the magazine of
spring/summer 2012 vol 106 | no 2
Title IX
Turns 40
changing women’s lives
the magazine of
spring/summer 2012 vol 106 | no 2
Carolyn H. Garfein
President, AAUW
Linda D. Hallman, CAE
Executive Director
Jill Birdwhistell, PhD
Chief of Strategic Advancement
Cynthia Miller
Chief of Marketing & Communications
Rebecca Lanning
Director of Publications
Elizabeth Bolton
AAUW Managing Editor
Mukti Desai
Art Director
Hannah Moulton Belec
Outlook Editor
Allison VanKanegan
Designer
Emily Long
Editorial Assistant
Breaking through barriers
AAUW advances equity for women and girls
through advocacy, education, philanthropy, and
research. AAUW, founded in 1881, is open to all
graduates who hold an associate or higher degree
from a regionally accredited college or university.
In principle and in practice, AAUW values and
seeks a diverse membership. There shall be no
barriers to full participation in this organization
on the basis of gender, race, creed, age, sexual
orientation, national origin, disability, or class.
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what you’re saying
Although I enjoy the articles
and information in Outlook, I
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paper they’re printed on. It
would be great if AAUW could
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even be happy to get it
electronically.
Julie Carpenter
Editor’s note: We’re happy to report
that members can read Outlook
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Sexual harassment—well,
before you ask your members
to stop this, maybe you will
figure out how to stop crude,
rude actions and language on
the campaign trail, sitcoms,
the news media, and entertainment news. Then, schools
will be safe, calm, controlled,
polite places.
Anonymous
in this
issue
on
the
cover
title IX turns 40
The proponents of Title IX of
the Education Amendments
of 1972 could never have
imagined how far this simple
anti-discrimination rule would
go to break through barriers
for women and girls in education. In this issue of Outlook,
you’ll read about what it took
to get the law passed, what
Title IX has meant for women’s
athletics, and what the next
frontier for enforcement could
be. But while we’re celebrating
40 years of a civil rights success story, we are also disappointed to report that women
are still fighting some of the
same battles that were fought
back when Title IX was signed
into law. So read on to find out
something you didn’t know
about Title IX—and how you
can make sure the law continues to help girls and women
reach their full potential.
Copyright 2012 AAUW. All rights reserved.
AAUW Outlook is available on microfilm from
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Letters may be edited for
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look for this!
Look for this symbol, and
find out more by following
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106-12 4/12
Breaking through barriers
Features
8
12
40 Years of Title IX and Athletics
Title IX ushered in a revolution in women’s sports, and we can
never go back. By Susan Ware
Title IX: Looking Back,
Moving Forward
The women who were on the front lines of the fight to pass Title IX
reflect on what has changed and what still needs to be done.
By Beth Pearsall
departments
16 Russlynn Ali: Defending Title IX
The Department of Education’s Russlynn Ali, who has the difficult
job of enforcing Title IX, candidly answers our questions about this
crucial civil rights law and its little-known applications.
By Hannah Moulton Belec
3 From the Executive Director
5 President’s Message
6 Look at Equity Issues
22 Look at Membership
24 Look at AAUW News
26 Look at Our Alumnae
28 Look at the Web
20
Fighting the Birth Control
Backlash
Women are fighting to hold on to reproductive freedoms that have
long been guaranteed. By Elizabeth Bolton
32 Look at Books
1
NATIONAL CONVENTION
JUNE 9–12, 2013
SHERATON NEW ORLEANS HOTEL
NEW ORLEANS
SUMMER
making
memories!
is for
Come to New Orleans for the 2013 AAUW National
Convention and experience the diverse culture and
history of the Big Easy. You’ll see old friends and
meet new ones, all while exploring ways to continue
breaking through barriers for women and girls.
Travel Dynamics’ Great Lakes
Voyages provide the perfect opportunity
for grandparents and grandchildren to
share an adventure together. Explore
the exquisite shorelines of Lake St. Clair,
Lake Huron, Lake Superior, and Lake
Michigan in a seven- or 12-day cruise
aboard the American-flagged ship
Yorktown.
Travel Dynamics is proud to have been
selected as an official AAUW travel
partner.
Ask about our Anniversary of 1812 cruise
for AAUW members, and see our special,
AAUW-exclusive rates for young people
traveling with their families!
Dates
June 30–July 7, 2012
July 21–August 1, 2012
Contact
212/517-7555 or 800/257-5756
Breaking through Barriers
from the executive director
Title IX at 40
In 1972, a simple law passed. It said, “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 education
program or activity receiving federal financial assistance.”
AAUW members
play a vital role in
enforcing Title IX.
On June 23, we’ll mark the 40th anniversary of Title IX being signed into
law. By prohibiting sex discrimination
in education, Title IX has reshaped
our country by dramatically expanding opportunities for women and girls.
We’ve made tremendous gains over the
last four decades thanks to those 37
words. As you’ll read on page 12, many
of the most overt examples of sex discrimination disappeared within a few
years after Title IX was passed.
Yet, after 40 years, the misconceptions about Title IX abound. A
common one is that it only applies to
sports. Title IX simply mandates that
male and female students are treated
equitably in all educational opportunities. Although the law never mentions
the word “athletics,” most people do
associate Title IX with the revolutionary ripple effect it has had on women’s
sports, which you can read about on
page 8.
But the law has many other applications, ones that AAUW is already
heavily invested in—such as prevent-
ing sexual harassment and increasing
women’s and girls’ opportunities in science, technology, engineering, and math
(STEM). Although women make up
the majority of college students, they
are far less likely than their male peers
to plan to major in a STEM field and
are far less likely to enter those career
fields. Both of these issues are Title IX
enforcement concerns.
Although the law has been an
unmitigated success for women’s and
girls’ access to some educational opportunities, there is clearly more work to
be done. As you’ll read in our interview
with the Department of Education’s
Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights
Russlynn Ali (page 16), AAUW as an
organization and you as members play
vital roles in enforcing civil rights laws
in your communities.
AAUW is proud to have fought
for Title IX, and I am committed to
continue fighting for the law to make
sure its promises to women and girls are
kept. I hope you’ll join me.
Linda D. Hallman, CAE
AAUW Executive Director
www.aauw.org spring/summer 2012
aauw | outlook
3
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President’s Message
Fighting the Same Battles,
40 Years Later
In this issue of Outlook, you’ll read about one of the most important
victories in civil rights legislation—Title IX, which turns 40 this year.
But even as we look back, we also need to look forward to the challenges that we’re facing in this election year, as young women now have
to fight for the same rights that their foremothers fought for back in
the ’70s.
Issues of great
importance to
women and their
families are being
debated this
election year.
In this election year, issues of great
importance to women and their families loom very large on the public stage.
The economy, the persistent gender pay
gap, access to health care and protection of reproductive rights, sexual violence in the media and in personal lives,
educational quality and opportunity, the
geopolitical status of women, the pace
and impact of ecological change—all
these issues are being hotly debated
this year, right now. And the way our
society responds will affect us all.
Yet we are observing an ironic
dichotomy among younger women.
While some are passionate and outspoken activists on these issues, voter surveys report that many younger women
are frustrated and disillusioned with the
political process. Those who were loud
and proud about their votes in the 2008
elections now claim that “the system” is
too deadlocked for their votes to matter or that they don’t see these issues as
personally relevant. And most disheartening, these surveys show that many
young women who are just coming of
age to vote don’t plan to do so.
Youthful idealism has always fueled
energetic new leadership, and we need
our young women to step up and lead.
This is why AAUW has launched a new
nationwide campaign, It’s My Vote: I
Will Be Heard. We want to hear from
those millennial women at the polls.
The article on page 20 in this issue of
Outlook describes some of the issues
that young women have been rallying
around lately in what has been dubbed
the “war on women.” Disturbingly,
as we celebrate the 40th anniversary
of Title IX, young women are finding themselves fighting for rights that
women activists thought we secured
long ago.
I hope you’ll read on and reflect
on how far we’ve come and how far we
have yet to go. With your help, we can
maintain our past legislative victories
and make our get-out-the-vote effort a
huge success.
Carolyn H. Garfein
AAUW President
www.aauw.org spring/summer 2012
aauw | outlook
5
look at Equity Issues
Mansourian Title IX
Case Settles
Nearly a
decade later, a
Title IX victory
ourvote.tumblr.com
AAUW’s new Tumblr page
features testimonials
and updates on our It’s My Vote:
I Will Be Heard campaign.
