Congratulations to Kingston High School lacrosse athlete Lauren Kwasnowski just named a U.S. Lacrosse All-American. And thank you to the Freeman for your consistently excellent coverage of women’s sports.
None of this would have been possible without the passage of Title IX ensuring gender equity in education. June 23rd is Title IX’s 40th anniversary. When Congress passed Title IX in 1972, few high schools or colleges had sports teams for young women. There’s been great progress in many places, although sports scholarships for young women like Lauren lag far behind the millions in sports scholarships available for young men.
Increased athletic opportunities for women and girls are only one aspect of Title IX. Title IX has made it possible for women to pursue careers as lawyers, doctors, mechanics, scientists; it affects all areas of education and applies to all institutions and education programs receiving federal funds. Some of those areas include access and admission to higher education, career and technical education, education for pregnant and parenting students, equity in math, science, engineering and technology education, and sexual harassment, as well as athletics.
Like many other areas today where women believed we had made progress in breaking through gender barriers, we find that Title IX is being eroded. Those who oppose equity for women and girls are using targeted budget reductions, reinterpretation of regulations, ineffective compliance monitoring, and the erroneous notion that there is a “boy crisis.” AAUW maintains that education is not a zero sum game, and that the real issue is about girls doing better, not about boys doing worse.
AAUW Kingston encourages all those concerned about equity for women and girls– your daughters, your mothers, your wives, your friends or yourself — to become a watchdog and speak out wherever erosion is occurring or progress needs to be made. That includes our school district and college budgets and policies, as well as local, state and federal legislation.
We wish Lauren and young women everywhere all the opportunities women have fought for throughout our history and those we have yet to win.