News: Billie Jean King marks 40-year anniversary of Title IX

Billie Jean King sits on ESPN's Power of Title IX panelLesbian.com, June 17, 2012

Legendary tennis pro Billie Jean King marked the 40th anniversary of Title IX by serving on ESPN’s “The Power of IX” panel at the network’s Bristol, Conn., campus on Friday. The discussion was part of ESPN and espnW’s three-month long initiative to recognize the landmark bill, passed on June 23, 1972.

King was joined by fellow panelists Bernice Sandler, Ann Meyers Drysdale, Teresa Edwards, Lyn St. James and host Chris McKendry.

“The way people make change is you have to be unhappy about something,” Sandler said. “And then you have to get a bunch of people together who feel the same thing. And then you have to make a stink about it,” noted Sandler, the woman considered to be the Godmother of Title IX.

When Sandler was passed over for a job at the University of Maryland in 1969 for “coming on too strong as a woman” she enlisted the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs and the Women’s Equity Action League to file a greviance against the University of Maryland. Three years later, Title IX was signed into law, effectively ending sex discrimination in federally funded education programs.

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