Commentary
This week marks the 51st anniversary of the enactment of Title IX, the historic federal civil rights law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex at federally funded educational institutions.
The passage of Title IX in 1972 significantly expanded opportunities for women in education and in competitive sports. As a result, participation in female sports greatly increased. During the 1971–1972 school year, just 294,015 girls participated in high school sports, compared to 3.67 million boys. By contrast, during the 2021–2022 school year, 3.2 million girls participated in high school athletics, compared to 4.4 million boys.
Similar increases occurred in women’s sports at the collegiate level. The number of female athletes at NCAA schools grew more than seven-fold from 1971 to 2020, with 215,486 women playing college sports in the 2020–2021 school year….