Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

"No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance" Title IX, Education Amendments of 1972.

As a civil rights law, Title IX requires gender equity within all educational programs and institutional activities that receive federal funding. Originally Title IX was sought out to become law because women faced ridicule and were denied positions within higher education, despite having doctoral degrees. The unfair treatment inspired the creation and strategic wording of Title IX to be used for all types of sex discrimination. Title IX soon became law and set the groundwork for inequity to be abolished. However, legal attention following the passing of the 1972 legislation focused on athletic equalities and this in turn became the public understanding of Title IX. Decades later, Title IX policy would be reevaluated by Supreme Court cases that questioned the extent of Title IX’s protections.

From a multi-disciplinary lens, this research will demonstrate how Title IX policy has evolved as a gender equity policy within higher education, and the historical relevance between Supreme Court decisions and the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights guidelines (sometimes referred to as the Dear Colleague Letters). This presentation will also introduce this author’s exploratory quantitative dissertation research on California community colleges, that explores the extent California community colleges’ leadership are combating sexual misconduct through the implementation of prevention education and Title IX policy adoption.