[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 84 (Friday, June 21, 2002)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1122-E1123]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               IN RECOGNITION OF CONGRESSWOMAN PATSY MINK

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. FORTNEY PETE STARK

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                         Friday, June 21, 2002

  Mr. STARK. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to acknowledge my great 
appreciation for the work done in Congress by my colleague from Hawaii, 
Congresswoman Patsy Mink. Recently, I came across an article published 
in Outlook magazine in connection with the American Association of 
University Women, titled Title IX at 30: Making the Grade? written by 
Patrice Gaines. The article observes Title IX's 30th anniversary as 
part of the Education Amendments of 1972. As a co-author of this law, 
Congresswoman Mink desired equal opportunities for women in comparison 
to their male counterparts in all education programs receiving taxpayer 
dollars. While there has been significant progress for women in the 
past thirty years, there are still many obstacles to overcome. Some of 
the barriers were addressed in the article, provided below.

                   Title IX at 30: Making the Grade?

       It was just 37 words, attached without fanfare to an 
     education amendment.
       ``In the dark of night, we stuck in this language,'' 
     recalls U.S. Rep. Patsy Mink (D-Hawaii) (pictured above), who 
     authored the law with the late Rep. Edith Green (D-Oregon). 
     ``I don't think my colleagues had any idea that language 
     hitched to funding could make such a difference.''
       The law was Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972. 
     Its existence illustrates what can happen when women are in 
     positions of power. Of course, Mink and Green needed the 
     support of their male colleagues. At the time, women held 
     just 12 congressional seats. But history was altered because 
     these two women beat the odds to be elected to Congress and 
     then took strong leadership roles.
       ``I knew of this terrible disparity in education long 
     before [I came to] Congress,'' says Mink, who had applied to 
     13 law schools and found that only one would accept women. In 
     1949 the University of Chicago admitted two female law 
     students in Mink's class of 200.
       In the last 30 years, Title IX has dramatically changed 
     many aspects of society, most notably the sports arena. Young 
     women who once could only shoot hoops in their driveways now 
     earn sports scholarships to college and have opportunities--
     though limited--to become professional athletes. And nearly 
     50 percent of law school students and lawyers are women.
       Yet progress under Title IX remains mixed. While we can 
     watch WNBA games on TV, in some less visible aspects progress 
     is slower or has even come to a screeching halt.


                        Pink vs. Blue Education

       ``There is a lack of progress in career education--
     vocational training at the high school and postsecondary 
     levels,'' says Leslie Annexstein, senior counsel at the 
     National Women's Law Center and vice chair of the National 
     Coalition for Women and Girls in Education, which is 
     publishing a report (available late June 2002 at 
     www.aauw.org) marking the status of Title IX on its 30th 
     anniversary. ``We still see female students clustered in 
     traditional occupational tracks that lead to jobs that make a 
     lot less money.''
       On the high school level, that means females still take 
     cosmetology classes while males fill trade and construction 
     programs.

[[Page E1123]]

     Statistics show that across the board, blue-collar jobs pay 
     more than pink. While the gender gap has narrowed in math and 
     science, engineering and physics remain male domains, and the 
     gap yawns in technology.
       ``Technology is the key to the future, but women have been 
     left behind,'' says AAUW Director of Public Policy and 
     Government Relations Nancy Zirkin, who co-chairs the 
     coalition with AAUW Government Relations Manager Jamie 
     Pueschel. According to statistics in Tech-Savvy: Educating 
     Girls in the New Computer Age (AAUW Educational Foundation, 
     2002), boys take computer advanced placement classes and 
     pursue information technology degrees. Girls tend to use 
     computers for data entry and e-mail. That leaves men with 
     more than 80 percent of high-tech--and high-paying--jobs.
       Other post-Title IX hurdles remain: As you move up the 
     career ladder in prestige or rank, you find fewer and fewer 
     women. The coalition report highlights the second-class 
     status of women working in educational institutions. While 
     women account for almost three-fourths of school-teachers, 
     for example, they make up only about 20 percent of high 
     school principals and 12 percent of superintendents. In 
     higher education, women are only 21 percent of full 
     professors and 19 percent of college and university 
     presidents.
       And persistently, on all educational levels, the learning 
     environment remains uneven. Male students attract more 
     attention--positive and negative--than do females. ``That 
     means females receive less encouragement and stay in 
     secondary roles throughout their education,'' says 
     Annexstein. This can condition females to accept a back seat 
     in school as well as in career and adult roles.
       That's not just bad for girls. Boys hear that they are 
     trouble-makers and problem students and may find the heat of 
     the added attention uncomfortable.
       Sexual harassment, too, continues to plague young women and 
     men. Eight in 10 students in grades eight to 11 experience 
     harassment during their student lives, according to Hostile 
     Hallways: Bullying, Teasing, and Sexual Harassment in School 
     (AAUW Educational Foundation, 2001), and more than a quarter 
     say they experience harassment often. Girls are more likely 
     to experience harassment than boys--83 percent versus 79 
     percent--but boys today are more likely to be harassed than 
     were their counterparts in 1993.
       Compared to this backslide, there is a standstill in 
     progress in the treatment of pregnant and parenting students. 
     Before Title IX, high school students were automatically 
     expelled if they became pregnant, and parenting typically 
     signified the end of their formal education. Title IX now 
     prohibits discrimination based on parental status, making 
     automatic expulsion illegal. Yet while these young women may 
     be allowed to stay in school, without more programs and 
     assistance to help them, the results remain the same: A young 
     women is often forced to drop out. Traditional schools 
     encourage pregnant students to leave or to attend one of the 
     newer programs established specifically for young parents. 
     But these newer schools generally lack academic quality.


