Ladies, imagine not being able to wear sweat pants to class. Imagine not being able to stay out past 12:30 on a Saturday night. Now imagine not being allowed to play in the marching band if the desire was there. Forty years ago, prior to the work of Beverly Jones and Title IX, this would have been the case.
The Title IX education amendment prohibits sexual discrimination under any educational program or activity funded by federal dollars. After it passed in 1972, then-president of OU Claude Sowle asked graduate student Beverly Price, who now goes by Jones, to write a report on the status of women at OU.
By this time, she was the most prominent feminist voice on campus, campaigning for the equal rights of women, Jones said.
I suspected that he had made the assignment in part to shut me up
Jones said. So I attempted to do the kind of job that he would find credible.
Jones will be returning to her alma mater Wednesday to speak on her work in the '70s as a part of the archives week celebration. The lecture, No Girls Aloud: A Report on 'The Report on the Status of Women At Ohio University' During the 1970s will be in Walter 145 at 7 p.m. Prior to the 1972 Report on the Status of Women at Ohio University, which was dubbed the Price Report women's athletics only received $913 out of the $1,011,306 budget for athletics, according to the Ohio University Financial Report for the 1969-1970 school year. Price advocated for more money to be allocated for women's' athletics and she was successful, and the budget has grown over the years.
John Burns, OU's director of legal affairs, worked with Price to draw up a set of legal recommendations to strike from band guidelines the nickname of the band, 110 Marching Men and a rule requiring women to cut their hair extremely short.
Bill Kimok, a university archivist who invited Jones to return for the presentation, is hoping her lecture about her work in the '70s will encourage more students to take an active role in activism.
It's like activism is dead
he said. I want to show students of today what students of the past have done.
The presentation's title is a play on words, said Kimok, reminiscent of childhood club houses adorned with signs reading No Girls Allowed.
Women weren't allowed to speak up
he said.
All schools had to deal with the issue of Title IX, and OU was ahead of the curve, Burns said. She lived through this herself
Burns said. She had good perspective on the role of women and had different experiences that made her report what it was.
Jones hopes her decades-old report gives students today a sense of responsibility, she said.
I hope (women) get a sense of how relatively recent our opportunities are so they know they still have to be safeguarded
Jones said.
Jones is president of ClearWays Consulting, a Washington, D.C., firm that coaches lawyers and other professionals to become more effective, according to its Web site. She is also a part-time lobbyist for the university, Burns said.
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Katie Kuehn
