The History Department held an event that was sponsored by the university’s College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences called “Title IX from Equal Opportunity to Criminality” that welcomed Dr. Sarah Fields, associate professor from the University of Colorado, Denver to discuss the evolution of Title IX on Feb. 23.
“The History Department felt that Title IX, which has been in the news a lot recently because of the issue of campus sexual assault, would be timely and important topic for the university faculty, administration and students,” Dr. Katherine Royer, History Department Chair said.
Title IX was originally intended for gender equity in public institutions. This allowed women a chance to pursue their degrees in their careers. Since 2014 Title IX has become synonymous with sexual violence on many college campuses. Dr. Fields focused her presentation of Title IX on sports and women.
Dr. Fields presented background information that described the evolution of Title IX through the civil rights movement. After the brief introduction as to how Title IX was created, Dr. Fields quickly went and explained that athletics was not mentioned in the beginning conversations when Title IX came about.
For a while, Title IX was mentioned due to the removal of certain men’s team at the university level because many did not understand why certain sports were being removed. According to the law it was up to the school to figure how they would go about to make sure there was an equal amount of sports for both men and women.
A way to understand Title IX in sports is that a school must meet one out the three criteria that was needed for athletics: 1. To establish a history of expanding sporting opportunities for female athletes, 2. They needed to establish that they were meeting the interest and ability of student enrollment or, 3. the proportion of female athletes needed to be equal to the proportion of full time female students. Any failure to comply with Title IX might mean that all federal funding provided to the school would be taken away but according to Dr. Fields this has yet to lose a penny.
Soon after Dr. Fields began to explain the change that Title IX went from being about equal opportunity to protecting students from sexual harassment. There have been cases about sexual harassment around campuses but it was not until May 2014 when they realized the names of the campuses that were undergoing investigations.
“It also revealed that, particularly in regard to sexual harassment, campus policies on how to implement Title IX are still a work in progress, especially as they relate to the issue of due process for those accused of sexual harassment,” Dr. Royer said.
“As Dr. Fields pointed out, there are important legal issues that will be brought to the courts in regard to the rights of the victim and the accused, which means that Title IX will be an issue of importance for colleges and students for some time.”
Title IX was a chance for women and girls to maximize their full potential whether it is in athletics or higher education.