— One sentence 37 words long in a large education bill signed into law by President Richard Nixon on June 23, 1972 changed the face of education and sports as they were known.

“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 educational program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.”

Equal Rights activist Jackie Hillyer, who had served as local president for the National Organization for Women and has long been an educator in Buckeye Local Schools, serving first as a teacher and most recently as school board president, has been front and center in the fight for gender equity for more than 40 years.

“Nixon was president,” Hillyer said. “Looking back, he wasn’t the worst president for these kinds of equality-type laws, but there was a political group out there that thought the world would end and Western civilization would crash to a halt if women got out of the house.

“They were too embarrassed to say women shouldn’t go to college or say that they shouldn’t play basketball. They put the bar out a little ways, but they were not much in favor of women going to college.

“Family values is about keeping women in their roles in the homes.”  

To this day, Hillyer holds passionate views on the subject.

“She was my softball coach,” Laura Silvieus, who was one of the first two women in the country to receive a full athletic scholarship and played on the Edgewood High School softball teams Hillyer coached, said. “She is a remarkable person.

“I don’t think she gets the credit she deserves. She really didn’t know much about softball. I don’t think she ever played. She was very selfless. She put herself out there and was our coach. Who knows if anybody would have stepped up and given us that opportunity?”

“More people like her and the people at the University of Chicago who made things available for me should get more credit for the movement,” Silvieus said.



A different time

Before Title IX, good educational opportunities for women were rare. Very few female students were admitted to the most prestigious academic institutions in the country. It was not uncommon for schools such as Stanford, Princeton, Harvard and Yale to have only a handful of female students in any given graduating class.

“Girls were held to higher academic standards than boys at the academic elite colleges,” Hillyer said. “That’s one of the reasons very few women were lawyers or doctors. First of all, it was discussed that women couldn’t take a man’s position because the men needed those jobs.

“On the second hand, boys had so many better opportunities in academics.”

Hillyer can cite an anecdote that speaks to exactly what women had to overcome.

“(Supreme Court Justice) Sandra Day O’Connor got into Stanford with extremely high credentials,” Hillyer said. “She graduated third behind Chief Justice William Rehnquist. She was out looking for jobs and the only thing offered to her was as a legal secretary. You don’t even have to be a college graduate to be a legal secretary.

“So she went into public law and finally worked her way up through the judicial system because she get into the private sector (as a lawyer).

“That just goes to show you the importance of Title IX. When you’re wasting half of your intelligence, it can’t be a good thing.”

The powers behind Title IX were looking to correct injustices such as those.

“We had no idea,” Bernice “Bunny” Sandler, who helped draft the legislation and now works as a senior scholar for the Women’s Research and Education Institute in Washington, D.C., told ESPNW. “We had no idea how bad the situation really was — we didn’t even use the word sex discrimination back then — and we certainly had no sense of the revolution we were about to start.”



Changes

Forty years ago, girls were far behind boys when it came to the maths and sciences. Much of the reason for that was the lack of educational opportunities for girls. It is commonly believed that still holds true.

Hillyer disagrees.

“I work with the Ohio Graduation Tests,” Hillyer said. “We find that, statistically, girls do as well as boys. There’s not much of a statistical difference. Girls are still a little ahead in reading and social studies. But they have pretty much closed the gaps in math and science. That’s a big victory for Title IX.”

There have been other advancements, as well.

“Sixty percent of college students are female and women make up 42 percent of full-time faculties at colleges,” Hillyer said. “Part of that (60 percent) is that males are more likely to go into the military (than females). They’re also more likely to find good technical jobs.”  



Athletically speaking

Title IX was in no part designed with sports or athletic opportunities in mind. The word sports or athletics is not one of those 37 words signed into law, though in the 40 years since it became, the two have become synonymous.  

“Initially, it wasn’t geared towards athletics,” Hillyer said. “It doesn’t even mention athletics. It doesn’t say anything about sports.

“But almost immediately, it was interpreted that girls would have athletic opportunities.”

Sports were the last thing on Sandler, a congresswoman from Maryland, Rep. Edith Green of Oregon, Rep. Patsy Mink of Hawaii or Senator Birch Bayh of Indiana’s minds as they pushed to pass Title IX in the early 1970s.  

“The only thought I gave to sports when the bill was passed was, ‘Oh, maybe now when a school holds its field day, there will be more activities for the girls,’” Sandler said.

The impact of Title IX was far greater than adding activities at a field day.

The number of girls playing high school sports jumped from 294,015 in 1971-72 to 3,172,637 in 2009-10, an increase of 1,079 percent. In comparison, the number of male high school athletes grew from 3,666,917 to 4,455,740 during that same period, an increase of 22 percent. The number of women playing varsity sports in college rose from 29,972 in 1971-72 to 186,460 in 2009-10, a 622-percent spike that still leaves them behind the total of NCAA male athletes, whose numbers grew from 170,384 to 249,307 (46 percent) in that time frame.

“We’ve come a long way,” Hillyer said. “Back when Title IX was signed in to law, there were 300,000 girl athletes. That was eight percent of the total athletes. Now, it’s at 31 percent or about three million. Three million girls are now getting something I find very important in their physical development that they didn’t have (40 years ago).

“Sports are something they can keep up with well into middle age. It’s healthy for them. It’s good for them psychologically and mentally. It builds their self confidence. They get good at teamwork. They know how to work together better. Those are all things they are learning through sports.”

And there is another great benefit.

“I have found that girls who are athletes are much less likely to be victims of abuse.”

And the best part of Title IX and girls gaining more opportunities educationally and athletically?

“During (the last 40 years), boys participation has also increased. It’s been a win-win for everybody. Nobody has lost because of Title IX. It’s not a zero-sum game. One side gaining opportunities doesn’t mean one side is losing them. It’s not as if one side gains something so the other side loses something. Everybody can share the opportunities and benefits.”

Hillyer remembers a very important moment in the history of Title IX.

“I think it was 1984 at the Los Angeles Olympics,” she said. “Joan Benoit came through the stadium (following the first Olympic marathon for women). She was just about to drop. She could barely move and she grabbed a flag and made a full lap around the stadium.

“Something just snapped for people. It was so emotionally charged, it sort of signaled this indomitable spirit that you couldn’t stop.”

There were other moments, as well, that had very little to do with sports.

“Geraldine Ferraro ran for vice president,” Hillyer said. “Though they lost by a wide margin, it was a signal things were changing.”     



A way to go

In the last 40 years, Title IX has served its purpose well. There is little debate that more opportunities for women and exist in and outside the sports arena. That doesn’t mean, however, that everything is perfect. Some colleges and thousands of high schools around the country are still not in total compliance.

“I was inside in the fight for Title IX from the very beginning,” Hillyer said. “I tried to explain to folks, ADs and so forth that Title IX was a law and it had to be followed, that they couldn’t do things to minimally offer opportunities.

“None of them are in total compliance (even now). In the last 10 years, there’s not been much in the way of improvement. Most schools don’t have girls golf. That’s a violation there. And most don’t have another sport (for girls) in the winter (to rival wrestling for the boys).”

As Hillyer sees it, there are a myriad of small ways schools can improve on equality for women in sports.

“The point is, we can do better at a lot of things,” she said. “Going all the way back, they promoted boys sports with cheerleaders, pep bands and snack shacks. That’s what brought people in. If you have them for the boys, you should have them for the girls, also.

“A lot of that gets ignored (when it comes to the girls). They don’t seem to get that end of it and wonder why no one’s coming in for girls sports.

“It’s not really there in a fair capacity. In that sense, things haven’t been set up (for the girls). Fans don’t come in and hear the band. The band isn’t there because it’s a girls program.”

Hillyer understands the root of the problem.

“It’s not that they are not good people,” she said. “It’s just kind of always been that way. It doesn’t occur to anybody that it isn’t fair.

“When girls sports started it was low key. They wanted to see if the law was going to work out. Well, it did work out.”

What many forget is that Title IX is not just a guideline. It is far more.

“I bring up the fact that it’s a law,” Hillyer said. “People will say they’ve never (promoted a girls sports like they the boys’). I say laws change, we have to change, too.

“They’ve been ignoring those aspects of the law so long. They don’t understand why the gate (for girls events) is not as good. They don’t understand they’re not promoting it. They need to look at those things.”

Along those lines, gender equity in sports has not been achieved in a lot of ways. For example, if boys teams play on the weekend, there has to be an equal number of weekend dates for girls teams (at each school). For years, girls basketball teams in the area played on Mondays and Wednesdays while the boys played on Tuesdays and Fridays.

With the boys playing on Friday nights, under Title IX, the girls are entitled to play on Saturday nights. Many schools locally still do not adhere to that part of the law.

“They need to look at those things,” Hillyer said.

One local league has taken a look at those things and has reacted accordingly.

“Maybe it’s the (Chagrin Valley Conference),” Hillyer said. “They’re one that tried to mix it up.”

The CVC does in fact mix it up. During basketball season, for part of the season, the boys play on Fridays and the girls play on Saturdays. Midway through the year, they trade nights.

Overall, though, there is still ground that needs covered.

“I do think they have to work out the finer points,” Hillyer said. “They can’t think it’s OK to leave things as they are or try and count something that’s not a sport when they can’t come up with a good solution.

“Some ADs try to count cheerleading and it’s not an interscholastic competition. There’s no state tournament (sanctioned by the OHSAA). And on top of that, it should be available to both boys and girls.”         



Equality on a different front

Going deeper than gender, Hillyer also sees greater injustices to not only girls, but boys, as well.

“A lot of schools have cut freshmen teams,” she said. “That affects both boys and girls. It’s not a violation of Title IX, but it’s costly in the future. The caliber of the teams is affected.

“And it’s just not good for the kids. A lot of them play a lot (with the freshmen teams) and a lot of them get great experience, but it’s an economic move.”

As an educator, Hillyer understands that extracurricular activities are secondary to education. But she also believes a good extracurricular program can be beneficial.

“I believe extracurriculars are a huge part of a kid’s development,” she said. “The primary reason we’re here is academics. Extracurriculars are being pared away.

“Most schools are going to pay to participate. That has less to do with Title IX, but has its own issues unless you do it fairly because then it becomes who can afford to play. It’s another level of unfairness, it’s just regarding income (and not gender).”

Buckeye Local Schools has some measures in place to help with the fairness issue, at least at Braden Junior High.

“At Buckeye, we allow seventh and eighth graders who are on free or reduced lunch to participate for free or a reduced amount,” she said. “Then, when they’re older, they can earn money in the summer (to help their parents pay for the costs).”

But Hillyer doesn’t like the practice of asking athletes or members of the band to pay to take part in their activities.

“I really have a problem with it because its based on money,” Hillyer said. “Twenty-five dollars, $50 or $100 is a lot of money to a lot of folks. Parents of a young one might say, ‘Maybe next year when we have a little more money.’

“But that year is gone. (Not playing that year) might affect the kid’s ability to get on the team in the future.

“Opportunities based on the ability to pay gets to be real risky business unless there is some system to use that puts everything on a level plane.”          



In closing

There’s little debate that Title IX has been good to women. It surely has lived up to and exceeded the expectations for what it was supposed to do. Surely, without Title IX, there would be no WNBA, the 1999 Women’s World Cup victory by Team USA would never have happened and millions of girls would not have attended college on athletic scholarships.

“There are frustrations we deal with from day to day,” Hillyer said. “But we know the path is headed in the right direction. So many girls have benefited from it in so many different ways.”

Ettinger is a freelance writer from Ashtabula.

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