An Unequal Playing Field: Inequality in the Years After Title IX
By Elizabeth Fortier
No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.[1]
This is part of the groundbreaking 1972 legislation, Title IX, a federal civil rights law, which prohibited discrimination on the basis of sex in any educational program or activity receiving federal funding. Under this law, athletics are considered an educational program, which means schools receiving federal funds must ensure equal opportunities for athletic participation to men and women. Many women hoped that the discriminatory treatment of female athletics on Centre’s campus would end as a result of this legislation. However, in the years after Title IX’s implementation, female athletes continued to struggle for equal opportunities, adequate facilities, funding, and coaching staff. Despite the passage of Title IX, there remained disparities in the treatment of athletics on Centre’s campus, as biases against women’s athletic capabilities and the profitability of men’s sports weakened the administration’s willingness to prioritize the equitable treatment of women’s athletics.
While Centre College opened its doors in 1819, it took another sixty years for the institution to add men’s athletics. Early administrators did not include athletics in the Centre experience. As a result, athletics have a relatively short history at Centre. While men’s athletics have gained support, there was much hesitation about their addition to campus at their introduction. In an 1892 report to the trustees, College President William C. Young explained that some faculty feared students would prioritize athletics over academics. He wrote of faculty “feeling assured that if properly managed… sports will be undoubtedly beneficial to the students, and indirectly to the College; yet on the other hand they feel equally certain that if they are not controlled and restricted by stringent rules rigidly enforced, they will provide a nuisance and work evil to all.”[2]While students viewed athletics as an outlet from their studies, the administration remained hesitant about any activities they could not control. These administrators were initially fearful of any pastimes that took students’ attention away from the classroom.
According to College archives, the first documented intercollegiate athletic competition was a football game between Centre and Transylvania University, played in Lexington on April 9, 1880.[3] After the 1880 football game against Transylvania, Centre soon added other sports. By 1887 Centre had added baseball, track, and gymnastics for men only.[4] While Kitty Baird stated in her graduate school thesis, Women in Physical Education and Sports at Centre College: 1854-1978, that the women’s intercollegiate basketball team organized in 1960, there is no other record of this team existing.[5] What the College’s archives do mention is that it was not until the addition of the field hockey team in 1960, roughly eighty years after the establishment of men’s athletics, that women had a varsity sports team at Centre.[6]Five years later, a separate women’s tennis team was organized, as women played with the men before this time. According to official College records, in 1965, there were only two recognized women’s sports teams, field hockey and tennis.[7] All other women’s athletics were recognized as either club or intramural sports, which meant they did not receive funding equivalent to varsity athletics. The fact that there were only two female teams during this time meant that women had very few opportunities for athletic participation on Centre’s campus during the 1960s.
Gender segregation has long been a part of the College’s athletic, academic, and social structure. When the College added men’s athletics, administrators relegated women to a separate campus across town. While Centre opened its doors to male students in 1819, female students did not have an equivalent post-secondary educational option until 1854, when the Henderson Female Institute opened. During its operation, the institute underwent several name changes, including Caldwell Institute for Young Ladies in 1860 to Caldwell College around 1887, and then to Kentucky College for Women or KWC in 1913.[8] In 1926, Kentucky College for Women opened as a department of Centre College before administrators formally consolidated the two in 1930. However, women did not vacate the KCW campus until January of 1962. That year, female students took up residence in new dormitories on West Main Street.[9] The disparity created due to decades of gender segregation was sharp. During the 1960s, Centre could focus on building up men’s athletic programs while, at the same time, it only began to allow women to live on campus for the first time.
