Separate and Unequal: Studying Title IX in an Era of Extreme Conservative Backlash

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

Shortly after Title IX celebrated its 50th anniversary, Donald Trump was elected to a second presidential term. His campaign heralded men’s rights, targeted transgender women athletes, and promised to end “woke” DEI policies. This symposium considers how college sports programs reproduce and resist intersectional systems of gender power in this moment of extreme conservative backlash. Panelists will discuss how to build critical, intersectional, and interdisciplinary scholarship that considers the multitude of ways gender is experienced and expressed (e.g., institutionalized, embodied, as a state project) in college sports. Throughout, we will give special attention to the core underpinning of Title IX – separate but equal organizing principles – which provides ambiguous opportunities for supporting girls and women’s sports.

Sub Unit

• SIG-Research Focus on Education and Sport

Chair

• Kirsten Hextrum, Oregon State University

Papers

• Advancing Leadership Development for Female College Athletes: Disrupting Gendered Inequities in College Sports - Sarah E. Stokowski, Clemson University

• “What Can I Do, What Can We Do?”: Exploring Black Women College Athletes’ Racial Justice Activism and Engagement During and After 2020 - Ezinne Ofoegbu, Santa Clara University; Briana Savage, University of California - Riverside

• Gender segregation vs. semi-segregated: Two approaches to governing intercollegiate athletics, neither of which achieve parity - Kirsten Hextrum, Oregon State University

Session Organizer

• Kirsten Hextrum, Oregon State University

Discussants

• Jennifer L. Hoffman, University of Washington

• Valyncia C. Raphael-Woodward, University of Southern California