Reflections on the 50th Anniversary of Title IX

How Moving Beyond Compliance Honors the Spirit of the Law

After 50 years of Title IX, compliance is what drives educational institutions when it comes to equitable access. Title IX is a law that prohibits sex-based exclusion and discrimination in Federally-funded educational programs and activities. The law broadly addresses educational inclusion, but at present, is most often thought of in relation to women’s sports and campus sexual assault.

Much of Title IX compliance related to campus sexual assault focuses on how campuses are required to respond to reports of sexual assault. Focus on the response to sexual assault means that relatively little is being done to prevent the perpetration of sexual assault in the first place. Advocates for meaningful prevention of campus sexual assault argue that compliance is the floor, not the ceiling. In other words, legal compliance is a baseline. A true commitment to equality and educational access — to fulfill both the text and the spirit of the law — demands doing more than what policy requires.

Looking Back

Title IX was signed into law on June 23, 1972, with the original text reading:

No person in the United States shall, based on 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.

This landmark anti-discrimination legislation was passed as a follow-up to the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which did not prohibit discrimination based on sex. Implementation of Title IX over the past 50 years has been challenging, unsteady, and evolving.

Since its passage in 1972, the number of women athletes in the United States has grown from 300,000 to over 3 million, an increase that indicates a massive cultural shift in the last half-century. More recently, Title IX has been applied to combat the prevalent problem of campus sexual assault as a barrier to equal access to education, and it has been a battleground in the fight over rights of transgender students and athletes.

Margaret Dunkle, who drove much of the implementation of Title IX after its passage, recently reflected on the law in response to an exhibition highlighting its 50-year history. In addition to looking to this 50th anniversary as an opportunity to celebrate the progress made thus far, Dunkle notes that this landmark should also be used to “point a laser at the remaining issues.” It is commendable that Dunkle recognizes that not everything could be understood or known 50 years ago. “Remaining issues” like sexual assault, trans rights, and intersecting racial and gender discrimination are critical areas of focus in the continued fight for educational access.

Compliance or Complacency?

Laws are powerful tools for advancing justice and social change, but the work of social change does not end once a law is passed. Social change work continues in the implementation of laws, and in ongoing examination of the gaps between a law’s implementation, text and spirit. The spirit of Title IX is to ensure educational access, but too often, a law’s implementation turns into checking boxes without consideration of the larger goal.

For instance, laws and policies may mandate training, but there is typically no legal mandate regarding the quality or effectiveness of training. A one-hour online training module will not change campus culture, but is sufficient to meet standards of compliance. Instead of checking a box to say that training has been provided, moving beyond compliance requires accountability toward the goals of training. Without this accountability, compliance easily turns into complacency.

Furthermore, learning and behavior are shaped by cultural norms more so than by training. Moving beyond compliance involves examining the ways in which institutional culture and operations are creating barriers to educational access, or are counterproductive to establishing and maintaining safe environments for work and learning. It involves developing a culture of assessment and accountability that addresses troubling behaviors before they escalate to perpetration of sexual assault and other forms of power-based violence. Even with an institutional response that complies with Title IX policies, an individual who has experienced sexual assault may have already been denied educational access. Solely focusing on legal compliance will continue to put an institution and its members at risk.

Looking Ahead

Title IX has been shaped not only by its original authors and implementers, but by those who have come after to further examine it, push it, and apply it to issues that the original authors could not have envisioned. At each stage, visionaries and disruptors have seen the potential of this law to be applied to right wrongs and create lasting change moving forward. We have not reached the end of that process.

We commend all of those people who, tasked with Title IX implementation, keep the spirit of the law in mind when doing their work. We stand with all who celebrate what has been achieved through Title IX while also recognizing its limitations and the work that remains. Title IX contains potential that has yet to be unlocked.