Fresno’s robust Title IX history documented

September 17, 2018
Newman Office for Civil Rights Sandler sexual assault sexual harassment Sports Title IX Uncategorized
Clovis Unified, CUSF, Fresno, Fresno State, Fresno Unified, Milutinovich, Title IX

I want to understand Title IX‘s history not only at elite East Coast universities and in the Washington, D.C. halls of power (where much of its story gets told) but in other settings too. When you think of Title IX’s 46-year-history, Fresno, Calif. may not be the first place to come to mind, yet its extensive and robust Title IX history illustrates the evolution of the law’s application and feminism in the U.S. heartland.

Feminism shapes Title IX (and vice versa) in all corners of the United States, in all income brackets, and in diverse populations. I could have picked any number of places with significant Title IX histories for this example. Michigan State University immediately comes to mind. Fresno is nearer to me and features a semi-rural, agriculture-based, inland community, a more working-class population compared with many coastal areas, and much more diverse student bodies than in many other parts of the country.

Off to Fresno I went to conduct interviews and dive into archives at the wonderful Madden Library at California State University, Fresno (CSUF, or Fresno State). I knew already from a bit of online research that Fresno generated hundreds of Title IX headlines and controversies over multiple decades.

Imagine my surprise when the special collections archivist brought out the library’s Title IX collection — a single box containing eight short documents (seven of them news articles). That’s for all of Fresno County, where one university alone (Fresno State) racked up tens of millions of dollars in legal payments forced by Title IX lawsuits.

Here, then, is my humble attempt to expand on that collected history. Below are slides adapted from my presentation to the Pacific Coast Branch of the American Historical Association on Aug. 4, 2018, “Uppity Women, Nasty Women: From Title IX to #metoo in Fresno, Calif.” I’ve attached a bonus goodie at the bottom — a 37-page timeline of Title IX history in Fresno including selected national Title IX developments that should have influenced the law’s application in Fresno.

If you’ve got corrections or additions to this history or your own story to tell about Title IX in Fresno, I’d love to hear from you. Leave a comment or message me from my Contact page.The population served by Fresno’s educational institutions has grown more diverse. The political and economic power bases still reside in large-scale farmers and real estate developers, who tend to be white males. I especially want to thank former CSUF Associate Athletic Director Diane Milutinovich, the primary keeper of the Title IX flame at Fresno State, for her long work in documenting Title IX history there.Much of Fresno’s Title IX story takes place at the California State University, Fresno. Before Title IX passed in 1972, women comprised 42% of students at Fresno State. That grew to 48% by 1977 and in 1980 women became the majority of students there. The racial and ethnic diversity of Fresno State students reflect a growing Latino populace and influx of Southeast Asian immigrants after the Vietnam War. The students served by Title IX, then, increasingly are women of color. Few Fresno State students live on campus; most come from less-affluent families compared with students at big-name universities.Shifts in Fresno State’s faculty demographics lag changes in the student body. The proportion of female faculty started increasing in 1977 and recently became the majority sex. Racial and ethnic minorities comprised 9% of faculty in 1977 and 42% in 2017.Though a smaller, semi-rural city, Fresno developed an active feminist movement early. The artist Judy Chicago (lower left) started the nation’s first feminist art class there in 1970. Strong Latino leaders led labor struggles like the United Farmworkers strikes that influenced campus politics. Because no professional sports teams call Fresno home, sports fans passionately follow Fresno State’s Bulldogs athletic teams and some minor pro sports. A fun side note: Many people see Bernice Sandler as the “godmother” of Title IX because her federal complaints of sex discrimination at U.S. colleges and universities turbocharged the momentum that led to Title IX. Sandler got active after employers wouldn’t hire her because she’s a woman. Former Fresno State President Frederic Ness hired Sandler to lead a special women’s project at the Association of America Colleges in 1971 and set her up (consciously or not) to be Title IX’s greatest advocate for the next 20-plus years. Why did he do it? One factor: Ness had five daughters.The earliest Title IX battles focused on discrimination in employment (such as Sandler faced) and sexist books and programs in elementary schools. The National Organization for Women (NOW) especially took up Title IX’s cause in elementary and high schools through the Project on Equal Education Rights, complementing Sandler’s focus on higher education. Fresno’s NOW sued the Clovis school district to get access to records to assess discrimination. The superintendent refused, commenting, “We have an old saying in the superintendency: If someone is trying to light a fire under you, don’t give them the wood.” The action pushed Clovis to do a Title IX assessment.Diane Milutinovich, while teaching physical education in the Perris, Calif. school district, filed a Title IX complaint of discrimination in athletics. By the late 1970s she was coaching at Fresno State and served on the local Commission on the Status of Women. The Commission began to focus on Fresno Unified School District out of a desire to start a girls’ cross-country team but soon expanded to evaluate the district’s compliance with all of Title IX. Its 1979 report highlighted a need to better articulate policies and procedures, systematically evaluate progress, and provide in-service training on sex equity, among other steps.

