SAVE TITLE IX - The Foundation for Equality

[BrklynLiberal]

Do you think we're on a longstanding, irreversible march towards women's equality? Do you assume your rights and opportunities can never be taken away? Think again.

George W. Bush has mounted a double-barreled assault on Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, the law that requires federally funded schools and colleges to provide equal educational opportunities to girls and women.

As the first prong of the attack, the Bush Administration's Department of Education Office of Civil Rights recently proposed taking steps to reintroduce segregation into the public education system—in the form of segregation by sex instead of race. The Office of Civil Rights announced in May 2002 that it intends to allow educators to establish single-sex classes and schools at the elementary and secondary levels.

The second part of the attack has come in the form of a Department of Education commission designed to "analyze" Title IX and its implementation. This so-called "Opportunity in Athletics Commission" is stacked with opponents of educational equity who intend to dismantle Title IX and the opportunities that it ensures for women.

At a time when Title IX is creating real progress toward equality of opportunity for women and men in athletics and education, it doesn't make sense to weaken it.

Why Title IX Works

In Education:
In 1972, the year Title IX was signed, women earned just seven percent of all law degrees. By 1997, they received 44 percent. Five years after Title IX was signed, women earned only nine percent of all medical degrees. By 1997, they received 41 percent of medical degrees. In 1977, only a quarter of all doctoral degrees went to women. Twenty years later, women earned 41 percent of all Ph.D.s.

In Athletics:
In the days before Title IX, only one in 27 girls played varsity high school sports. Today that figure is one in 2.5, for a total of 2.8 million girls now playing high school sports. Similarly, 32,000 women athletes played on intercollegiate teams prior to Title IX, compared with 150,000 today. Athletic scholarships for women were virtually non-existent prior to Title IX, but in 1997, there were more than 10,000 scholarships for women athletes.

We've made great strides under Title IX—but there is still a long way to go.

Title IX is Crucial to Our Future

Women remain underrepresented in traditionally male fields that lead to greater earning power after graduation. While women received 75 percent of all education degrees awarded during the 1997-98 academic year, they received only 18 percent of all engineering degrees. Women also continue to lag behind in earning doctoral and professional degrees.

While women's participation in athletics has grown steadily over the past 30 years, women athletes continue to get fewer teams, fewer scholarships and lower budgets than their male counterparts. For every $1 spent on women's athletics, $3 is spent on men's programs.

What You Can Do to Protect Equal Opportunity in Education

Learn how you can help in the fight to protect and strengthen Title IX by:

* Fighting for stronger enforcement of Title IX in both athletic and academic areas;
* Working to end sexual harassment in schools;
* Advocating for fixing the problems in co-educational environments rather than sex segregating;
* Opposing sex-based tracks and gender-stereotyped courses and instruction that send girls to cosmetology and daycare and boys to engineering and computer science; and
* Making sure your local schools are in compliance with Title IX.

http://www.now.org/issues/title_ix/