A Woman’s Place Following Call For Racial Unity, Clinton Salutes Strides Toward Equality Of Sexes

Flanked by a female Olympic athlete and astronaut who triumphed over the sex barriers of their time, President Clinton on Tuesday celebrated the 25th anniversary of a landmark bill banning discrimination against women in sports and education and called for strengthening that legislation.

“We celebrate how far we’ve come, but we must also recommit ourselves to this goal of equality. Too many schools and programs still drag their feet and lag behind in their responsibility to young women,” said Clinton, who has just launched a nationwide drive to combat the lingering problem of racial discrimination.

As part of that campaign, the president ordered a tightening of civil rights enforcement within 90 days in federally run schools for Native Americans and military families still uncovered by Title IX, the law that prohibits sexual discrimination in colleges and universities receiving government aid. Clinton is expanding the provisions of the law to cover schools run by the government as well as educational programs by agencies other than the Department of Education.

“Every school and every education program that receives federal assistance in the entire country must understand that complying with (this law) is not optional. It is the law and the law must be enforced,” declared Clinton, who said it was ironic that the legislation does not apply to some of the government’s own programs.

One of the lessons of the law, he noted, was that “expanding opportunities for every and any American helps the rest of us. Wasted opportunity diminishes all of us.”

Stressing the progress that has been made, Clinton reported that in 1972 there were 300,000 girls in high school athletics, compared to 2.3 million today. He also emphasized that in 1972, 9 percent of medical degrees and 7 percent of law degrees were awarded to women, compared to 38 percent of medical degrees and 43 percent of law degrees in 1996.

“Every girl growing up in America today should have the chance to become an astronaut or an Olympic athlete, a Cabinet secretary or Supreme Court justice, a Nobel prize-winning scientist or president of the United States,” Clinton said.

The impact of the law was illustrated by the women who stood beside the president and first lady Hillary Clinton, from Sally Ride, the first American female astronaut, to Jackie Joyner-Kersee, the Olympic heptathlon and long jump star who holds six medals, and 18-year-old Anne Jarvis Jefferson of Winona, Minn., a U.S. presidential scholar who will be enrolled at Johns Hopkins University in the fall.

“No one ever told me no,” said Jefferson, a self-possessed young woman who has already established herself as a scholar and who seeks a career in environmental law or public policy.

“Everywhere is a woman’s place, but we have to go on fighting, “said Joyner-Kersee, who recalled her mother’s anxiety about the problems involved in her young daughter’s determination to become an athlete despite lack of encouragement from her school.

Ride, now director of the California Space Institute, recalled the gaps in educational opportunity for women as recently as the ‘70s at institutions like Stanford University.

“That law was of enormous importance,” she said. “And it was not just about opening up the chance to win medals, it was about how to compete and follow your dream in all areas of learning.”