Former University of California, Davis, wrestlers Arezou Mansourian, Christine Ng, and
Lauren Mancuso announced in February that
they had reached an agreement to settle their
lawsuit against the university. The plaintiffs
filed suit in 2003 against the Regents of the
University of California for sex discrimination
in violation of Title IX. The women claimed
that the school failed to provide them with
equal athletic participation opportunity,
didn’t offer equal athletic financial assistance,
and retaliated against them for complaining
about sex discrimination.
In August 2011, a district court found
that the university violated Title IX by not
sufficiently expanding intercollegiate athletic opportunities for female students. The
court was going to start assessing damages in
March 2012, but the parties chose instead to
resolve all remaining issues with payment by
the university of $1.35 million to the plaintiffs’
counsel for attorneys’ fees and costs incurred
during the lengthy case. The AAUW Legal
Advocacy Fund supported the plaintiffs in
this case and commended the settlement.
@itsmyvote
Are you on Twitter? If so, make
sure you follow the official It’s
My Vote: I Will Be Heard Twitter
account for get-out-the-vote
updates.
Supreme Court
won’t Hear James
Madison Case
The U.S. Supreme Court will
not hear an appeal challenging the dismissal of Equity
in Athletics v. Department of
Education, in which Equity
in Athletics alleged that the
elimination of several men’s
athletic teams at James Madison University in Harrisonburg,
Virginia, was a violation of
Title IX. The suit included a
challenge to the Department
of Education’s three-part Title
IX compliance test. AAUW and
two other equity organizations
filed an amicus brief asking
the court to reject Equity in
Athletics’ claim, saying that
the group fundamentally misconstrued the nature of the
compliance test and aimed to
weaken Title IX.
Indiana Title IX Case
to Go to Trial
In February, the U.S. Court
of Appeals for the 7th Circuit
ruled in favor of female athletes in a case against an Indiana school district. The suit
alleges that the district forced
the girls’ basketball teams to
play on weeknights while the
boys’ teams played on Friday
and Saturday nights, a schedule that was unfair to girls
because it made homework a
challenge and attracted fewer
spectators. The circuit court
found that Parker v. Franklin
County Community School
Corporation could proceed to
trial, reversing a lower court’s
judgment. The AAUW Legal
Advocacy Fund is providing
financial support to the case.
On February 1, the Women’s National Basketball Association celebrated
the 26th annual National Girls and Women in Sports Day. This year’s
celebration also recognized the 40th anniversary of Title IX, the landmark legislation that bans sex discrimination in schools.
6
aauw | outlook
www.aauw.org spring/summer 2012
Komen Cuts Then Restores
Planned Parenthood Funding
Following a national uproar that
included AAUW severing ties with
Global Race for the Cure and a
strongly worded letter from 26 U.S.
senators, Susan G. Komen for the Cure
announced in February that it would
restore funding to Planned Parenthood
for cancer screenings. A few days earlier,
the Komen foundation had unveiled
a new policy eliminating funding for
organizations that are under government
investigation. A House of Representatives committee has been investigating Planned Parenthood’s compliance
with federal restrictions on abortions,
although many believe that the investigation is politically motivated. Planned
Parenthood and several other women’s
organizations said that the funding
cutoff resulted from new anti-choice
leadership at Komen and pressure from
anti-choice activists.
Wal-Mart Class-Action Suit
Filed in Texas
Current and former female Wal-Mart
employees continued their discrimination lawsuit against the company in
January when they filed an amended
complaint in the U.S. District Court for
Northern Texas. The case, Odle v. WalMart, represents a regional effort to take
on the retail giant after the U.S. Supreme
Court’s June ruling in Wal-Mart v. Dukes
broke up the large national class-action
group. The first regional complaint,
Dukes v. Wal-Mart, was filed in California in October. The complaint in Texas
alleges widespread denial of equal pay
In January, Komen announced it would cut funding for cancer screenings at
Planned Parenthood.
and access to management promotions
for female employees. AAUW provided
monetary and moral support to the
national Wal-Mart v. Dukes case and
continues to support the regional cases.
Find out how your senators and representatives voted on women’s issues
by checking out the new AAUW Action Fund Congressional Voting Record. Visit
www.aauwaction.org to download the record, which includes a poster for our
get-out-the-vote effort, It’s My Vote: I Will Be Heard.
www.aauw.org spring/summer 2012
aauw | outlook
7
40 Years of Title IX
and Athletics
By Susan Ware
8
aauw | outlook
The law that has become synonymous with women’s
sports was never meant to address inequality on that
kind of playing field. How did sports become Title IX’s
best-known legacy, and how has the law changed
women’s opportunities?
www.aauw.org spring/summer 2012
The issue of athletics
hijacked Title IX, diverting
attention and energy away
from the general issues of
discrimination in education.
Title IX has been called “the biggest
thing to happen to sports since the
invention of the whistle,”1 but that
outcome was not on President Richard
Nixon’s mind when he signed the Education Amendments Act into law on
June 23, 1972. Even though the words
Title IX have become synonymous with
women’s sports, at the time no one
had a clue that its most wide-ranging
impact would be on athletics. How did
this happen, and so quickly? The simple
answer is that a group of actors inside
and outside the government followed
the implications of the law to its logical
conclusion: that some of the most glaring inequities in higher education were
in the field of athletics and that, legally,
they must be addressed.
The events leading up to Title IX’s
passage in 1972 (see page 12) and the
struggle ever since to figure out how
to implement the law fairly demonstrate how athletics became part of the
broader political and cultural struggles
of contemporary American life. Athletics, once viewed as a privilege exclusively for boys, is now seen as a part of
school life that girls are expected and
often encouraged to participate in.
Title IX also confirms the difficulties—
and the rewards—of putting abstract
principles like equal opportunity and
gender equity into concrete, everyday
practice.
As bureaucrats in Washington tried
to figure out how to implement the
law, those with a vested interest in the
sports status quo—like many football
coaches and some of the male leaders of the NCAA—made it sound like
the world would end if women were
allowed to share in sports dollars alongside men.2 Their vocal opposition reinforces a key historical point about the
early days of Title IX: The controversy
over athletics drew a lot of attention to
this law.
In some ways, the issue of athletics hijacked Title IX, diverting attention and energy away from the general
issues of discrimination in education
that were its initial focus. But the controversy about the law’s impact on athletics had a positive effect: It brought
attention to legislation that might have
otherwise languished or been ignored.
It also created constituencies, pro and
con, who were deeply invested in the
law’s fate. More specifically, without the
publicity that athletics brought to Title
IX starting around 1974–75, the law
would have been far more vulnerable
to crippling amendments or possibly to
being gutted entirely. And if athletics
had been dropped from Title IX coverage, which was a real possibility in its
early days, the women’s sports revolution might not have gotten out of the
starting block so fast.
www.aauw.org spring/summer 2012
a look at the author
Susan Ware
Author and Historian
Cambridge, Massachusetts
[email protected]
aauw | outlook
9
It is hard not to be struck by the
string of unintended consequences
surrounding Title IX.
AAUW Advocates
Test Title IX Compliance in Local Schools
Title IX has done wonders for women
in sports, but having the law on the
books doesn’t mean that it will be
enforced. That’s where you come in.
You can speak up for girls and women
in your community by taking simple
steps to gauge whether your local
schools are complying with Title IX.
Visit the AAUW website and download
the Title IX Compliance: Know the
Score Program in a Box to get started.
This program—which AAUW devel-
oped in collaboration with the Women’s Sports Foundation, the Legal
Aid Society, and the Employment
Law Center—provides step-by-step
instructions on how to test compliance over a few months. The program
also provides instructions on how to
give your feedback to the school and
how to engage your community. You
can find a webinar and other useful
links in the AAUW Legal Advocacy
Fund’s online resource library.
www.aauw.org/titleix
Test Title IX compliance in your
local high schools.
www.susanware.net
Find out more about Susan Ware’s
research and books about women’s
history.
10
aauw | outlook
www.aauw.org spring/summer 2012
Looking at the history of Title IX,
it is hard not to be struck by the string
of unintended consequences surrounding the law. For starters, lawmakers
framed the legislation as a tool to challenge sex discrimination in educational
institutions without fully grasping
what a revolutionary—and controversial—effect it would have on athletics.
Another surprise is the long-term negative effect it has had on employment
opportunities for women coaches and
administrators. In pre-Title IX days,
women made up the vast majority of
coaches in women’s sports, such as
it was, but after Title IX they found
their separate programs folded into the
men’s and their positions merged out of
existence, even though the law did not
call for this.