                            Push for Change

       Still, Mink remains hopeful. She's seen how far women have 
     come, though progress may be slow. A member of AAUW's Puna, 
     Hawaii, Branch, she began taking a lead role in advancing 
     equity on the House Education and Labor Committee when she 
     and other members summoned publishers to address the lack of 
     female images in schoolbooks. With that congressional nudge, 
     in a few years the texts changed.
       Next, Mink recalls, Edith Green wanted to add the category 
     of ``sex'' to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 
     which prohibits discrimination in the workplace.
       ``The Justice Department kept saying it couldn't [legally] 
     be done,'' says Mink. ``The only thing left was to attach it 
     to the education bill.'' In the end, Congress did outlaw sex 
     discrimination in Title VII, but Mink and Green still pushed 
     the change in Title IX.
       Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) immediately added his support.
       ``I was a Little League coach in Anchorage,'' he recalls. 
     ``I had three boys and two girls. When it came time to pick a 
     team, I had to tell the girls they couldn't play.''
       His oldest daughter suggested the sue, but Stevens didn't 
     have the time or money to invest in a lengthy court case. Yet 
     he never forgot his daughters' disappointment and his feeling 
     that the playing field was not fair. So when he got to 
     Congress, he joined forces with Mink, Green, and others. He 
     remains a staunch supporter of Title IX.
       So does Dot ``Doc'' Richardson, captain of the softball 
     team that took home the gold from the 1996 and 2000 Olympics. 
     Richardson says that title IX helped her become not just a 
     world-class athlete but a surgeon, too.
       ``Through Title IX we got the chance to learn that people 
     appreciate athletic talent no matter the gender,'' she says. 
     ``That's the kind of respect every athlete wants: to just be 
     treated as an athlete--not as a male or female athlete.'' But 
     that's just the beginning. ``Title IX is all about 
     education,'' says Richardson, a surgeon at Ray-Richardson 
     Orthopedic Associates in Clermont, Florida.
       ``It amazes me that people believe that Title IX means if 
     you have a college football team for men, you have to have a 
     football team for women,'' says Richardson. What it says is 
     that female students must have equal opportunities to 
     participate in educational programs and activities.
       In a way, Richardson says, Title IX taught her to dream, 
     creating opportunities she never imagined possible. The young 
     Dot who longed to play Little League baseball with her 
     brothers never dreamed that one day the best-selling 
     Louisville Slugger bat would bear her name.


                         keeping title ix alive

       Mink and Green's short amendment has created opportunities 
     while making equity issues a part of the general 
     consciousness of many men and women, especially those who 
     have grown up since the amendment became law.
       Consider the children of ABC News reporter and commentator 
     Cokie Roberts: ``My daughter went to Princeton and had a 
     varsity letter in water polo. That would not have been 
     possible without Title IX. But it would never occur to her 
     that she would not have equal education and access to 
     everything. And her brother is appalled at the notion that 
     things would be any different for her than they are for 
     him.''
       Yet, warns Mink, people must be vigilant in guarding the 
     law that passed so quietly.
       ``Most of the young people around today don't understand 
     what it was like in the 1940s and '50s,'' says Mink. ``As the 
     older women pass and the younger ones do not have the 
     knowledge,there may be an attempt to water down Title IX.''

  I ask my colleagues to rise today and recognize our colleague, Patsy 
Mink; a woman who has dedicated much of her time and efforts advocating 
the significance and achievements that women can and do contribute to 
this country.

                          ____________________