Although Centre did not have sports teams at its founding, athletics came to play a central role in the College’s culture and traditions. As Centre graduate Cathy Lynch (Class of 1981) stated, “sports were a huge part of all our traditions.”[10]Crit Luallen (Class of 1974) recalled a similar memory from her time at Centre, “sports were an important part of what we did, and what we participated in. I didn’t personally participate in any sports. But we went to all the games…you knew all the players and who they were and it was an important part of life then, as it is now.”[11] However, not all teams received equal treatment as well-attended social events. As Centre alumna Molly Newell (Class of 1989) shared, “everybody loves going to all the different sports. Certainly football was the most popular one as far as a social gathering.”[12] Not only did non-athlete alums often remember football games as central to social life, many former female athletes recalled memories of attending football games rather than their own athletic participation. While Cathy Lynch, who was a founding member of the softball team, recalled some about her own involvement in athletics, she had many fond memories of the social scene surrounding football games from her time at Centre.[13]
In 1972, Title IX revolutionized the landscape of gender and collegiate athletics. This groundbreaking federal legislation banned sex-based discrimination in any educational institution that receives federal funding. While the law targeted educational programs and activities, three parts applied to athletics. Two of these criteria were central to athletics at Centre. First, under the participation section, schools had to provide equitable opportunities for athletic participation to men and women. Second, under the benefits section, Title IX required the equal treatment of male and female student-athletes in the provision of equipment and supplies; scheduling games and practice times; access to facilities; coaching staff; travel and daily budgets; access to tutoring; publicity and promotions; support services and the recruitment of student-athletes.[14]
Assessing the impact of Title IX on Centre’s campus is complicated, but there were several notable changes. After Title IX’s implementation, the number of women’s athletics teams grew significantly, from two to the twelve offered today.[15] In addition, most women’s athletics teams gained recognition as varsity sports, elevating not only what sports women could play but the level at which they could compete. Because the College’s archives are missing records for several women’s sports, it is impossible to trace the history of many teams. For the included sports, the records show that six women’s athletics teams were either established or elevated to varsity status in the roughly thirty years after Title IX’s passage. By 1999, tennis (1965), softball (1978), volleyball (1987), women’s soccer (1991), women’s golf (1994), and field hockey (1999) were all recognized as varsity sports.[16] While these dates make it appear as though the College did not add most women’s sports teams until after the passage as Title IX, it was not until recently that the College started paying attention to the history of women’s athletics. As Kitty Baird stated in her thesis, “this leads many people to believe that women were not competing until recently.”[17] The lack of attention paid to female athletics throughout the history of Centre College makes it appear as though competition among women is a new phenomenon.
Despite the growth in women’s athletics, gender segregation remained a pervasive issue, especially with the existence of separate athletic conferences based on gender. In 1983, Centre and seven other colleges in Kentucky and Tennessee joined together to form the Women’s Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (WIAC). This conference replaced the Association of Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW), founded in 1971 as the NCAA equivalent for women’s athletics. Despite the new conference, some competition still took place within the Kentucky Women’s Intercollegiate Conference (KWIC), a regional division of the WIAC.[18] Because many of the archival entries for women’s athletics are incomplete or nonexistent, it is difficult to find a record of how long these conferences lasted or even which sports were members. However, in 1991 the College Athletic Conference – which the men’s teams had played in since 1962 – was reconfigured as the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference (SCAC).[19] The College’s digital archives list the women’s tennis team as playing in the SCAC for the first time in the spring of 1992.[20] The fact that it took twenty years after the implementation of Title IX for women’s athletics to join a co-educational athletic conference demonstrates the prevalence of biases against women’s athletic capabilities.
