6/17/2012: If I was an economist I could give a whole lecture – hell, a whole course – on Nixon’s great achievements:
- Replaced the random enslavement of the draft with a paid, professional military.
- Established the EPA
- Got us off the gold standard
- Created the Earned Income Tax Credit
- Signed Title IX: 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.
The NYT has an interesting article on Title IX and sports:
“There’s a whole host of African-American women who have benefited greatly from Title IX. We’ve gotten college scholarships and college degrees; we’ve made Olympic teams. Track and field is an area where a large number of African-American women receive college scholarships.
“But in the grand scheme of things, Caucasian girls have benefited disproportionately well, especially suburban girls and wealthy Caucasian girls.”
According to a 2007 report by the United States Department of Education, among high school sophomores, white girls had a 51 percent participation rate in sports, compared with 40 percent for black girls. The percentages were lower for Asian/Pacific Islanders (34 percent) and Hispanics (32 percent).
The lack of access to sports at youth levels becomes manifest at the intercollegiate level, where African-American women are underrepresented in all but two sports: Division I basketball, where black women represent 50.6 percent of athletes, and indoor and outdoor track and field, where they represent 28.2 and 27.5 percent. They are all but missing in lacrosse (2.2 percent), swimming (2.0), soccer (5.3) and softball (8.2). They are an underrepresented rising presence in volleyball (11.6).
An unexpected consequence of Title IX is that since the legislation was passed in 1972, the percentage of female head coaches has decreased and the percentage of men coaching women’s teams has increased, especially in basketball and soccer. According to studies by Linda Jean Carpenter and R. Vivian Acosta, the percentage of women coaching women’s teams at the intercollegiate level fell to 44 percent in 2010 from 90 percent in 1972. But even here, African-American women have lost ground.
ESPN had a recent article on Jody Runge, former UO basketball coach, now unable to get a job. The current UO coach is Paul Westhead. His contract – an order of magnitude or so more lucrative than hers, and signed by Frohmayer and Kilkenny, is here.
I would add OSHA to the list of Nixon’s accomplishments. While OSHA serves as whipping boy for some, it undoubtedly has produced safer work environments and saved countless lives.