The proposed bill also limited admissions coverage; under the new bill, sex discrimination in admissions would be covered only in the specific programs or activities that receive federal money. Essentially, this meant that schools could go back to having quotas limiting the number of female students, prohibiting married women from attending, or requiring higher qualifications for admission from women. Finally, Hatch's bill would omit Title IX's coverage of employment for staff and faculty, although it would continue to cover student employees.16 Although Congress did not pass this bill, the U.S. Supreme Court in 1984 limited Title IX's coverage in exactly these ways in its Grove City decision. This will be discussed in more detail later.

The Regulations

Once Congress passed Title IX, the next step was for HEW to write the regulations. In late July of 1972 Office for Civil Rights (OCR) staff and lawyers from HEW's General Counsel's office began discussing the regulations. In August 1972 a letter was sent to all institutions affected by Title IX. The memo merely stated the law, offering no guidance on what would be required of schools. As a result, few schools or colleges initiated policy changes.17

In November 1972, OCR and General Counsel staff circulated a first draft of the regulations to various offices within HEW for review and comment. The regulations were criticized for being extremely general and vague. HEW wanted the regulations to be specific in order to avoid enforcement disputes. OCR and the General Counsel staffs went back to work. Because there was little legislative history, Congress' intention was unclear. In addition, there was a limited amount of case law on sex

16 Bernice Resnick Sandler. "Summary of Proposed Amendment to Title IX: Impact on Postsecondary Institutions" (Washington, DC: Project on the Status and Education of Women, Association of American Colleges), Fall 1981. 17 Fishel and Pottker, 106.

discrimination in education from which legal precedents could be drawn. The staff turned to precedents established in enforcing Title VI, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color and national origin in public schools.18

HEW did not make drafting the regulations a high priority. Only two lawyers in the General Counsel's office were assigned to work on Title IX, and this assignment was given to them in addition to their other on-going responsibilities.19 During early 1973 there was no permanent director of OCR. The OCR and General Counsel staff working on Title IX were unsure who had the real decisionmaking authority. As a result, issues of policy and procedure often were left unraised and unresolved for long periods of time. Since Title IX had been passed with, and subsequently received, little congressional or public attention, little pressure was placed on HEW to act more quickly in developing the regulations.20

In August, 1973 OCR submitted another draft of the proposed regulations to the Secretary's office for approval. The regulations had been developed almost entirely by OCR in collaboration with the General Counsel's office. Other offices in HEW, including the offices of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation and the Assistant Secretary for Education, clearly resented that they had not been involved in the drafting process, and they objected to numerous provisions. In response, the Secretary's executive office decided not to submit the draft regulations to the Secretary at all, and instead sent it back to OCR for more work with the instructions that other HEW offices must be involved. Extended discussions and negotiations then were held, often resulting in "shouting matches between the tense participants."21

In June, 1974 HEW released the proposed regulations, two years after Title IX became

18 Fishel and Pottker, 106, 107. 19 Fishel and Pottker, 107. 20 Fishel and Pottker, 109. 21 Fishel and Pottker, 110, 111.

law. The regulations covered three general

areas:

admissions, treatment, and

employment. Regarding admissions, the

regulations covered vocational education

schools, professional education institutions,

graduate schools of higher education, and

public undergraduate colleges and

universities. The regulations required that

comparable efforts be made to recruit students

of each sex, and that people not be treated

differently because of sex in the admissions

process.

Regarding treatment, the regulations covered access to and participation in courses and extracurriculars, including athletics; eligibility and receipt of benefits, services and financial aid; use of school facilities; and rules governing student housing. Essentially, the regulations required that once admitted to school, all students should be treated in a nondiscriminatory manner.

Finally, the regulations stated that Title IX covered all full- and part-time employees. Title IX prohibited discrimination in recruiting, hiring, promotion, tenure, termination, pay, job assignments, granting of leaves, fringe benefits, selection and support for training, sabbaticals, leaves of absence, employer-sponsored activities, and all other terms and conditions of employment.22

HEW Secretary Weinberger allowed public comments on the regulations to be submitted for four months, rather than the more standard 30 days, in order to provide ample time for public consideration of the issues. By October, 1974 the four-month comment period was over. Also over was the invisibility of Title IX. Individuals and representatives of various organizations submitted an unprecedented 10,000 written comments to HEW. There was no consensus. Organizations representing women's, teachers', students', and civil rights groups advocated stronger national policies than did organizations representing elementary, secondary and higher education administrators and officials. As Weinberger would later say, there was "no way" to draft the regulations "that will please

22 Fishel and Pottker, 112, 113.

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