It’s gratifying for us here at Legal Voice to know we’ve
helped bring about true change, and this week’s 40th anniversary of
Title IX means we have plenty of smiles on our faces. The Seattle Times recounted our historic first case, Blair v WSU ,
and interviewed Karen Blair Troianello,
one of our first clients, as well as our then-director of litigation. They (and others) reminisced about what it
was like in the early years of Title IX, and how much has changed.
Has it? Well, yes,
mostly. As the numerous Title IX anniversary stories from all around the country attest, women
athletes, women’s athletics, and sports in general have come a long way since
June 23, 1972. As someone who was just
a tiny bit too old to have caught the full tide of the Title IX wave, I’m
inspired and a little wistful as I read about the amazing accomplishments of
girl and women athletes. The recent
French Open, in which the relatively small (5’4 ½”) Sara Errani gave the
eventual winner, 6’2” Maria Sharapova, a real run for it, in some ways sums up the
progress. These two vastly physically dissimilar
women are the 1st and 2nd ranked women tennis players in
the world: anyone – yes, anyone – can excel at sports.
Title IX does not, of course, mean only that women and girls
can play sports. It also means they can play their way into college and the
advantages that higher education gives people in the U.S. Indeed, women scholar-athletes graduate at
higher rates
than men in virtually all sports (overall, 88% to 73%).
But athletics is about more than school, more than winning
money. It’s about life lessons, lifelong
health, and character. It’s not that
you need sports to develop good character, nor that sports automatically leads
to good values (are you there, Kobe Bryant, Adam “Pacman” Smith, et al.?) Nonetheless, it’s heartening to read about
athletes who transcend competition in favor of camaraderie, like the young
woman in Ohio who helped her rival finish a race, even though both of them were
disqualified. Or the two softball players from Central
Washington University who carried the batter from Western Oregon around the
bases when she injured herself, resulting in CWU losing the game.
And yet. What was
the reaction to the runner from Ohio? Rush Limbaugh berated her and decried the
loss of “hard manliness” (no, I would
not make that phrase up). Plenty of
people pushed back at him, but the idea that this person would actually use an
act of grace and kindness to pick on women and girls shows we are not “there”
yet.
This was brought home to me (again) when I read an otherwise
laudable article in Pacific Northwest Magazine about people staying active as
they get older.
One was a 65-year-old man who returned to track and field after several decades of
inactivity. His primary goals? "One, be able to walk away in one piece;
two, not get beat by a girl; and
three, get a decent distance."
Really, sir? Your “hard manliness” would be at risk if a person with two
X chromosomes could compete with you?
Keep at it, girls and women. It’s a long track, and the race
is not yet over.
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