Lets Hear it for the Girls
By Celeste Barber
Sunday Courthouse Celebration of Title IX Success
“Other than the Constitutional right to vote, possibly no other piece of legislation has had a greater effect on women’s lives than Title IX.” – Nancy Hogshead-Makar, Triple Gold Medalist in Swimming, 1982 Los Angeles Olympics.
This Sunday, June 23, we’ll be celebrating the historic 1972 passage of Title IX into law. Over the course of those 52 years, America’s girls and young women have excelled on the turf in soccer and track, on basketball courts, in swim competitions, and virtually every competitive sport there is, including most recently, flag football and Lacrosse.
The text of Title IX reads: “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.”
In a mere 37 words, it says it all.
No longer would female athletes be locked out – literally (which they were!). What boys took for granted would now be available to girls. Access to practice fields, uniforms, transportation to competitions, and coveted athletic scholarships, all of which had been until then, restricted to boys. Now, there’d be lots of pages in the high school yearbook dedicated to boys’ and girls’ sports.
Since that historic June day in 1972, American women have enjoyed the right to “the pursuit of happiness,” dressed in team uniforms.
Attend any women’s Gaucho basketball game and what do you see? Bleachers filled with fans cheering on the girls.
Santa Barbara will commemorate Title IX in a gathering outside the Santa Barbara County Courthouse from 12 noon to 1:30 pm on Sunday, June 23rd. We will gather on the Figueroa side by Anacapa Street. The program will feature speakers representing elite female athletes, coaches, and a distinguished local sports journalist.
Come to recognize, encourage, and applaud our girls’ achievements.
Two stellar athletes will be featured on Sunday. Mia Jansen, a sophomore from Lompoc High School has played sports since she could first walk; maybe even before. She distinguished herself this past year by lettering in five (five!) sports: Tennis, Flag Football, Basketball, Softball, and Track & Field. Lompoc High’s renowned Athletic Director, Claudia Terrones, will speak on Mia’s behalf.
We are also honored that Kiley Neushul will speak. The Neushul family is a Santa Barbara treasure. Kiley was born and raised here on the South Coast. Hers is a Water Polo family: all three daughters have represented (or shortly will represent) the U.S. at the Olympics. Kiley won her Gold Medal at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. Her list of distinguished awards is impressive.
History has all but forgotten that it was Richard Nixon who signed Title IX into law on June 23, 1972, an action that reflected the president’s longstanding commitment to equal rights for women. Both his mother, Hannah Nixon, and the First Lady, Pat Nixon, were strong independent women.
Three years prior to Title IX’s passage, President Nixon had created the Task Force for Women’s Rights and Responsibilities, appointing Barbara Franklin “to lead this program recruiting women for high level government positions. Her leadership,” the Richard Nixon Foundation boasts, “resulted in nearly quadrupling the number of women in those positions and paved the way for women in both the public and private sector to break glass ceilings.”
From the earliest days of his presidency in 1969, President Nixon stood as a leader, committed to extending equal rights and opportunities for American women. At that time, women were still – legally – discriminated against in employment, often passed over for promotions because men “needed the job to support a family.”
Divorced (and single) mothers apparently didn’t head real families.
Women were regularly denied housing and bank loans, simply because of their sex. Working women could even be denied credit card approval from a Northridge California J.C. Penney’s.
Yes, that’s a true story!
And while the Civil Rights Act of 1964 had effectively ended (or made unlawful) discrimination in employment and public places, the legislation left out one key word: “sex.”
Title IX rectified that omission.
Today, more than 2.6 million high-school girls benefit from Title IX’s enduring legacy, nine times the number in 1972. Among those female athletes are young women such as Mia Jansen and Kiley Neushul.
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We invite all Santa Barbara Current readers to please join us outside the Santa Barbara County Courthouse (on the Figueroa side by Anacapa Street) from 12 noon to 1:30 pm on Sunday, June 23rd.
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Planning to be there. We need to actually stand up for the rights of our daughters and granddaughters when it comes to fair competition. Riley Gaines has been all over the globe and on social media describing the travesty of having Lia Thomas show up at a NCAA swim meet. He took first place and subjected the young women to being naked with him in the changing area. The female athletes were told to keep quiet about this absurd situation or face major retribution. She recently did a great interview with Megyn Kelly on this, and it is a good update on this issue. We need to retake the asylum from the inmates.
Great article, thank you Celeste!