In the years immediately after the passage of Title IX, many female students took issue with the fact that discrepancies in funding between men’s and women’s athletics still existed. In January of 1974, an article entitled “Are Women Getting Fouled at Centre???” was published in the inaugural issue of The Flame. In this article, the author pointed out that the allocated funds for all women’s sports that year were fourteen hundred dollars, while the football team alone received nineteen thousand. The article cited the athletic department head justifying this disparity in funding by claiming that funding the football team pays off.[21] The impacts of this statement were felt by many female athletes. While discussing her experience as a founding member of the softball team in 1978, Cathy Lynch expressed sentiments that the administration characterized women’s sports as simply a creative outlet.[22]
Title IX did not immediately resolve the disparities between athletic programs as the profit margins behind sports like football provided little incentive to end their preferential treatment. The years immediately after Title IX saw increased attention to gender disparities in athletics. In 1978 Kitty Baird recognized the issue in the lack of attention paid to the history of women’s athletics at Centre and Kentucky colleges more broadly. In her graduate school thesis, Baird focused on the history of women’s involvement in physical education and athletic programs to gauge any barriers to their participation. She also studied attitudes towards women’s sports and how these and participation in athletic programs changed over time. Baird found that with the implementation of Title IX and the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment, interest in athletic competition among women increased. As she stated in her thesis, “the interest was so intense, however, that many school officials became concerned about the effect that this would have on students.”[23] This concern reflects the widespread fear that sports could harm women. In part due to this fear, the administration harbored significant doubts that women could compete competitively in the same ways as men. As a result, there was little focus on women’s intercollegiate sports for many years as the administration preferred to focus on less competitive intramural sports. Baird’s findings of biases against women’s athletic capabilities and the fear that participation could harm women explain why the College was so slow in adopting the provisions of Title IX.
Despite the attention Kitty Baird brought to gender disparities in athletics, the College did not rush to change the gender inequality. As of the 1981-82 academic year, 22 percent of Centre women participated in one of seven athletic teams. In that same year, 48 percent of Centre men were a member of one of nine sports teams.[24] Because of this discrepancy in participation, the 1981 athletic subcommittee became interested in the question, “Are Centre College’s athletic programs appropriately balanced for men and women?”[25] To answer this question and compare male and female satisfaction with the intramural and intercollegiate athletic programs, the committee distributed a survey among the student body. While only a fraction of the students at Centre returned the questionnaire, a majority of those who did so responded positively. While the number of respondents who expressed dissatisfaction with both the intramural and intercollegiate athletic programs was small, the majority of these respondents were women. According to a summary of the survey findings, “among the responses of the women in regards to the intercollegiate program was the recurring comment on inadequate funding of their programs.”[26] Many female students expressed a desire for the increased funding of women’s athletics to improve and expand the opportunities for their athletic involvement.
By looking at the differences in athletic facilities and coaching staff made accessible to different sports teams, it becomes clear that the administration did not prioritize women’s athletics. As Cathy Lynch stated in her interview about the softball team, “we didn’t have a professional coach, it was two students.”[27] Archival entries also note that because the College did not offer the team a facility on campus, they played at a local park.[28] The football team’s history contrasts with the softball team’s lack of access to appropriate facilities and coaching staff. While the softball team lacked a field, the College built a new stadium for the football team in 1923. Despite the fact that two students coached the softball team, the football coach’s salary from 1917-1923 was higher than that of the president.[29] The fact that such blatant disparities in the treatment of men’s and women’s athletics existed even after the implementation of Title IX demonstrates how the administration’s ideology that women’s sports don’t pay off slowed the adoption of the Act’s provisions.
Even the space dedicated to athletic teams in the College’s digital archives is telling. While the football team has multiple collections, some even dedicated to individual games, there is not a single photograph of women’s athletics in the entire athletic digital archives.[30] There have not just been disparities in the physical space dedicated to sports, but also the way the College has celebrated the achievements of these teams. While the women’s soccer team has become one of the most decorated programs on campus, the team does not have any space in the digital archives dedicated to its impressive achievements. Due to the lack of space devoted to women’s athletics in the digital archives, it is hard to trace the history of many of the female athletic teams at Centre. This lack of space dedicated to women’s achievements serves to minimize the role of female athletics on Centre’s campus. The attention paid to men’s athletics compared to women’s shows that women’s sports have not been a priority at Centre.
