This one’s for\nyou, Kathy Keeler…<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A story that\nbegins with a man whose name was so ridiculous that he had to teach people how\nto pronounce it. When he ran for the Senate in 1962, his campaign jingle was,\n“Hey, look him over, he’s your guy. His first name is Birch and his last\nname is Bayh.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Almost\nimmediately after winning his seat, he was thrust into the center of one of the\nmost important moments in American history. When JFK was assassinated in 1963,\nthere were only vague policies regarding presidential disability and\nsuccession. So Bayh introduced some language that was argued over and voted\nupon and eventually became the 25th Amendment to the Constitution in 1965. Bayh\nwas also behind the movement to lower the voting age from 21 to 18, which was\ncodified by the 26th Amendment, passed in 1971. As such, Birch Bayh is the only\nperson other than the Founding Fathers to have drafted more than one Amendment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And yet, that\npales in comparison to something Birch Bayh did in 1972. At that time, the\nCongress was dealing with the ramifications of the Civil Rights Act of 1964,\nwhich was intended to end discrimination based on such things as race, religion\nand color, but which did not end sex discrimination by persons employed at\neducational institutions. Bayh and others were working on what would become\nknown as the Equal Rights Amendment – which would not be passed – and he pulled\none of the provisions out of that draft, which stated, “No person in the\nUnited States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be\ndenied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education\nprogram or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.” He presented\nit to Congress, and on June 23, it became national law, under Title IX of the\nEducation Amendments of 1972.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Title IX was\nnot specifically intended to create equality in sports. But with its passage,\nany institution receiving federal funding now had to provide the same athletic\nopportunities for women that it had been providing for men. And that, quite\nliterally, was a game changer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Since the\npassage of Title IX, the number of women participating in publicly-funded\nsports has grown from 1-out-of-27, to 2-out-of-5; the number of women\nparticipating in high school sports has increased nine-fold; the number of\nwomen competing at the college level has grown 450%; today, there are over\n9,000 women’s collegiate teams, competing in, most predominantly, Basketball,\nVolleyball, Soccer, Track and Softball.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Put more\nbluntly, Title IX created a first generation of women, like my cousin Kathy,\nwho were allowed to compete in ways never before imaginable, and who would go\non win trophies and medals for their hometowns, universities, and even their\ncountry. And because of Title IX, young American women today will never know a\nworld where they can’t compete just like the boys.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yesterday,\nBirch Bayh, “the father of Title IX,” died at the age of 91. He was a\ngreat man with a funny name. And he changed the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For my cousin\nKathy. And millions of Americans with names like Abby and Mia and Florence and\nPicabo and Serena and Megan and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This one’s for you, Kathy Keeler… A story that begins with a man whose name was so ridiculous that he had to teach people how to pronounce it. When he ran for the Senate in 1962, his campaign jingle was, “Hey, look him over, he’s your guy. His first name…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1503,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1726,1727],"class_list":["post-1502","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-birch-bayh","tag-title-ix"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/kathy-keeler-gold.jpg?fit=200%2C226&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1502","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1502"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1502\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1504,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1502\/revisions\/1504"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1503"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}