Celebrating 50 years of Title IX
By Chad Chatlos, Managing Director at TurnkeyZRG
June 23, 2022, marked the 50th anniversary of the passing of Title IX, as part of the Education Amendments to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. What is Title IX? In short, Title IX is a law that prohibits gender-based discrimination in a school or educational program as it relates to participation and benefits associated with it. How did this influence change college athletics? Title IX allowed our industry to grow significantly by providing opportunities for women to compete, coach, receive scholarships, and progress through college athletics – which then also allowed women to compete professionally as well. Basically, women were finally given the opportunity to have an equal playing field in higher education. Thank you to the pioneers that fought so hard for this to happen!
Across the country this year, many universities and athletics departments were – and still are – celebrating the 50th anniversary of Title IX with galas and celebrations that are highlighting the accomplishment of women throughout the history of their departments. We have also seen the creation of initiatives to help athletic departments raise money to provide opportunities for women’s sports.
Just to name a few:
UNC’s ForevHER TARHEELS: “Championing Carolina’s women’s student-athletes”
Oregon Duck’s Women in Flight Athletic Fund: “to raise awareness an all-financial support to achieve and maintain excellence across all Oregon women’s programs”
Ohio State’s Women’s Athletics Excellence: “aims to elevate the Buckeye experience for all women’s varsity sports while honoring our rich traditions, storied history, and inspiring future generations of Buckeye women leaders to a level of excellence that is synonymous with the Scarlet and Gray”.
It was also exciting and inspiring to see this year – the 50th Anniversary of Title IX – that Michigan Football made history by hiring the first female graduate assistant at a Power Five school – Milan Bolden-Morris.
We are very thankful for Title IX and excited to celebrate 50 years! However, we also understand we still have strides we need to make within the business of intercollegiate athletics to continue to champion for women in sports. From NIL to the hiring of ADs, administration, coaches, etc – we are finding that women are still not afforded as many opportunities as their male counterparts. But we are determined to continue to build upon the legacy that was started well over 50 years ago and champion for women within college athletics.
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ABOUT TURNKEYZRG
Founded in 1996, TurnkeyZRG is a highly specialized talent recruitment/executive search firm filling C-level, senior-level and mid-management level positions throughout sports, entertainment and media. Over the past 25 years, TurnkeyZRG has filled more than 1,400 positions throughout sports, entertainment and media. TurnkeyZRG helps teams, leagues, stadiums, arenas, theaters, college athletic departments, events, sponsors, agencies, media companies, private equity companies and other clients identify, recruit and hire the very best management talent. Turnkey now benefits from ZRG’s global footprint, full array of industry practice groups, data-driven, analytical search tools, and technology investment in changing the way executive search/talent recruiting is done. TurnkeyZRG becomes a tech-enabled disrupter of the prior executive search model. For more information about TurnkeyZRG, visit www.turnkeyzrg.com.