Title IX history going and coming

This month, October 2023, marks two milestones in Title IX history — one of a Title IX foremother going to her rest and one marking 10 years of today’s youth coming into the next chapter of Title IX advocacy.

Margot Polivy, a crucial player in Title IX’s early years, died at the age of 85 on October 7. Along with another Title IX foremother, Margaret Dunkle, Polivy did more that almost anyone else to ensure that Title IX would provide fairer treatment for girls and women in school sports. Above is an excerpt of my video interview with her in 2016. Read a bit about this amazing woman in a previous 37 Words post. Or settle in and hear her in conversation with 10 other Title IX foremothers. I’ll miss her intelligence, determination, and great sense of humor.

In the brief time that I had with her, I asked Polivy a question that I posed to most of my interviewees while researching my book 37 Words: Is there any chance that we could lose Title IX? Of course, she replied immediately. There was a time when few could imagine that women might lose the right to abortion care and control of our own bodies. Yet that’s now reality in many states. We need to stay vigilant and keep fighting for our rights as human beings, Polivy said.

Young women who did just that will be celebrating 10 years of activism on October 30 at 7 p.m. Eastern in a special event for Know Your IX, a project of Advocates for Youth. Know Your IX empowers sexual assault survivors and youths to challenge sexual harassment and assault in educational settings. A Zoom round table will reflect on the major impact they’ve had in U.S. society over the past decade and offer a collective vision of what’s ahead in the next 10 years. Speakers include Know Your IX co-founders Alexandra Brodsky and Dana Bolger, both now lawyers fighting the good fights on legal fronts. They’ll be joined by former Know Your IX youth activists Clarissa Brooks and Jaslin Kaur and current Know Your IX youth activists Ravina Nath and Thalia Charles. Be part of the celebration by registering here.

Elsewhere

There’s a lot of Title IX activity — lawsuits and complaints and exposes. Search for it. Or ask one of your new AI buddies to compile a summary for you. Here are a few items:

The New York Times reported a good example of a man who was accused of raping a student responding by filing a defamation lawsuit against her, yet another reason that sexual assault victims may be reluctant to report it. Know Your IX and the National Women’s Law Center recently released a toolkit about defamation lawsuits and other retaliation, created by and for people speaking out about sex-based harassment.

Hats off to Pro Public for digging up all the ways that Columbia University allowed an ob.gyn. doctor to sexually assault patients for 20 years.

Here’s an interesting look at a slew of lawsuits filed by a few men trying to stop programs that help increase the number of women in STEM fields (science, technology, engineering, and medicine.) And in the “Still?” department: Harvard University continues to pay the coaches of its men’s teams more than those who coach the women’s teams.

Meanwhile, the Office for Civil Rights ordered the Alpine School District in Utah to clean up its act. We still don’t have the revised Title IX regulations that the Biden Administration has been developing. That leaves a lot of students facing a “murky” process under Title IX, the Boston Globe reports.