On February 28, 1972, Indiana Senator Birch Bayh introduced an amendment to the Higher Education Act of 1965, which was up for reauthorization. