Anna Laura and Title IX at Year 40

At the after-school program I work at in Westchester, I work with a 6-year-old spitfire named Anna Laura. Among the many games we play, she displays no fear in running into the corners against boys twice her size in the make shift game of indoor hockey that we play. “She doesn’t get intimidated,” says 11-year-old Stephen Mains. But had she grown up in an age minus Title IX, it’s not just her athletic acumen that would be in jeopardy.

In a speech at Dartmouth recently, U.S. Gold Medal Soccer player Julie Foudy made an equitable comparison to Anna’s corners and extrapolated the impact outside the lines. “Learning how to give a speech before hundreds of thousands of people,” said Foudy, “it’s ok. I can do this, because I’ve already done it on the field.”

Sports builds strong futures for boys and girls alike.

A little closer to the air the rest of us breathe, the leadership skills Foudy developed over a sport’s life helped create a culture of hard work, team spirit, and goal setting. It’s also safe to say, no athlete in their own personal learning ever needs to leave such things on the field.

Otherwise, Ana Laura is mostly unencumbered by many of the trivialities of her peers and always has a smile on her face. While probably just part of her make up, it certainly doesn’t hurt that she loves to get out there and give it everything she’s got.

A trait her two older brothers have always encouraged. But for girls less lucky, the possibility that this inclination would remain uncovered was far greater in 1973 when only 300,000 girls participated in high school sports. Now reaching 3.1 million, economist Betsy Stevenson of the Wharton School at UPenn has done a state by state study to put actual numbers on what that little smile and big tenacity means.

Insightful Senator paves the way in 1972.

She found participation led to a 20 percent increase in women’s education and a 40 percent rise in employment for women aged 25-34. Apparently having a very good sense of how significant Title IX would be, Senator Birch Bayh of Indiana give the proposal its proper due when it was included as part of the 1972 Education Reform Bill.

Insightfully, she kept it all relatively quiet. Floating the 36 word clause as a hiring and employment measure, she made sure no one lobbied for it. “If we lobby, people will ask questions about the bill, and they will find out what it would really do,” Bayh revealed in the documentary, Sporting Chance.

Thus sneaking its way to Nixon’s desk, the impact didn’t become immediately clear. That is until the government published rules that gave colleges three years to comply with the gender equality provision of the overall act.

Change requires more than law.

Of course, the establishment of law didn’t necessarily create change. But luckily there were already women athletes exercising leadership that outpaced the old order. At Yale, for instance, the women’s rowing team did not have showers like the men. They’d get on the bus overheated from practice, and without a shower to refresh, a cold too often awaited them.

They knew only naked protest would do, according to Ginny Gilder of the 1976 team. Descending on an administrator’s office, she told NPR, “We all turned around, took off our clothes, and just stood there.”

The rowing team got its showers, and the message went out loud and clear to other schools.

Nonetheless, the success of Title IX has made many unaware of even its very existence. In turn, too many young people are left thinking that women’s sports are a given. Jackie Joyner-Kersee believes that’s a dangerous form of ignorance. She told Atlantic Magazine it’s up to young women to take the baton so Title IX is not repealed or amended.

Anna Laura—for one—has what it takes. But she’ll definitely need others to take her lead while she’s busy here showing the boys.

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