In a related trend, women’s teams
are now increasingly coached by men.3
There are far more women college
presidents than women athletic directors,4 which just goes to show that
while Title IX has had a huge effect on
student athletes, it has done much less
for women coaches and administrators. Maybe that is the next frontier for
women in sports.
These unintended consequences
are part of a change that didn’t happen: In the early days of Title IX,
some activists hoped that they could
chart a “purer” course, that it would
be possible to avoid the abuses and
excesses of a dominant male athletic
system defined primarily by competition, elitism, and winning at all costs.
In fact, women’s sports have not caused
any major paradigm shift in athletics.
Instead, they have generally just been
absorbed into the reigning masculine
model, with all its drawbacks and problems. This outcome poses a question
familiar to anyone who has ever taken a
women’s studies course: Does equality
have to mean sameness, especially if it
means conforming to a male model?
One of the biggest unintended
consequences of Title IX is that women
athletes can now expect that they will
have access to sports. Girls and many
women today have lived their entire
lives in a post-Title IX world of opportunities, a huge difference from women
just 30 or 40 years their senior. In some
ways, Title IX lets everyone off the
hook, because it makes it seem like
the problem has been solved. Lost in
the celebration is the other half of the
equation: that Title IX, and by extension, all of women’s sports, are a work
in progress and that there is still much,
much more to be done before we truly
reach gender parity—in sports and in
all aspects of American life.
So what does Title IX’s early history tell us about its future? Most likely,
the next decade will see slow, contested, but steady progress as schools
and institutions, either voluntarily or
under threat of law, grapple with what
gender equity means on the playing
field and in the classroom. Still, there
will always be more to do. Listen to
the hard-won perspective of Bernice
Sandler, one of the earliest proponents
of Title IX, recalling how naive she
was back in the 1970s: “I believed that
if we passed Title IX it would only
take a year or two for all the inequities
based on sex to be eliminated. After
two years, I upped my estimate to five
years, then to 10, then to 25, until I
realized that we were trying to change
very strong patterns of behavior and
belief and that changes would take
more than my lifetime to accomplish.”5
But even if we’re in it for the long
haul, there is no way that the women’s
sports revolution will disappear and
the country will return to pre-Title
IX days—at least as long as we are
vigilant. The changes since the 1970s
have meant too much to individual
girls and women (as well as supportive
men and boys) and have been absorbed
too deeply into the fabric of modern
American life to simply go away. The
women’s sports revolution is here to
stay, and Title IX played a fundamental
role in that transformation. Happy
birthday, Title IX!
Notes 1. Festle, Mary Jo. (1996). Playing nice: Politics and
apologies in women’s sports. New York: Columbia University
Press. p. 113. 2. Ware, Susan. (2011). Game, set, match: Billie Jean
King and the revolution in women’s sports. Chapel Hill: University
of North Carolina Press. pp. 56–57. 3. Carpenter, Linda Jean,
and Acosta, R. Vivian. (2004). Title IX. Champaign, Illinois:
Human Kinetics. pp. 173–75. 4. Ibid. 5. Sandler, Bernice R.
(1977). Too strong for a woman—The five words that created
Title IX. About women on campus. National Association for
Women in Education, p. 5.
Susan Ware is an independent scholar who specializes
in 20th-century U.S. history, women’s history, and biography. Her publications include Game, Set, Match:
Billie Jean King and the Revolution in Women’s
Sports (2011; see the review on page 32) and Title IX:
A Brief History with Documents (2007).
www.aauw.org spring/summer 2012
aauw | outlook
11
Title IX: Looking
Back, Moving
Forward
By Beth Pearsall
photo © JP Laffont/Sygma/CORBIS
12
aauw | outlook
After Title IX was signed into law in 1972, activist Bernice
Sandler says that many of the most blatant forms of discrimination against women disappeared within a few years. But
despite reaping Title IX’s rewards for the past four decades,
Americans are finding that even this landmark law isn’t
enough.
www.aauw.org spring/summer 2012
Title IX forever changed
the landscape of the
American education system.
“You come on too strong for a woman.”
That’s what Bernice Sandler was told
in 1969 after she was passed up for a
faculty position at the University of
Maryland despite her excellent qualifications. In the months following, she
received similar rejections and heard
things like “You’re not really a professional, just a housewife who went back
to school.”
Sadly, experiences like Sandler’s
were all too common for women in the
late 1960s, when sex discrimination
ran rampant on campuses across the
country and when women were newly
organizing to resist. Schools at all levels
restricted the participation of women
and girls. For example, many colleges
and professional schools had tougher
admissions criteria for female students
and quotas that limited the number
of women who could attend. Others
excluded women outright.1
In high schools, girls were routinely
denied the opportunity to take shop
and manufacturing classes; instead,
they were offered classes on how to
cook and sew. Female athletic programs
generally emphasized cheerleading.
Career opportunities in the education
field for women like Sandler were concentrated in elementary and secondary
school classrooms. The few who did
work in higher education were primarily in institutions that served women.2
And all of these policies and practices—though discriminatory and
unfair—were perfectly legal.
Title IX Changed Everything
Enter Title IX of the Education
Amendments of 1972, the federal statute prohibiting sex discrimination in
education programs and activities that
receive federal financial assistance,
which includes all public K–12 schools
and virtually all colleges and universities. This federal mandate—a mere
37 words long—opened long-closed
doors for women and girls in academics
and athletics and forever changed the
landscape of the American education
system.
“Title IX was an enormous victory,”
says Sandler, who has been dubbed
the “godmother of Title IX” for her
integral role in exposing discrimination
against women in higher education,
leading to the creation and passage of
Title IX. At a time when no federal
laws prohibited sex discrimination
in education, Sandler filed the first
charges against more than 250 institutions under an executive order prohibiting contractors from discriminating in
employment. Her work documenting
campus discrimination convinced Rep.
Edith Green (D-OR) to introduce legislation that eventually became Title IX.
“Many of the official policies and
practices that overtly treated men and
women differently were immediately
abolished after the law was passed,”
Sandler notes. Title IX meant that colleges and universities could no longer
have separate admissions criteria and
quotas for women. It meant that boys
www.aauw.org spring/summer 2012
a look at the author
Beth Pearsall
Freelance Writer
San Diego, California
[email protected]
aauw | outlook
13
“I hope that in 20 years things have
vastly improved and Title IX is not
needed in an active, everyday kind
of way.”
—Gwendolyn Mink
AAUW Makes History
AAUW’s Fight for Title IX
AAUW played a critical role in getting this revolutionary law passed
and enforced. Here is a sample of our
work during this pivotal time in our
nation’s history:
• In 1970, AAUW issued a research
report on the status of women in
academia. Campus 1970: Where Do
Women Stand? found that at every
level—student body, administration, faculty, and trustees—women
were underrepresented or placed in
positions with little decision-making
power. This was particularly true in
large public institutions.
• As an outgrowth of the Campus
1970 report, AAUW created standards
for achieving sex equity on campus.
In 1972, AAUW sent its Standards
for Women in Higher Education to the
presidents of all accredited four-year
colleges.
• In 1974, AAUW submitted a statement to the secretary of Health, Edu-
cation, and Welfare voicing concerns
over several of the proposed regulations for Title IX.
• Once the regulations were passed,
AAUW launched the Monitoring
Title IX Project. Between 1976 and
1978, branch members visited local
elementary and secondary schools,
colleges, and universities to monitor
compliance with Title IX. Members
found that the biggest problem was
bringing athletic and physical education programs into compliance. The
project also uncovered a lack of commitment, inadequate funding, and a
failure to meet deadlines in institutions across the country. (For more
information about how you can help
with compliance, see the sidebar on
page 10.)
For more information on AAUW’s history on Title IX, visit AAUW’s online
museum at www.aauw.org/museum.
could register for home economics
and girls could take auto mechanics.
It meant that female athletic programs
had to expand beyond the few sports
that were offered.
“Title IX increased awareness of sex
discrimination in education and changed
the culture in schools,” says Sandler.
“Boys and girls could do the same things.
Fairness became institutional policy. This
was a huge difference.”
“The very opening of doors in
medical schools, law schools, and doctoral programs meant the opening of
opportunities,” says Gwendolyn Mink,
who has been a professor of policy for
30 years and is the daughter of the late
Rep. Patsy Mink (D-HI), the co-author,
namesake (the law’s formal title is the
Patsy T. Mink Equal Opportunity
in Education Act), and driving force
behind Title IX. “The impact has been
pretty dramatic.”
