Neena Chaudhry, Senior Counsel and Director of Equal Opportunities in Athletics

by Neena Chaudhry, Senior Counsel
National Women’s Law Center

Many of us here had the privilege of attending an inspiring event yesterday at George Washington University, where hundreds gathered to celebrate the release of a new Title IX guidance that reversed a harmful policy issued in 2005 and provided further details about how schools can comply with the law. The 2005 policy weakened the law by permitting schools to claim that they were complying with Title IX based exclusively on the results of an email survey asking female students about their interests in additional sports opportunities. Even worse, schools were given the green light to interpret any lack of response to a survey as lack of interest in sports. 

Vice President Biden, Valerie Jarrett (Chair of the White House Council on Women and Girls), and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and his staff joined Olympic and professional athletes, local teams, students, parents and advocates to talk about the importance of Title IX and what it means for our nation’s daughters. As the Vice President said, “Making Title IX as strong as possible is a no-brainer.” And he dubbed yesterday Equal Play Day, noting that it was also Equal Pay Day (check out our blog for posts about fair pay).

The speakers recognized how empowering sports are for women and girls and how participating in sports leads to greater academic and employment success, better health outcomes, and countless other benefits.