June 23, 1972: Title IX was enacted as part of the Education Amendments of 1972 to prohibit sex-based discrimination in any school or education program which received federal funding. The law came at a time when only 42% of college students were female, and it has led to a significant increase in women’s participation in sports.
Title IX
Title IX is the most commonly used name for the federal civil rights law in the United States that was enacted as part (Title IX) of the Education Amendments of 1972. It prohibits sex-based discrimination in any school or any other education program that receives funding from the federal government. This is Public Law No. 92‑318, 86 Stat. 235 (June 23, 1972), codified at 20 U.S.C. §§ 1681–1688.
Senator Birch Bayh wrote the 37 words of Title IX.[1][2] Bayh first introduced an amendment to the Higher Education Act to ban discrimination on the basis of sex on August 6, 1971 and again on February 28, 1972, when it passed the Senate. Representative Edith Green, chair of the Subcommittee on Education, had held hearings on discrimination against women, and introduced legislation in the House on May 11, 1972. The full Congress passed Title IX on June 8, 1972.[3] Representative Patsy Mink emerged in the House to lead efforts to protect Title IX against attempts to weaken it, and it was later renamed the Patsy T. Mink Equal Opportunity in Education Act following Mink’s death in 2002.[4] When Title IX was passed in 1972, only 42 percent of the students enrolled in American colleges were female.[citation needed]
The purpose of Title IX of the Educational Amendments of 1972 was to update Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which banned several forms of discrimination in employment, but did not address or mention discrimination in education.
Text
The following is the opening of the text of Title IX, which is followed by several exceptions and clarifications:[5]
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.
— Cornell Law School’s Legal Information Institute (20 U.S. Code § 1681 – (men and women) Sex)