Dramatic, indeed. Women now
make up nearly 60 percent of all undergraduate and graduate students.3 They
fill 42 percent of all full-time faculty
positions at colleges and universities.4
And during the 2009–10 academic year,
41 percent of high school athletes—more
than 3 million students—were women.
This is a far cry from 1971, when only
8 percent of high school athletes were
girls.5 (For more on Title IX’s effect on
sports, see the story on page 8.)
“Discrimination takes a terrible toll
on a person,” explains Sandler. “Before
Title IX, if a woman was being discriminated against, there was nothing she
could do. Now with Title IX, she can
call it sex discrimination and cite the
law. Now there is a way for her to make
change happen. Title IX has really
increased the confidence, self-esteem,
and ambition of women.”
But There Is Still Work to Do
“Title IX remains one of the biggest
policy victories of the feminist movement,” says Mink. “Most of the obvious
barriers against women in education
were struck down when the law was
passed. It was gratifying to see the
power of the people’s legislation.”
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www.aauw.org spring/summer 2012
“But at the same time,” she
adds, “my mother, who fought many
attempts to weaken or kill Title IX’s
regulations, anticipated that the road
would be slow going and require neverending vigilance to ensure that the
regulations were enforced and not
changed—and if they were changed,
changed in the direction of strengthening them.”
“Life has improved enormously
since Title IX,” agrees Sandler. “But
there are still pockets that need significant work.”
Take athletics, for example.
According to Sandler, major areas of
noncompliance continue to exist, particularly in K–12 athletic programs.
“Male students have much greater
opportunities to participate in high
school sports,” she notes. “In fact, most
high schools across the country are violating Title IX in some way.”
Another area of concern is sexual
harassment in schools, which remains a
part of everyday life in middle and high
schools across the country. According to AAUW’s study Crossing the Line:
Sexual Harassment at School, nearly half
of students in grades 7–12 experienced
some form of sexual harassment in the
last school year.6 U.S. Supreme Court
rulings have established that sexual
harassment of students by employees—
such as teachers and coaches—and by
other students qualifies as sex discrimination in violation of Title IX.7 As a
result, schools and colleges that receive
federal funding must take steps to prevent and stop sexual harassment, sexual
assault, and other forms of sexual misconduct on their campuses.8
Mink says that much remains to be
done to create truly welcoming environments for women and girls. No doubt
colleges and universities have made significant strides since the passage of Title
IX. However, according to Mink, there
are still plenty of venues where, although
the doors are officially “open,” women
and girls are forced to adapt to longstanding institutional mores.
“We need to reeducate the academy at all levels” so that women and
girls are welcome, she says. “This
From left: Patsy Mink, daughter Gwendolyn Mink, and husband John Mink in 1964
Photo courtesy of Honolulu Star-Advertiser Library
requires overcoming stereotypes that
exist in everything from general institutional thinking to scheduling policies and practices.” Mink explains that
women experiencing cultural climates
of discrimination—rather than a single,
identifiable discriminatory policy—will
likely face the most difficult obstacles
to equity in our time.
“I hope that in 20 years things have
vastly improved and Title IX is not
needed in an active, everyday kind of
way, that it serves as a ballast for when
the odd instance of discrimination
occurs,” says Mink. “But that is not
going to happen easily. And until we
get there, Title IX must be present in
everyday campus life. Institutions must
make information available so people
know Title IX is there and available.”
Sandler recalls thinking—naively,
she admits—that it would take one
year after Title IX was passed for discrimination in education to end. “I now
know that this is going to take a little
longer, well beyond my lifetime. That’s
because Title IX is not just a law—it’s a
social revolution. It changes the fundamental relationship between men and
women, and that is not easy to do.”
www.aauw.org spring/summer 2012
Notes 1. National Coalition for Women and Girls in
Education (2002). Title IX at 30: Report card on gender equity. www.
ncwge.org/pubs-reports.html. 2. Ibid. 3. Curtis, John W. (2011).
Persistent inequity: Gender and academic employment. www.
aaup.org/AAUP/issues/women/resources.htm. 4. Ibid. 5. Scott,
Beth. Back to school with Title IX. September 23, 2011. blogaauw.org/2011/09/23/back-to-school-with-title-ix. 6. For more
information on the study, see www.aauw.org/learn/research. 7.
National Coalition for Women and Girls in Education (2008).
Title IX at 35: Beyond the headlines. www.ncwge.org/pubs-reports.
html. 8. Scott, Beth. Back to school with Title IX. September 23,
2011. blog-aauw.org/2011/09/23/back-to-school-with-title-ix.
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www.aauw.org spring | Summer 2009
Russlynn Ali:
defending
Title IX
By Hannah Moulton Belec
“There’s a new sheriff in town.” That’s how Lisa Maatz,
AAUW’s director of public policy and government relations,
introduced Russlynn Ali at the 2011 AAUW National Convention. As the Department of Education’s assistant secretary
for civil rights, Ali is the top adviser to Secretary of Education Arne Duncan on Title IX and other civil rights laws. Ali
took some time this spring to answer our questions about one
of the greatest success stories in anti-discrimination law.
How did Title IX affect your school
experiences?
I was born the year before Title IX
passed, so I had the privilege and
luxury of growing up at a time where
folks were really conscious of it and
paid attention to alleviating the inequities that Title IX sought to remedy. I
had the luxury of being able to take it
for granted, like so many of us, because
I didn’t have to fight personally for
the right to play on the brand-new,
all-girls soccer team. And I think,
across the board, athletics is where I
felt it the most. But I also grew up in
an all-female household with a single
mother, who was herself sort of busting
through lots of barriers and educating
her way to a better life for herself and
her kids. She’s also an immigrant. So, at
that time, in the ’70s, Title IX was the
manifestation of a struggle that was a
long time coming.
When people think of Title IX, they
usually think of sports. What are some
of the lesser-known applications of
the law?
The word athletics is nowhere in the
statute. Title IX is about protecting
against sex discrimination, and what
we’ve seen under this administration is
a real adherence to the spirit and the
letter of that law. That includes sexual
violence and ensuring that women are
safe while they’re on campuses and in
schools, because if they aren’t, they
can’t learn. So we’re talking about the
right to learn free from discrimination.
Although they’re hugely important,
Title IX is about a whole lot more
than athletics—for example, having
access to the rigorous courses that
students are going to need. While we
have made extraordinary progress for
girls when it comes to college enrollment and rigorous coursework gener-
www.aauw.org spring/summer 2012
a look at the author
Hannah Moulton Belec
Outlook Editor
[email protected]
left Russlynn Ali talks with President Barack
Obama in the Oval Office.
photo by pete souza
aauw | outlook
17
“The word athletics is nowhere in the
statute. Title IX is about protecting
against sex discrimination.”
AAUW Has a Seat at the Table
AAUW’s Role in Enforcing Civil Rights
According to Assistant Secretary
for Civil Rights Russlynn Ali, whose
job it is to enforce Title IX and other
civil rights education laws, AAUW is
“critical” to getting the job done. She
says: “By that I mean that the role
is critical, but also that what AAUW
has been is critical friends. They
push us where we need to get better
and make us smarter where there is
room to grow, hold us to account for
promises made, and help support us
when they believe we do something
right. And that is true for any administration and across all political ideologies, because Title IX isn’t about
Republican or Democrat, right? Both
have girls.”
ally, we still see a wide and widening
gap in the STEM [science, technology,
engineering, and math] fields and the
fields that are at the cusp in this global
and emerging economy. Title IX is also
about discipline, in part. We are seeing,
for example, particularly for African
American girls, that they are suspended
and expelled and subject to disciplinary
measures at extraordinarily high rates.
Even in the world of athletics—
though it has been focused on for so
long, since 1972—we’re still tackling
issues at some institutions. We are
really working to get at the spirit of
your question, and that is how to vigorously enforce Title IX to ensure that
it isn’t just myopically viewed as about
equal opportunity in athletics, though
that remains hugely important. [The
Office for Civil Rights has launched 23
compliance reviews on Title IX in the
past two years: 13 on athletics, seven on
sexual harassment and violence, two on
STEM, and one on discipline.]
Where do you see Title IX in another
40 years?
