Title IX

Benefits of Title IX

The most celebrated benefit of Title IX has been the dramatic rise in participation rates of girls and women in high school and collegiate athletics. The National Federation of State High School Associations reports that 294,000 girls participated in athletics in 1971, compared with 2,953,355 girls in the 2005 to 2006 school year. Similar increases occurred at the collegiate level, where an estimated 16,000 females participated in intercollegiate athletics in 1970, compared with 180,000 in 2006, a roughly tenfold increase. The number of African American women in sport showed a similar increase, from 2,137 in 1971 to 22,541 in 2000, according to the Women's Sports Foundation.

More recent and detailed participation rates for women of color are provided by Richard Lapchick and Jenny Brenden in the 2005 Racial and Gender Report Card. Between 1991–1992 and 2004–2005, African American women's participation rose from 31% to 43.7% in basketball, from 23.2% to 26% in cross country/track, and from 2.9% to 4.6% in other sports. Although these increases are positive, the gains for African American women are not comparable in traditionally White sports (e.g., swimming, tennis, and golf). Other women of color had minimal participation rates in 2004–2005: Latinas, in basketball (1.6%), cross country/track (3.4%), and other sports (3.1%); American Indian/Alaska Natives, in basketball (0.5%), cross country/track (0.4%), and other sports (0.3%); and Asians, in basketball (1.3%), cross country/track (1.2%), and other sports (2.6%).

In addition to enhancing participation, some scholars have credited Title IX with the spectacular performances of U.S. girls and women at national and international levels. As evidence, some point to Olympic medals won during the 1990s, the emergence of professional leagues such as the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA) in 1997, and the U.S. women's soccer team's victory over China in 1999. Interestingly, considerable successes had been achieved by African American women before the passage of Title IX, starting with the 1960 [Page 1309]Rome Olympics and Wilma Rudolph, who became the first of many African American women to win gold medals in track and field.

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