On courts, diamonds, golf courses and tracks and in gyms and pools — in short, everywhere girls and women compete in sports in this country — it would be appropriate to take a moment to reflect on the legacy of the late Hawaii Congresswoman Patsy Mink.
Friday marked the 45th anniversary of President Richard Nixon’s signing of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, the ground-altering law that was re-titled as the “Patsy T. Mink Equal Opportunity in Education Act” after her 2002 death.
Whether they fully appreciate the association or not — and the passage of time sometimes means it is taken for granted by later generations — the late Hawaii congresswoman and the landmark legislation she pushed helped open the door for much of what females accomplish now in athletics.
Together with congressional colleague Edith Green of Oregon, Mink helped author and then relentlessly pushed for passage of the empowering legislation.
Its 37 powerful words – “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” – prohibit discrimination in educational opportunities based upon sex at institutions at the risk of losing federal funds.
Back in 1972 and partly based on Mink’s own frustrations, it was primarily aimed at forcing equality in academic opportunities. The impact on athletics, if imagined at all, was seen as a sidelight.
“We didn’t think that much about sports at the time,” Mink acknowledged following the U.S.’s 1999 Women’s World Cup Championship.
Mink, who played basketball on Maui at a time when women were discouraged from attempting to play full court, said “We were looking more at educational opportunities — fellowships, scholarships, opportunities to get into graduate school and vocational education. But, in the long haul, the most dramatic results have come in the field of athletics.”
More recently, it has also forced institutions to be more accountable in protecting and dealing with students who have been victims of sexual or gender-based harassment or campus violence.
College athletic scholarships, which were rare for women before 1972, make a university education possible for hundreds of thousands each year. They have also opened the way for careers in athletics as pro athletes as well as coaches and administrators on several levels.
“It is rare as a legislator that you fight for legislation you believe in and stay around or live long enough to see it come to fruition,” Mink said.
The success of U.S. athletes and teams in the Olympics, World Cup and other international competitions is a direct result of those opportunities, as Mink was able to observe. In the 2015 World Cup, for example, all 23 players on the U.S. team had been recipients of athletic scholarships.
Closer to home, large crowds and volleyball championship banners in the Stan Sheriff Center, where two former Rainbow Wahine now find themselves as coaches, attest to the law’s impact.
But there remains much work still to be done as Title IX marches toward a half-century. For example, a “Women in Intercollegiate Sport” study by Brooklyn College of the City University of New York showed that in 1972, 90 percent of the coaches of women’s teams were female, but by 2014 just 43.4 percent were. In addition, some divisions within the NCAA spend significantly more on male athletes than female athletes, according to the NCAA’s “45 Years of Title IX” study released this week.
All of which is worth reflecting on.