Well, I’m not sure that 40 years ago
those who fought hard and won the
passage of Title IX would have believed
that we would need, 40 years later, a
fair pay act. So I am at once ambitious
and excited and also tempered by how
slow progress sometimes feels. That
said, hopefully it will continue to protect students in our nation’s schools,
colleges, and universities from discrimination based on sex. It’s hard to see. It’s
hard to predict. And perhaps after a lot
of years in the struggle, I’m a little less
idealistic than I once was. But at the
rate we’re going, it looks like, at a minimum, it’ll still be a sorely needed law.
What are some things parents and
communities can do to help enforce
Title IX in their schools?
Well, first is the complaint-filing process. The Office for Civil Rights has an
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www.aauw.org spring/summer 2012
obligation to evaluate every complaint
that comes in its doors. We have about
600 attorneys, investigators, and staff
and 12 regional offices that are there
to do just that. The complaint-filing
process is hugely important and simple.
We also have technical assistance and
customer service hotlines.
As we’ve seen lately, the long
struggle for women’s rights still needs
to be fought. And that’s not about
pitting genders against each other;
it never is. We get a lot of pushback
about how Title IX has hurt boys, but
we’ve seen an increase in boys’ sports
too. They talk about men’s teams being
cut in order to comply with Title IX
when OCR has always said that it’s a
strongly disfavored practice. This idea
that to ensure that the rights of the
underrepresented sex—women, in most
circumstances—are protected does not
mean that the rights of other students
get lost.
That word underrepresented is
important. One of the things this
administration is doing that heretofore
had not been done is ensure that all
students are free from bullying and
harassment based on sex discrimination. If boys are subject to consistent
bullying and harassment that rises
to the level of a hostile environment
where adults should have known about
it, those boys should be protected if
that discrimination is based on sex—
that is, whether or not they are a member of the LGBT [lesbian, gay, bisexual,
and transgender] community.
We’ve seen it in far too many
tragic circumstances, like we saw in
Tehachapi, California, with the suicide of Seth Walsh, who was harassed
because he wasn’t acting enough like a
boy. That’s gender stereotyping. That’s
sex discrimination. That’s a violation
of Title IX. So I think that’s one of the
other misperceptions about the law,
that it wouldn’t—or couldn’t—protect
students like Seth. To the contrary, it
can and should.
Russlynn Ali at the 2011 AAUW National Convention
photo by mukti desai
www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/docs/howto.html
The Office for Civil Rights website
for filing complaints
blog-aauw.org/2012/01/10/did-you-miss-the-tweet-up
Read about the Twitter meet-up
that AAUW hosted with the
Department of Education.
www.aauw.org spring/summer 2012
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19
fighting the
birth control
backlash
By Elizabeth Bolton
a look at The author
Elizabeth Bolton
AAUW Managing Editor
[email protected]
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aauw | outlook
When Congress convened an all-male panel in 1970 to discuss
contraception, women were outraged. So imagine the shock
and furor when it happened again—in 2012. That sense of déjà
vu has become common lately, as women’s rights activists
find themselves suddenly defending what should be longsettled policy.
Over the past 50 years, women’s reproductive rights have been subject to
attacks by extremist groups. But suddenly, laws requiring women to undergo
pre-abortion ultrasounds and carry unviable fetuses to term—like cows and pigs,
as one Georgia legislator put it1—are
passing. And access to birth control is
now up for debate.
The Obama administration ruled
last year that, as part of the Patient
Protection and Affordable Care Act,
insurance companies must now provide
birth control to women without a co-pay.
That decision resurrected some of the
culture wars of the 1960s, when women
www.aauw.org spring/summer 2012
organized in large numbers to fight for
legal and cultural paradigm shifts. Never
mind that 99 percent of women of
childbearing age have used some form of
contraceptive at least once,2 that women
have been using various methods of birth
control for generations, or that a woman
who is using birth control is likely having sex with a man who also wants to
prevent pregnancy. Because according to
the familiar rhetoric, a woman on the pill
is—in the now-infamous words of Rush
Limbaugh—a slut.3
As women gained unprecedented
access to education and the workforce
in the ’60s and ’70s, “we saw a consensus
that discrimination against women in
the law was wrong, and both state and
federal governments, via legislatures
and courts, struck down discriminatory
laws,” said Cynthia Harrison, associate
professor of history, women’s studies,
and public policy at George Washington University. That consensus fostered
some of the most dearly held gains of the
women’s movement—Title IX, the Civil
Rights Act, Roe v. Wade, Griswold v. Connecticut—victories that helped women
enforce their rights in the classroom, the
workplace, and the bedroom.
But a backlash, as documented by
Susan Faludi,4 began brewing in the
1980s. Tensions arose between women’s
changing roles and the traditional, white,
male-headed family structures. Decades
later, we are seeing that backlash continue, in ever more-extreme measures.
In recent years, we’ve seen presidential candidates champion states’ rights
to criminalize birth control,5 governors
sign laws that define life as beginning
before conception,6 and funding for
abortions—not to mention basic medical care—for poor and underinsured
women7 sacrificed in political budget
negotiations. And these are just a few
examples of the latest outrageous attacks
against women’s reproductive freedoms.
But women won’t accept a return to
the 1950s. The average American woman
today reportedly only wants two children, which means she’ll spend a large
portion of her life using birth control.8
It looks as if the fight will continue
to drag on. Politico recently counted 30
“anti-woman” measures that have been
introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives alone.9 GW professor Harrison offers some words of consolation
to women everywhere who have mobilized to protect women’s rights: “If what
you’ve done doesn’t produce a backlash,
then it’s not very important.”
AAUW Fights Back
Standing Up for Women’s Health
In the wake of the recent attacks
on women’s rights, AAUW members and staff have been working
overtime to respond. When Susan
G. Komen for the Cure announced it
was cutting funding for breast cancer
screenings administered by Planned
Parenthood, AAUW was the first
women’s organization to respond by
severing our ties with the organization. As a result, attendees at our
National Conference for College
Women Student Leaders (NCCWSL)
will volunteer with another organization this year. And after Congress
kept Georgetown law student Sandra
Fluke from testifying about access to
birth control, we invited her to speak
with other activists in our board
room and at NCCWSL.
AAUW also applauded the recent
Obama administration “accommodation” that guarantees women who
study or work at religious institutions
access to contraception under their
health care plans without additional
cost. AAUW members and staff
wrote letters urging the administration not to compromise on women’s
health.
Notes 1. Barbato, Lauren. At 11th hour, Georgia passes
“women as livestock” bill. March 31, 2012. msmagazine.com/
blog/blog/2012/03/31/at-11th-hour-georgia-passes-womenas-livestock-bill. 2. www.guttmacher.org/media/presskits/
contraception-US/statsandfacts.html. 3. Maatz, Lisa. Rush
Limbaugh, your vitriol won’t silence us. March 2, 2012. blogaauw.org/2012/03/02/your-vitriol-wont-silence-us. 4. Faludi,
Susan. (1992). Backlash: The undeclared war against American
women. New York: Anchor. 5. Basset, Laura. Rick Santorum:
States should have power to ban birth control, sodomy.
January 3, 2012. www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/03/ricksantorum-birth-control-sodomy_n_1181291.html. 6. Rau,
Alia Beard. Brewer signs bill banning most abortions after 20
weeks. April 12, 2012. www.azcentral.com/news/politics/artic
les/2012/04/12/20120412arizona-abortion-bill-20-weeks-lawbrewer.html. 7. Scott, Beth. Budget deal hurts D.C., signals
debates to come. April 14, 2011. blog-aauw.org/2011/04/14/
budget-deal. 8. www.guttmacher.org/media/presskits/
contraception-US/statsandfacts.html. 9. Boxer, Barbara. Foul
play: War on women is real. April 15, 2012. www.politico.com/
news/stories/0412/75143.html.
www.aauw.org spring/summer 2012
aauw | outlook
21
look at membership
Making local
action global
www.akilidada.org
Find out more about Wanjiru
Kamau-Rutenberg’s nonprofit,
which empowers African women
leaders.
Poughkeepsie Branch
Receives U.N. Award
In February, the AAUW Poughkeepsie (NY)
Branch received a Best Practices Award from
the Committee on Teaching about the United
Nations (CTAUN). The award recognized the
branch’s work on the AAUW of New York
project My Sister’s Keeper. CTAUN’s Best
Practices Chair Jacqueline Abbott presented
the award to Melissa Guardaro (who accepted
on behalf of Joan Monk) and Cecilia DinioDurkin of the Poughkeepsie branch at the
United Nations in New York City.
