This is the sixth article in a series recognizing the 50th anniversary of Title IX in local athletics.
BOWLING GREEN — The world is celebrating, commemorating, and reflecting on the 50th anniversary of the signing of Title IX by President Nixon in June of 1972.
This benchmark of the iconic law is one fought for and one which the fight is continuing. Imbalances have since undergone drastic, but welcomed, changes over these five decades, but the fight for gender equality stems far beyond the law’s passing at Bowling Green State University.
“They had to still be feminine, and how much they had to do themselves in order to compete and how these coaches who were actually hired as professors would call upon their counterparts, and they would just do it on their own,” recalled Ann Bowers, a former BGSU archivist who along with university researcher Janet Parks co-authored the book Forward Falcons: Women's Sports at Bowling Green State University, 1914-1982.