who is protected under the title ix law
Title IX Title IX was enacted as a follow-up to passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The 1964 Act was passed to end discrimination in various fields based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin in the areas of employment and public accommodation.[2][3] The 1964 Act did not prohibit sex discrimination against persons employed at educational institutions. A parallel law, Title VI, had also been enacted in 1964 to prohibit discrimination in federally funded private and public entities. It covered race, color, and national origin but excluded sex. Feminists during the early 1970s lobbied Congress to add sex as a protected class category to Title VI, so that discrimination would be prohibited in public and private schools and other places that received federal funds. This effort was rejected, and Title IX was instead enacted as a stand-alone civil rights statute that covered only sex. Advocates who spearheaded the effort to enact Title IX were led by Dr. Bernice Sandler and others who were upset that Title VII prohibited discrimination in employment, but did not cover women employed in, or seeking employment in, higher education. Title IX was enacted to fill this gap and prohibit discrimination in all federally-funded entities. Congressman John Tower then proposed an amendment to Title IX that would have exempted athletics departments from the scope of Title IX's coverage. The Tower amendment was rejected, but it led to widespread misunderstanding of Title IX as a sports-equity law, rather than an anti-discrimination, civil rights law.[4] While TitleÂ IX is best known for its impact on high school and collegiate athletics, the original statute made no explicit mention of sports. The primary motivation was rooted in employment discrimination, and came from women who were denied equal access to employment opportunities in higher education. In the 1980s, the Department of Education issued guidance documents explaining that Title IX covers ll forms of sex discrimination, including sexual assault. The United States Supreme Court also issued decisions in the 1980s and 1990s, making clear that sexual assault is a form of sex discrimination. The legal relationship between Title IX and sexual assault was not publicly well-known until Harvard College came under federal investigation in 2002 for having a discriminatory sexual assault policy in place that subjected victims to inequitable redress by requiring them to produce independent corroboration as a prerequisite to Title IX redress on campus. Title IX's relationship to sexual assault became even more widely known in 2010 when Harvard Law School and Princeton University came under federal investigation for violating Title IX in their handling of sexual assaults on campus. Those investigations led to the issuance of nationwide guidance by President Barack Obama on April 4, 2011, which reminded schools of their obligation to redress sexual assaults as civil rights matters, under Title IX and Title IV. Obama also issued guidance extending Title IX protections to sexual orientation, gender identity, and physical or mental disability through a series of "Dear Colleague" letters that remain in legal limbo.[5][6] Under U.S. President Donald Trump, this has been rescinded back to the 1972 state.[7][8]