Launched in December 2010 and inspired
by the book Half the Sky, My Sister’s Keeper is
a statewide project that aims to connect local
action with women’s welfare globally, partner
with like-minded organizations, raise the
visibility of AAUW, and support the U.N.’s
Millennium Development Goals. The initiative has included a holiday bazaar that offered
fair trade goods, engaged the Girl Scouts and
other youth nonprofit organizations, raised
awareness about activism worldwide, and
highlighted entrepreneurship for women in
developing countries.
blog-aauw.org
Read more about Tamara Brown’s
award from the White House.
Illinois Branch
Participates in STEM
Forum
In fall 2011, the AAUW Champaign-Urbana (IL) Branch
participated in a YMCA
science, technology, engineering, and mathematics
(STEM) Friday Forum Lecture
Series at the University of
Illinois. The branch is a cosponsor of the series. Former
national AAUW President
Ruth Sweetser, who is the
director of corporate relations at the Illinois Institute
of Technology in Chicago,
gave a presentation to more
than 50 university academics, students, and community
members on why women are
not entering STEM fields in
higher numbers and what can
be done to recruit and retain
more women.
Get Your Special
Edition of Grace
and Grit
While supplies last, donors
who give $130 or more will
receive a special, limitededition copy of Lilly Ledbetter’s new book. Grace and Grit
tells the story of Ledbetter’s
dramatic fight for equal pay.
This unique hardcover copy,
designed and printed for
AAUW, includes a special
note from Ledbetter thanking
you, her AAUW friends. Not
available for purchase anywhere, this exclusive AAUW
edition is sure to become
a collector’s item. Visit our
website or mail in your donation using the envelope in this
issue of Outlook.
Last winter, the White House honored two familiar faces as Champions of Change:
former AAUW Buffalo (NY) Branch president Tamara Brown for her work in
getting girls interested in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics
and 2005–06 AAUW International Fellow Wanjiru Kamau-Rutenberg for her work
in American diaspora communities.
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www.aauw.org fall 2009
www.aauw.org spring/summer
2012
Venice Branch Hosts Math and
Science Olympics

On a Saturday morning in February,
three teams of fifth-grade girls from
Venice, Florida, schools competed in
the AAUW Venice (FL) Branch’s second annual Math and Science Olympics.
The contest encourages early participation in science, technology, engineering,
and mathematics (STEM). And while
the students took the test—which
included questions related to science
and math curricula—four women
STEM professionals talked to the girls’
parents about preparation for careers in
science. The contest ended in a tie and
an exciting 10-question playoff.
Birmingham Branch Raises Funds
for Teachers, AAUW
The AAUW Birmingham (MI) Branch
has found creative ways to support
local educators as well as their branch
and the national AAUW Funds budget. Through its Patron Donor Friend
Fund, the branch donated free books
and classroom materials to preschool
through 12th-grade teachers from
three counties in southeast Michigan. Branch members and community
patrons have also sponsored specific
schools. In 2011, the branch gave 146
teachers in 77 schools 5,600 free books
and materials for their classrooms—a
value of $8,306. To help raise money for
this fund—which also benefits AAUW
Funds and the branch’s Joyce Hanston
Manby Named Project and Research
Grant—150 members contributed many
The winning team at the AAUW Venice (FL) Branch’s Math and Science Olympics
photo courtesy of Evelyn Hively
hours (and much financial support) to
Branch published 100 Women Who Helped
host the branch’s 85th annual book sale
Make Astoria Unique, a booklet of brief
in September. “Everyone benefits from
biographies of local women who were
this major philanthropic effort—branch “firsts” in their fields as well as prominent
members, area teachers, the community, professionals and community leaders.
The Astoria Bicentennial Committee
and AAUW Funds,” says Branch Presihelped fund the booklet with a grant.
dent Pam Hoffman.
This year, the branch held a reception to
honor the living Astoria trailblazers who
were featured in the publication.
Astoria Celebrates 100
Local Women
To celebrate Women’s History Month
last March, the AAUW Astoria (OR)
Got news? We want to hear about your state and branch successes. Send in a 150-word news item describing your
project or event, why it was significant, and how it helps break through barriers for women and girls. Send submissions and photos to [email protected]. Keep Outlook and your fellow AAUW members in the know!
www.aauw.org spring/summer 2012
aauw | outlook
23
look at AAUW news
AAUW
national
officers will
be elected
in 2013.
www.aauw.org/learn/leadershipPrograms
Find out more about AAUW
leadership programs.
www.aauw.org/connect/campus
Find out more about the benefits
of AAUW college/university partner membership, and encourage
your local schools to join.
www.aauw.org/contests
See all the art contest entries.
AAUW Board of
Directors Call for
Candidates
Would you like to play an active role at the
national level in addressing the challenges
that AAUW faces now and into the future?
AAUW needs dedicated, hardworking, creative, and forward-thinking team players to
serve on the 2013–15 board of directors. Officers to be elected in 2013 are president, vice
president, and 10 directors-at-large.
Position descriptions and candidate application forms are available in the Member
Center of the AAUW website. The deadline
to submit candidate forms is October 1, 2012.
Candidates for president and vice president
must have previously served on the Association, Educational Foundation, or Legal
Advocacy Fund board of directors. Three
additional directors-at-large will be appointed
at the first meeting of incoming officers. The
secretary and finance vice president will be
appointed from the elected or appointed
directors-at-large.
Please direct any questions to Barbara
O’Connor, Nominating Committee chair.
Her contact information is in the leadership
directory on the AAUW website.
My Vote Launches
Nationally
This spring, AAUW officially
launched our 2012 get-outthe-vote campaign, It’s My
Vote: I Will Be Heard. AAUW
staff have already led volunteer trainings in California,
North Dakota, Pennsylvania,
and several other states; the
trainings will reach 15 states
total. The voter education and
turnout campaign especially
targets millennial women
(ages 18–30). Visit www.
aauwaction.org for more
information about My Vote
and how you can get involved
on the ground or online.
U.N. Commission
on the Status of
Women
AAUW members and staff
participated in the 56th U.N.
Commission on the Status of
Women, February 27–March 9.
They engaged in workshops,
forums, and panel discussions based on empowering rural women globally.
AAUW’s U.N. Representative
Carolyn Donovan was on hand
to assist members throughout the meetings. AAUW cosponsored a panel discussion
that was organized by the
Virginia Gildersleeve International Fund and featured
organizers of rural grassroots programs that educate
women and girls about their
reproductive health, including
preventive care, childbirth,
sanitation, and nutrition.
Note: The Spring/Summer 2013 Outlook will include
a voter guide. All voting will take place online unless
members request a paper ballot by May 2, 2013, and it
is postmarked by May 17, 2013.
AAUW would Text
loveplease
to hear from our fellowship and
Support future generations of women and girls by joining AAUW’s
grant alumnae!
Please
take a few minutes to tell
Legacy Circle. Contact Carol Rognrud at [email protected] or
us about your877/357-5587
accomplishments
and activities
for more information.
since receiving an AAUW award by filling out our
alumnae contact form at www.aauw.org/education/
fga/fellows_network.
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2012
www.aauw.org spring/summer
fall | winter 2009
2012 Art Contest Winners
Congratulations to the winners of the
fourth annual AAUW Art Contest!
A panel of judges selected three winners from more than 100 entries, and
another three were selected by popular
votes made by hundreds of members
from across the country. The names
and branches of the artists were not
revealed during the voting and judging,
but now that the winners have been
selected, we know that many states
were represented in the contest. More
entries came from California than any
other state.
Some of these images have been
made into beautiful note cards that
are available for purchase at www.aauw.
org/ShopAAUW. This lovely set was
also sent as a thank-you to all AAUW
members. If you do not receive your set
of cards in the mail by May 14, please
contact us at [email protected] or
202/728-3307.
Campus Funding and Leadership
Opportunities
Through our leadership programs,
AAUW offers many opportunities
for students and staff at colleges and
universities. Please consider applying
for programs this year; AAUW college/
university partner members receive
preference!
Apply to host a 2013 session of
Elect Her–Campus Women Win, a collaboration between AAUW and Running Start that encourages and trains
young women to run for student government on their campuses. You
can also urge local college women to
Walking for Water, by Faith Weldon of the AAUW Schenectady (NY) Branch, was one of
the art contest winners.
apply for the National Student Advisory Council, AAUW’s select group
of student leaders who act as campus
ambassadors and advise AAUW on student issues. Or launch your own campus initiative with an AAUW Campus
Action Project grant, which provides up
to $5,000 in funding for teams of students and faculty to design and implement programs using recommendations
from AAUW’s research. Applications
will be available on the AAUW website
in late August.
