Title IX · Episode 1 of 10 · 42 min
Life Before Title IX: When the Doors Were Bolted Shut
Before 1972, women were held to quotas at medical and law schools, offered almost no athletic scholarships, shut out by segregated want ads, and pushed out of school for pregnancy. The episode paints this ordinary machinery of exclusion, opening with a Stanford rowing scene in which women could cox in practice but not steer in competition.
Who's who
- Patsy Mink+5 more episodesHawaii congresswoman rejected by medical schools for being a woman; later wrote Title IX
Where it happens
- Stanford University, California+8 more episodesSetting of the 1969 rowing scene with women coxswains barred from competition
Timeline
- 1965The EEOC rules sex-segregated Help Wanted columns permissible under the 1964 Civil Rights Act
- August 1968After NOW protests and a lawsuit, the EEOC rules segregated job ads illegal except where sex is a genuine qualification
- 1971About 294,000 girls play high school sports, against roughly 3.7 million boys
- 1972Women earn about 7% of law degrees and 9% of medical degrees
- June 23, 1972President Nixon signs the Education Amendments of 1972; Title IX becomes law
Still debated
Exact quota figures varied by school and were often informal. Historians also ask how much of women's later gains came from Title IX versus broader cultural change, since enrollment was already rising before 1972.
