US Marks 50th Anniversary of Title IX Legislation
Summary from the AllSides News Team
Thursday marks the 50th anniversary of Title IX legislation being passed by Congress as part of the Education Amendments of 1972.
Title IX prohibits gender discrimination in any school or education program that receives federal funding. The purpose was to update the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which banned employment discrimination but did not address discrimination in education. Its creation had nothing to do specifically with sports, but it does ban sex-based discrimination for sports programs at schools that receive federal funding. Before Title IX, about 294,000 girls were involved in high school sports in the U.S., and roughly 15% of NCAA athletes were women. Today, roughly 3.4 million high school girls are involved in sports, and 44% of NCAA athletes are women.
In light of the anniversary, many on the right focused on how Title IX relates to transgender athletes, and some right-rated voices argued that trans athletes shouldn't be protected under Title IX in order to preserve fair women's competition. Left-rated voices more often argued that to accomplish true equality, Title IX needs to be changed to give more protections to trans women, especially in sports and other competitive spaces.
Featured Coverage of this Story
From the Left
How 50 years of Title IX have changed American sports
Title IX, the landmark 1972 legislation that barred sex discrimination in education and paved the way for a decadeslong women's sports boom, turns 50 today.
Why it matters: Before Title IX, 294,000 girls were participating in high school sports nationwide and just 15% of NCAA athletes were women. Today, those numbers are roughly 3.4 million and 44%, respectively.
That profound shift has contributed to the dominance of U.S. women at the Olympics: In Tokyo, American women would have finished fourth in the medal standings (66) if they were a country.
Women's soccer has been...
From the Left
Title IX Built Women’s Sports. Now, It’s Time for it to Change.
The law that transformed sports for women and girls is turning 50.
On June 23, 1972, President Richard Nixon signed into law Title IX, prohibiting sex-based discrimination in schools, as part of sweeping reforms to the education system. When the law passed, just over 300,000 young women played college and high school sports. Forty years later, six times as many women and girls were competing at the high school and college level. By 2016, one in every five girls in the United States played sports. The law essentially created women’s professional sports as...
From the Right
Title IX's 50th anniversary: Debate over transgender athletes rages
The emergence of transgender athletes in sports has created debate over whether a transgender woman or girl has a competitive advantage over a biological woman or girl.
With Thursday marking the 50th anniversary of Title IX, the discourse is only getting hotter.
The Biden administration wants transgender athletes to enjoy the same protections Title IX originally afforded women when it passed five decades ago. At that point in 1972, the debate about transgender athletes was many years away.
The debate comes down to advocates wanting to protect the space already established by Title...
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