Athletics erupted as the next big controversy under Title IX. NOW, the National Women’s Law Center (NWLC), and others defended Title IX on the frontlines. Fresno State female athletes pushed faculty to advocate for playing opportunities, uniforms, and other benefits the men received. The women’s basketball co-captain wrote to administrators in 1977, for example, but they responded the way most colleges did to similar complaints — they waited until she graduated and made few changes. Nine Fresno State coaches threatened to sue the school in 1979 for violating Title IX but let the matter drop when administrators made some incremental changes.Today’s top Title IX issue, sexual harassment and assault, first became recognized as a Title IX violation in 1977 in the suit Alexander v. Yale. It was part of the broader women’s movement against sexual violence, often led by women of color, which showed up in multiple ways besides Title IX.Fresno State created an Athletic Corporation through which all sports funding gets channeled. The largely white, male board of the Corporation became another obstacle for women’s athletics. All civil rights laws in education hit a brick wall after the Supreme Court’s ruling in Grove City College v Bell in 1984, which said the laws only applied to specific departments receiving federal funds, not to entire schools. Women continued to push for equity using whatever tools they had — state laws, the equal protection clause of the Constitution’s 14th Amendment, persuasion, protests, etc.Immediately, coalitions of women, racial and ethnic minorities, disabled people, and the aged lobbied Congress to pass the Civil Rights Restoration Act, succeeding in 1988 after Congress overrode two vetoes by President Ronald Reagan. In the meantime, though, athletics opportunities for female students at California state universities decreased from 36% in 1978 to 30% in 1988, and men got 74% of athletics budgets in 1988.

The movement against sexual violence gained traction in the 1990s in all parts of society. In education, three Supreme Court decisions in this decade set the terms for applying Title IX to sexual harassment or violence against students by teachers or by peers (other students).In 1990-91, women were 54% of full-time undergraduates at Fresno State but received only 27% of athletic opportunities. When Title IX returned, battles over athletics increased. A suit by NOW against the CSU system, public pressure, and a major OCR investigation of Fresno State eventually overcame stiff (and sometimes ugly) resistance by male coaches and athletic directors to make some improvements for women. A court ordered California State Universities in 1993 to be within 5%-10% of male/female students ratios in athletics participation (5%), sports scholarships (5%), and athletics expenses (10%). Across the country, coaches and boosters of men’s minor sports that got cut in order to protect football blamed it on Title IX and women’s sports, inspiring multiple unsuccessful lawsuits.

Homophobic attacks became more overt. The CSUF baseball team called softball players “dykes on spikes.” CSUF coaches met privately with radio talk-show host Ray Appleton, who then aired a three-hour, homophobic tirade against CSUF administrator Diane Milutinovich and coaches Margie Wright and Lindy Vivas. “If you get rid of Diane, you don’t have to worry about Margie and Lindy,” a coach told Appleton, one witness later reported. Two of the women sued Appleton for defamation, winning an out-of-court settlement and a public apology.

After decades under the reality or the ideal of Title IX, the U.S. celebrated progress in women’s athletics when the U.S. Women’s Soccer team won the World Cup for the first time in 1999. Under President George W. Bush, a commission tried to limit Title IX. It’s so popular that getting rid of it is no longer an option. OCR again tells schools they’re liable for harassingment and must have complaint procedures. Things got very ugly in CSUF athletics as male administrators sexually harassed and fired female coaches and administrators who stood up for women’s sports. CSUF fired Milutinovich but she appealed and got rehired to work at the Student Union, not in athletics.Roderick Jackson, a male African-American coach of women’s high school basketball in Alabama, won a Supreme Court ruling saying Title IX outlaws employment retaliation based on sex. This gives women a stronger tool to fight back. Fresno women racked up huge awards from CSUF for discrimination. Still, in 2010 most coaches got no formal training on Title IX and relied on the media for their knowledge of the law, a survey reported.As far as I know, CSUF’s Diane Milutinovich, Stacy Johnson-Klein, and Lindy Vivas never worked full-time at the college level again. Women risk careers by coming forward about injustice. No law prevents other institutions from not hiring you, a collateral form of discrimination.The CSU system issued campus sexual assault policies or executive orders in 2006, 2012, 2014, and 2016. Policies and Title IX training often don’t fit CSUF’s student body, some critics say, focusing instead on schools with more on-campus housing, a bigger fraternity and sorority scene, and different socioeconomic pressures.

Newly mandated reporting shows that CSUF students and others made 79 reports of sexual harassment or violence in 2015-16 and 131 reports in 2016-17. OCR issued specific guidance about managing sexual harassment and assault under Title IX in 2011 and 2014, both of which were withdrawn under the Trump Administration in 2017. Since 2006, the ACLU has been fighting an increase in single-sex classes or schools that discriminate against girls or women based on outdated stereotypes.

Despite a 2013 reminder from OCR (and previous guidance) that schools cannot discriminate based on pregnancy or parenting status, in 2015 only 7 of 22 school districts in Fresno, Madera, and Tulare counties (with some of the highest teen pregnancy rates in California) had support programs for pregnant or parenting teens, who often got shunted to continuation schools or independent study.

When the Clovis Unified School District refused to adopt a gender-neutral dress code to accommodate transgender and non-binary students, students protested by swapping clothes. In 2016 CSUF installed more gender-neutral bathrooms and allowed name changes on student ID cards to fit gender identity.

OCR reminded schools again in 2015 that they must designate at least one Title IX coordinator, as has been required for more than four decades. The Department of Education was able to find only 23,000 Title IX coordinators when there should be more than 100,000.Sex equity remains an elusive goal. The struggle continues.