Female athletes at Centre College faced discrimination before and after the implementation of Title IX. Although many women hoped the passage of Title IX in 1972 would lead to gender equity in athletics, disparities remained for years. The fact that the administration continued to harbor beliefs about women’s limited athletic capabilities shaped the treatment and experiences of female athletes. For much of the twentieth century, female athletes struggled with limited opportunities for participation as there remained a small number of women’s teams. For women who were able to participate, the creation of separate athletic conferences based on gender reflected the administration’s beliefs that women were not capable of competing at the same level as men. As the College prioritized the funding of profitable sports, female students did not hesitate to protest against sexist budget disparities. As a result of the administration’s biases, female athletes were not only denied equal access in terms of physical space, but the history of Centre College largely excluded records of women’s athletics. Though Centre now celebrates women’s athletics, it was not long ago that female athletes fought for the end to discriminatory policies. To truly appreciate recent athletic accomplishments, we must commemorate the women who made these achievements possible.
[1] “Title IX of The Education Amendments of 1972,” The United States Department of Justice, August 6, 2015
[2] “Men's Athletics,” Centre College Digital Archives, accessed April 7, 2021
[3] Ibid.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Kitty Baird, “Women in Physical Education and Sport,” August 1978, CC-10.8, Volume 1, Centre College Special Collections and Archives, Danville, Kentucky.
[6] “Field Hockey,” Centre College Digital Archives, accessed April 11, 2021
[7] “Tennis, Women's,” Centre College Digital Archives, accessed April 11, 2021
[8] “Henderson Female Institute,” Centre College Digital Archives, accessed April 12, 2021,
[9] “Kentucky College for Women,” Centre College Digital Archives, accessed April 12, 2021
[10] Cathy Lynch, interview by Elizabeth Fortier, March 2, 2021, Centre College Digital Archives, Grace Doherty Library, Centre College, Danville, Kentucky.
[11] Crit Luallen, interview by Gus Crow, March 11, 2021, Centre College Digital Archives, Grace Doherty Library, Centre College, Danville, Kentucky.
[12] Molly Newell, interview by Anne Burchett, April 7, 2021, Centre College Digital Archives, Grace Doherty Library, Centre College, Danville, Kentucky.
[13]Cathy Lynch, interview by Elizabeth Fortier, March 2, 2021, Centre College Digital Archives, Grace Doherty Library, Centre College, Danville, Kentucky.
[14] “Title IX Frequently Asked Questions,” NCAA.org - The Official Site of the NCAA, January 27, 2014
[15] “Men's Athletics,” Centre College Digital Archives, accessed April 7, 2021
[16] “Field Hockey,” Centre College Digital Archives, accessed April 11, 2021
[17] Kitty Baird, “Women in Physical Education and Sport,” August 1978, CC-10.8, Volume 1, Centre College Special Collections and Archives, Danville, Kentucky.
[18] Alice Davis, “Announcement of WIAC Formation,” August 22, 1983, CC-10.8, Folder 4, Centre College Special Collections and Archives, Danville, Kentucky.
[19] “History of the SCAC,” Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference, accessed May 15, 2021
[20] “Tennis, Women's,” Centre College Digital Archives, accessed April 11, 2021
[21] “The Flame,” January 1974, Centre College Digital Archives, Grace Doherty Library, Centre College, Danville, Kentucky.
[22] Cathy Lynch, interview by Elizabeth Fortier, March 2, 2021, Centre College Digital Archives, Grace Doherty Library, Centre College, Danville, Kentucky.
[23] Kitty Baird, “Women in Physical Education and Sport,” August 1978, CC-10.8, Volume 1, Centre College Special Collections and Archives, Danville, Kentucky.
[24] “Athletic Subcommittee Report,” 1981, CC-17.3A, Centre College Special Collections and Archives, Danville, Kentucky.
[25] Ibid.
[26] Ibid.
[27] Cathy Lynch, interview by Elizabeth Fortier, March 2, 2021, Centre College Digital Archives, Grace Doherty Library, Centre College, Danville, Kentucky.
[28] “Softball,” Centre College Digital Archives, accessed April May 15, 2021
[29] “Football,” Centre College Digital Archives, accessed April May 15, 2021
[33] “Athletics,” Centre College Digital Archives, accessed May 16, 2021