Title IX in a Nutshell

By: Matt Goryance

While reading the article “Title IX in a Nutshell” I found it kind of interesting that they said the regulations of the law were not specific about its requirements in sport. Title IX was more about education programs than athletics, which I thought was interesting because the only time I can recall discussing Title IX was in sport classes. The definition of Title IX at the top of the article basically just says that no one can be excluded on the basis of sex from participation in education programs or any other activity that receives Federal financial assistance. So I assume that the reason we discuss Title IX the most in sport classes are because most people probably didn’t put up a fight with women participating in school or other education programs but when they wanted to participate in activities like sports that received Federal funding it probably upset some people. Therefore I think we hear the most about Title IX when it comes to sports because it was a great law for women who wanted to participate in sports but there were still court cases and some controversy that dealt with it. 

One court case that had to do with Title IX was described at the bottom of the article, Jackson v Birmingham in 2005. This case dealt with a high school coach of a girl’s team, Jackson, who was fired for discussing potential Title IX violations with his superiors. He of course won the case and was rehired because Title IX also includes a prohibition against retaliation that his superiors did in firing him. They also say, “if decided differently it would have had a significant negative impact on the Title IX enforcement” (Carpenter & Acosta, 2008). This was wild to think about for me too because 2005 is not that long ago and I couldn’t believe that they would fire someone simply for talking about Title IX. It’s a good thing he won because otherwise that would have been a big set back and then no one would have been allowed to discuss Title IX as he did in fear of being fired. The law is a very tricky thing, I am trying to understand it in a Sport Law class this semester too and it is tough because most laws aren’t so straight forward, just like this one they thought it was about women participating but it has all sorts of other elements such as the prohibition of retaliation. I think it’s good I had a chance to read this and understand Title IX a little more and read some of the cases as examples at the bottom of the article. We’ve come a long way and have implemented some very good laws.