Growing Our E-Student
Affiliate Membership
Colleges, universities, and AAUW
branches around the country are stepping up to recruit e-student affiliates.
AAUW Howard County (MD) Branch
President Jennifer Ingram reached
out to Howard Community College
in Maryland and worked with the
school to sign students up for their
free memberships at a resource fair.
AAUW Columbia (MO) Branch members formed a special committee with
women faculty to let local students
know about e-student affiliate membership. After student leaders attended an
informational meeting with free food,
they used a laptop to sign up then and
there. All students at college/university
partner member institutions have the
opportunity to sign up for this free
membership, and these two branches
are showing great ways to get students
involved with AAUW!
By including AAUW in your bequests, you are helping to break through barriers for women
and girls for generations to come. If you are considering a bequest to AAUW, here is some
suggested wording for your attorney: “After fulfilling all other provisions, I hereby give,
devise, and bequeath to AAUW (Federal Tax ID #52-6037388), a charitable organization
duly existing under the laws of the District of Columbia and located at 1111 Sixteenth St.
NW, Washington, DC 20036,
percent of the rest, residue, and remainder of
my estate or $
[if specific amount] to be used in the areas of greatest need.”
www.aauw.org spring/summer 2012
aauw | outlook
25
look at our alumnae
Engendering Equity with Title IX
By Gloria Blackwell and Elyssa Shildneck
Title IX
inspires
women
at school
and in their
careers.
After 1996–97 AAUW Selected Professions Fellow Rachael Rollins received a full scholarship to play lacrosse at the University
of Massachusetts, Amherst, she was shocked to find out that the
lacrosse, volleyball, and tennis teams had to be cut due to budgetary constraints. But even more surprising was the fact that
the budget didn’t affect the football team’s scholarships. Rollins
and other players threatened to initiate a Title IX lawsuit, and
their teams were reinstated two years later.
Rollins’ experience with Title IX led to her interest in the
intersection of sports and law. She studied law at Northeastern
University and Georgetown University. As an AAUW fellow, she
conducted comprehensive research on Title IX in New England and educated organizations on the statute and its effect on
women.
Other AAUW alumnae have followed in Rollins’ footsteps.
In 2009–11, Lynne Lee of Team Up for Youth started the Coach
like a Girl effort in Oakland, California, to increase the number
of women coaches at after-school programs throughout the state.
They recruited hundreds of women, expanded the capacity of
after-school programs, and built public support so that more
young women can reap the academic, health, and developmental
benefits of participating in sports.
blog-aauw.org
Read more about Rachael Rollins’
amazing career on our blog.
www.aauw.org/fga
Learn more about AAUW fellows
and grantees who are working
with Title IX.
The home page of the new AAUW website,
www.aauw.org
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aauw | outlook
Rachael Rollins
1996–97 AAUW Selected Professions Fellow
www.aauw.org spring/summer 2012
2011–12 Fellows and Grantees
McKinzie Craig
American Fellow
McKinzie Craig
is seeking a doctorate in political science and
government at
Texas Agricultural
and Mechanical
University. Her project, The Creation
and Evolution of Precedent on the
U.S. Supreme Court, focuses on how
Supreme Court decisions constrain
other actors, including judges and legislators. She studies the court’s effect
on abortion laws and equal-protection
challenges based on gender discrimination. Craig also teaches classes on
the U.S. Constitution and coaches the
undergraduate moot court team.
Elizabeth “Libby” Sharrow
At the University of Minnesota, Twin
Cities, American Fellow Libby Sharrow is pursuing a doctorate in political
science and government. Her project,
Producing Athletes, Defining Citizens:
Title IX, Policy Feedback, and the
Construction of Gender in American
Politics, considers the role of public
policy in defining gender, sex, and
sexuality in U.S. politics. Her interest
in Title IX extends back to her college
rowing experiences as a coxswain and
then an assistant coach on a team created in the University of Minnesota’s
compliance initiative. She hopes to pursue a career in teaching and research.
Sondra R.
TownsendBrowne
The Economic
Opportunity
Commission of
Nassau County,
New York, and
Project Director Sondra R.
Townsend-Browne received a Community Action Grant for the Rites of
Passage: Science and Math Leadership
project through the Hermanas/Sisterhood Program. Rites of Passage is a
series of workshops to help girls recognize and develop their potential to
excel in math and science and to pursue
these fields as careers.
school programs during the academic
year to engage young women in STEM.
The programs are led by passionate
women who work in those fields.
Sandra
Schmidt
Publication Grant
recipient Sandra
Schmidt of Columbia University is
completing her
project, A Promise of Equity for All: Evaluating South
Carolina’s Single-Gender Initiative. Her
research focuses on how a dominant
sense of place affects students. Specifically, she uses the lens of queer theory
to question how school curricula and
classroom spaces affect students’ gender and sexual identities, efficacy, and
engagement.
Erica Nishinaka-Lacey
AAUW awarded
a Community
Action Grant to
Science, Technology, Engineering, and
Mathematics Education Outreach for
Underserved Girls in Sioux Falls, South
Dakota, under the direction of Project
Manager Erica Nishinaka-Lacey. The
organization delivers weekly after-
Congratulations to 2001 American Fellow Melissa Harris-Perry, who is now
hosting her own weekend program on MSNBC. Harris-Perry is a professor
of political science at Tulane University. You can watch her show Saturdays
and Sundays from 10 a.m. to noon EDT.
www.aauw.org spring/summer 2012
aauw | outlook
27
look at the web
AAUW
event trends
nationally on
Twitter.
blog-aauw.org/2012/01/10/did-you-miss-the-tweet-up
Find out more about the tweet-up
on AAUW Dialog.
AAUW Hosts “TweetUp” with Department
of Education
AAUW recently hosted a “tweet-up”—an
online chat on Twitter—with Secretary of
Education Arne Duncan and Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Russlynn Ali (see interview, page 16). The tweet-up allowed anyone
with a Twitter account to ask Duncan and Ali
questions about Title IX using the hashtag
#t9talk. The three-hour event garnered more
than 550 tweets. An hour after the tweet-up
ended, Duncan was still trending nationally
in the top spot on Twitter, and #t9talk was
trending at number six.
Twitter users asked questions on a variety
of issues, including what lesbian, gay, bisexual,
transgender, and queer students can do if
they are being harassed at school, how to
respond to accusations that Title IX hurts
men’s sports, and how the law protects pregnant students. You can read all the questions
and answers from the tweet-up at storify.com/
aauw/t9talk.
blog-aauw.org
In March, AAUW Dialog logged
more page views—27,000—than
any other month since the blog
launched.
From the AAUW BloG:
Settlement in UC
Davis Case
As we celebrate a great
settlement that resolves
Mansourian v. Regents of the
University of California, we
wanted to extend our heartfelt thanks for the tremendous support of AAUW and
its members throughout the
country. … We could not have
litigated this fight to victory
without the fiscal support of
AAUW and the moral support of its members. AAUW
members attended every day
of our three-week trial in
Sacramento.
Read the rest of AAUW partner Equal Rights Advocates’
comments at blog-aauw.org.
Seeing Red over
Girls’ Exclusion
My daughter would love to
see Red Tails, a new film
about the World War II
Tuskegee Airmen, planes,
aeronautic “dog fights,” and
war but also a story about
discrimination, courage,
friendship, and heroism. So
I find it bizarre that school
officials in Dallas decided that
thousands of fifth-grade girls
would not appreciate this
movie. According to the Dallas
Morning News, the district
spent $57,000 to send all of
the boys to see the movie in
theaters. … The girls stayed
at school because, reportedly, there wasn’t room in
the theaters for everyone and
the boys would enjoy the film
more.
Read the rest of Erin Prangley’s post at blog-aauw.org.
Got Site Resources? If your branch is looking for an easy, low-cost website, you should be
taking advantage of this service. Sign up for a no-obligation website review by May 31 to be
entered into a drawing to receive a free, full-service Site Resources package for one year.
Enter at site-resources.aauw.org.
28
aauw | outlook
www.aauw.org spring/summer 2012
Take advantage of Site
Resources, the low-cost
website solution for
AAUW branches and
states.
Contact your Site
Resources coordinator,
Megan Morrison, today at
[email protected]
or 202/785-7775.
GOT
WEBSITE?
“Your services have saved us so
many hours by applying your
know-how and getting this
online in a fraction of the time.”
