Katie Ledecky 6 Bernice Sandler is considered the opportunity in sports Godmother of Title IX thanks wouldn't have been to her work fighting gender discrimination She worked possible without Title IX with Edith Green to document discrimination in education Before the passage of Title IX women faced extreme obstacles just to be allowed to compete There were outstanding female athletes before 1972 of course But the belief that women were not interested in sports was widespread Some even believed that competing could be physically harmful to women That began to change in the 1970s thanks in part to Edith Green a member of the US House of Representatives from Oregon Green introduced a bill that would work toward equity between men and women in higher education In hearings she described the discrimination women faced on a routine basis She argued that action was necessary for equality to be achieved Green's arguments were influential Indiana Senator Birch Bayh introduced Title IX as an amendment to an Congresswoman Edith Green walks the corridors of the Rayburn House Office Building in 1967
DER US Representative Patsy Mink of Hawaii played an important role in defending Title IX in Congress 8 education bill The bill passed and President Richard Nixon signed it into law Amazingly it received little attention at the time as more contentious issues such as school desegregation also were addressed in the amendments But its impact would be vast and profound Title IX bans federally funded educational programs from discriminating on the basis
PATSY MINK While Edith Green argued for equality in the early 1970s Representative Patsy Mink of Hawaii defended the law after Green left Congress in 1974 After Mink's death in 2002 the law was renamed to the Patsy T Mink Equal Opportunity in Education Act in her honor 9 of gender It applies to a music program or school play as much as it does to athletics In 1972 only 1 in 27 high school girls participated in athletics in the United States That amounted to 294 015 girls By 2015 16 that total had increased tenfold to more than 3 3 million girls competing at the high school level But Title IX did more than just mandate equality in opportunities It required parity in all areas the facilities used by male and female athletes the equipment available to them and the salaries of their coaches among others To be sure many more battles lie ahead for women in sports Equality can remain elusive at times But the passage of Title IX changed the paths and lives of every American girl and woman from 1972 to today
