When the Lady Bison lacrosse team at Howard University took the field last month for its season opener, the team began what has been a compelling chapter in the history of the nation’s only lacrosse team sponsored by an HBCU. The team also contributes to a larger chapter of American history regarding intercollegiate sports.
The team is an example of how the landscape of intercollegiate athletics has changed since Congress passed Title IX, the federal law that bars discrimination based on sex in educational programs at institutions that receive federal funds. Intercollegiate athletics is covered by Title IX, which marks its 40th anniversary this year.
“We’ve come so far,” says Karen Morrison, director of gender initiatives at the NCAA, echoing the sentiments of other Title IX advocates. “It’s changed our country and certainly changed the opportunities for women in the country,” says Morrison, who credits expanded intercollegiate athletics opportunities for women with boosting their professional lives beyond college.
Morrison, like many others, says her college athletics experience played a role in her successful pursuits—in her case, law school. A former assistant basketball coach and administrator at the University of Colorado for 16 years, she joined the NCAA five years ago.
Since enforcement of the law began in 1978, there has been a steady drumbeat across the nation for equity in opportunities for women, particularly in the sciences and athletics. Many schools have responded with haste, pursuing ambitious athletic program expansion agendas that also help in recruiting women to their campuses. Others have been less than enthusiastic in complying. Meanwhile, the view of its impact on women from an employment perspective generates a mixed report.
The NCAA, which resisted gender equity efforts for years before shifting toward embracing them, has engaged in a range of efforts to help schools achieve the goals of the law. It has established equity planning requirements, stages an annual equity forum, written a Title IX compliance manual, and established a committee on women’s sports that, starting this summer, will include college presidents (one from each of the NCAA’s three divisions). The NCAA also requires all member schools to designate a Senior Woman Administrator, or SWA, to help schools plan and implement their gender-based athletic programs in a nondiscriminatory way.
“It’s (Title IX) not only opened the door, it’s put a stop on the door so it wouldn’t close,” says HBCU ladies basketball coaching legend Sanya Tyler, the first full-time coach of women’s basketball at Howard.