—Tina Gospodneitch, president, AAUW
Coeur d’Alene Area (ID) Branch
Breaking through Barriers
Check out what’s inside!
Visit ShopAAUW for all your branch’s needs.
ShopAAUW offers stylish clothes so that you can wear AAUW,
pens and notebooks so that you can write AAUW,
business cards and banners so that you can promote AAUW,
speaker and officer gifts so that you can give AAUW,
and many more great items so that anyone can live AAUW!
Visit aauw.source4.com today.
www.aauw.org
800/255-9998
The new AAUW pendant, a beautiful piece of jewelry
designed especially for AAUW, is available online.
Breaking through Barriers
www.aauw.org fall | winter 2009
aauw | outlook
31
Sometimes
It Pays
to Be
Charitable
A
s Susan B. Barley knows, establishing a
Charitable Gift Annuity with AAUW provides a stable income for life while allowing one to
contribute to an equitable future for women and girls.
Barley donated shares of stock to establish an
AAUW Charitable Gift Annuity. The advantages of
this unique gift include tax benefits and a way to lock
in an attractive rate of fixed annuity payments while
also supporting AAUW.
Sample Rates
Effective January 1, 2012
(One Beneficiary)
Age 75
Age 85
Age 90 and over
Susan B. Barley, an AAUW Legacy Circle member
“This CGA has resulted
in tax benefits for me, a
quarterly income, and the
wonderful opportunity to
support AAUW.”
—Susan B. Barley
5.8 percent
7.8 percent
9.0 percent
For more information, write or call toll free today.
AAUW Legacy Gifts
Carol Rognrud, Director of Transformational Giving
Phone: 877/357-5587 or 202/728-7627
E-mail: [email protected]
www.aauw.org/legacy
AAUW gift annuities are not available in all states.
Seek advice from a tax professional before entering
into a gift annuity agreement. The state of California regulates annuities, but payments under such
agreements
are not
protected
32
aauw
| outlook or guaranteed by
any government agency or the California Life and
Health Insurance Guarantee Association.
❏ Send me information about an AAUW Charitable Gift Annuity.
Amount: ❏ $10,000 ❏ $50,000 ❏ $100,000 ❏ ____________
❏ I would consider including AAUW in my estate plans.
❏ I have already included AAUW in my estate plans.
Birth date: ____________________________________________
Name: _______________________________________________
Address: ______________________________________________
______________________________________________
Phone: _______________________________________________
www.aauw.org fall | winter 2009
AAUW Legacy Gifts
1111 Sixteenth St. NW, Washington, DC 20036
AAUW Travel Partners
www.aauw.org/benefits
Gohagan Travel
Travel Dynamics
INTERNATIONAL TRAVEL
EXCLUSIVE TO GROUPS | EARLY-BIRD DISCOUNT
312/609-1140
TRIPS FOR HISTORY LOVERS
800/257-5767 | 212/517-7555
2013 Schedule
February 2013 Tahiti and French Polynesia
March 2013 Cruise to the Lesser Antilles
August 2013 Alaska’s Glaciers and the
Inside Passage
2012 Schedule
June 2012 Discovering a North American
Treasure on the Great Lakes
July 2012 Great Lakes Grand Discovery
TravelSmart Partners
September 2013 Symphony on the Blue
Danube, a Classical Music Cruise
TRIPS CREATED EXCLUSIVELY FOR YOUR GROUP’S INTERESTS
502/249-8949
September 2013 Black Sea Odyssey
Your group decides where and when, and
TravelSmart works to obtain the best prices.
Best of all, group leaders travel for free!
Plus, membership qualifies you for discounts on these valuable services:
●
MedjetAssist–The premier medical evacuation service takes you to the hospital of your
choice (800/527-7478).
●
Insure My Trip–Get free side-by-side trip insurance comparisons.
●
World Medical Card–Your personal medical information available in 14 different languages
and international code—a fabulous branch fundraiser as well (877/WMC-USA4)!
look at books
The Rise of Title IX and
Billie Jean King
By Elizabeth Bolton
Ware
describes
the evolution
of women’s
sports.
In Game, Set, Match: Billie Jean King and the Revolution in Women’s
Sports, historian Susan Ware tells the story of Billie Jean King
and how both she and tennis rose to prominence in the 1970s.
That simultaneous success wasn’t a coincidence. King was determined to succeed, and the best way to do so was to make tennis
and women’s sports in general commercially viable.
Ware expands on the tale of the remarkably driven King to
describe the sweeping changes women’s sports and feminism
also underwent in the 1970s, some due to King’s advocacy, some
thanks to Title IX, feminism, and the changing society. Along
the way Ware asks difficult questions about exactly what Title IX
accomplished for women athletes and what more it needs to do
and also confronts the homophobia that has plagued women’s
sports and King herself.
Backed by extensive research and told in accessible and
engaging prose, Game, Set, Match provides a window into the life
of one of the most successful athletes of all time and her profound impact on women today.
Game, Set, Match: Billie Jean King and the Revolution in Women’s Sports, by Susan Ware,
University of North Carolina Press, $30
www.aauw.org/connect/adelante/index.cfm
Looking for book club inspiration?
Check out AAUW’s ¡Adelante!
Book of the Month Club picks.
Call your local retailers to see if they carry
Game, Set, Match. If you can’t find the book
The home page of the new AAUWlocally,
website,
it is available at Amazon.com and at
www.aauw.org
www.uncpress.unc.edu.
34
32
aauw
aauw| outlook
| outlook
www.aauw.org | winter 20092012
www.aauw.org fall
spring/summer
Give the Gift of a
Named Sponsorship
Sponsor an AAUW program in honor of someone who has inspired or mentored you! Select
the program and level that are most meaningful to you, your honoree, or your branch.
Opportunities begin at $395 and include local
and national recognition. Contact us so that we
can tailor a naming opportunity to your needs.
$5,000
AAUW Campus Action Projects
These grants enable student leaders and campus faculty to design and implement effective programs that put
AAUW’s research into practice.
Elect Her–Campus Women Win
A collaboration between AAUW and Running Start, Elect
Her trains young women to run for student government on
their campuses.
$35,000
$4,000
This report presents the most comprehensive research to
date on sexual harassment in grades 7–12.
This annual grant enables Legal Advocacy Fundsupported plaintiffs, their lawyers, and related experts to
speak at state meetings or conventions about LAF cases
and sex discrimination issues in the workplace and higher
education.
Crossing the Line: Sexual Harassment at School Research
Report (sponsored by the Mooneen Lecce Giving Circle)
Community Colleges Research Report (sponsored by the
Mooneen Lecce Giving Circle)
This upcoming report will focus on the science, technology,
engineering, and mathematics opportunities for women
attending community colleges.
$20,000
2012 NCCWSL Women of Distinction Awards Ceremony
(sponsored by the Barbara Fetterhoff Giving Circle)
Legal Advocacy Fund Case Support Travel Grant
$2,500
National Student Advisory Council
Sponsor a member of this national coalition of student leaders who advise AAUW on strategies for working with young
women and girls.
$750
Held during the National Conference for College Women
Student Leaders, the Women of Distinction Awards ceremony pays tribute to women who have made extraordinary
contributions in their professions or communities.
Legal Advocacy Fund Campus Outreach Projects
$10,000
$395
2012 NCCWSL Networking Session
Presented at the National Conference for College Women
Student Leaders, this session engages more than 500
young women from around the country.
These grants fund AAUW member-led projects that implement a gender equity program or event at colleges or
universities.
2012 NCCWSL Scholarships
These scholarships allow students to attend the National
Conference for College Women Student Leaders, where
they enhance their leadership skills, build relationships,
network, and meet national experts and workplace leaders.
These wonderful sponsorship opportunities are available at sites across the country. Please
contact the Development team to learn about the programs in your area.
Carol Rognrud
202/728-7627
[email protected]
Laura McCulty Stepp
202/728-3303
[email protected]
the magazine of
1111 Sixteenth St. NW
Washington, DC 20036
Get the latest
e-news from AAUW!
Submit your e-mail
address and name to
[email protected].
Nccwsl
May 31–June 2, 2012
University of Maryland, College Park
Every year, more than 500
young women from around the
country gather in the Washington, D.C., area for the National
Conference for College Women
Student Leaders. This year’s
conference will feature equal
pay advocate Lilly Ledbetter,
poet Mayda Del Valle, and many
other inspiring women speakers—as well as workshops,
skill-building sessions, and
networking events. Visit www.
nccwsl.org to learn more about
the conference and how you can
get involved!