Title IX a great success story

Ice hockey, basketball, softball – all great sports, all enjoyed by women throughout the U.S., and all have grown thanks to Title IX. The law is almost 40 years old and its successes are evident in almost every high school and college in Minnesota and the nation. 

Title IX requires schools and colleges receiving federal money to provide the same opportunities for girls as they do for boys. The effects in high school were remarkable. Just six years after the 1972 enactment of Title IX, the percentage of girls playing team sports had jumped from about 4 percent to 25 percent. One expert put the number of pre-Title IX women in high school athletics at 1 in 27, as opposed to today’s 1 in 3.

The benefits of Title IX are not to be dismissed. Betsey Stevenson, an economist at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, examined Title IX and found that “the estimates on the returns to sports suggest that sports may be as important as more traditional education policy questions such as class size or other aspects of curriculum.” She found that changes set in motion by Title IX explained about 40 percent of the rise in employment for 25-to-34-year-old women.

“It’s not just that the people who are going to do well in life play sports, but that sports help people do better in life,” she told the New York Times, adding, “While I only show this for girls, it’s reasonable to believe it’s true for boys as well.”

This is a position understood well by Barb Beise, the Assistant Athletics Director at Wayzata High School. Beise is a direct product of Title IX. She played volleyball, basketball and softball in high school, and then basketball and softball at Concordia College in St. Paul. She went on to coach junior varsity softball at Central Park High School for a year before moving to Cretin-Derham Hall High School to coach various levels of volleyball, basketball and softball. While at Cretin-Derham Hall she earned her master’s degree and, 14 years ago, took the job as assistant athletic director at Wayzata High.

She agrees with Stevenson that being active in sports helps girls develop qualities that help them later in life.

“A lot of these kids, they know they’re not going to be varsity starters or going to play in college, but just being on a team and contributing gives them confidence to go on to college and to succeed afterwards,” she said.

Stephanie Schleuder remembers what women’s sports were like before Title IX. She remembers girls teams practicing when the boys JV decided to get off the court, when they bought their own uniforms and drove themselves to away games.

A product of Richfield High School and the University of Minnesota-Duluth, Schleuder was volleyball coach at the University of Alabama during the 1970s, at the University of Minnesota from 1981 to 1995, and at Macalester College from 1995 until this January when she retired.

She said women’s athletics have opened doors, not only because of the increased number of athletic scholarships offered to women, but also because employers see the benefits of a background in athletics. “They believe they have the intangibles,” she said. “They’re more confident, more resilient, used to failure and competition, better team players. Almost all the women in President Obama’s Cabinet competed in collegiate athletics.”

Keeping Title IX on track has not always been easy, Schleuder said, especially when non-revenue men’s sports see scarce resources being used for women’s athletics. It’s important to remain vigilant, she said.

Title IX has been a success because it empowered a long-neglected portion of American students. For the United States, and more importantly Minnesota, to continue to have a viable workforce in the 21st century, we need all students to be educated to the best of their abilities. Athletics allows us to do this. Title IX must continue and must remain healthy.