#GAReads | Bernice Sandler, ‘Godmother of Title IX’ and champion of women's rights, is dead at 90
Congressman John Delaney with Dr. Bernice Sandler in 2017
“Bernice Sandler, ‘Godmother of Title IX’ and champion of women's rights, is dead at 90”:
To fully appreciate Bernice Sandler's seismic impact on equality for women in higher education, you have to go back to the dark ages of the early 1970s.
In those days, many universities had limits on the number of female professors they would hire. Salaries for female faculty members lagged behind those for men. Men's varsity sports received millions of dollars in funding while female athletes held bake sales to pay for their uniforms. Some women's teams had no locker rooms and had to dress in their dorms.
All that began to change in 1972 when Congress passed Title IX, the federal law that bars gender discrimination in education.
But the landmark legislation may not have happened -- at least not as soon as it did -- if not for the grassroots efforts of Sandler, known as the "Godmother of Title IX," who died Saturday of cancer at her home in Washington. She was 90.