There are literally thousands of articles about Title IX floating around lately and I'm not going to claim I've read all of them.
But the following nine offer a good sampling of where we've been, where we are now, and what we still have yet to achieve.
- Kate Fagan of espnW looked back at the roots of the U.S. pro game in the 1996 Summer Olympics, sometimes called the "Title IX Olympics" for the U.S. While there's great insight about coach Tara VanDerveer's mindset and approach to those games, the primary emphasis was on the pressure placed on everyone involved with that team - from coaches to players to NBA properties - to prove to investors that "women's basketball could be a viable business in the U.S." Read more >>>
- Michel Martin of NPR's Tell Me More hosted a roundtable on Thursday that discussed the impact of Title IX both in sports and in the classroom. They not only looked back on what the landmark legislation has accomplished over the last 40 years but also what still needs to be done to truly "level the playing field". Read more >>>
- Angela Hattery of USA Today acknowledges the progress that Title IX has helped spur, but also highlighted that the law has no means by which to address forms of inequality such as race, class, sexuality that intersect with gender. She points to both the race of the top coaches in women's basketball and the distribution of scholarships across women's sports as evidence of racial disparities. Read more >>>
- Maureen Hayden of CNHI News Service reports on the Ithaca College men's rugby team, which won a NCAA Division III club championship with Annemarie Farrell as coach. Farrell suggests that the male college athletes who have grown up in the post-Title IX era are so used to seeing women play sports that they, "...really don't care about the gender of the person with the whistle." Read more >>>
- Alex Friedich of Minnesota Public Radio took a balanced look at the development of Title IX over the last 40 years, including both the narratives of high school athletes and the critiques of the American Sports Council. He concludes the feature (with audio) with the fact that "more than half of women's college sports teams have male coaches." Read more >>>
- Paul Woody of the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports on a recent camp that 1999 World Cup champions Mia Hamm, Kristine Lilly, and Tisha Venturini Hoch help in Richmond this week with some reflections from Hamm on the impact Title IX has had on women as she turns 40 as well. Read more >>>
- Atlanta Dream coach Marynell Meadors wrote an article for the Huffington Post detailing a life in sports before and after Title IX. The synopsis: "Any sport a young woman wants to play, there's an opportunity somewhere for her to play it. Our players with the Dream would think I was from Venus if I started telling them about how it was at the very beginning, because they don't know. They've always grown up with the opportunities." Read more >>>
- The National Coalition for Women and Girls in Education (NCWGE) hosted a Hill briefing about Title IX on Wednesday. They have also released a report entitled, "Title IX at 40: Working to Ensure Gender Equity in Education", which specifically debunks myths about Title IX requirements for athletics and also offers specific recommendations on how the law can be better used to end sexual harassment; close the achievement gap in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM); tackle occupational segregation; and help pregnant students and those who have children." Read more (.pdf) >>>
- The National Women's Law Center had a Title IX blog carnival yesterday - which we'll revisit in more depth for tomorrow - but for now they have posted a number of posts from their staff as well as other bloggers around the web that are probably worth a read if you get a chance. Read more >>>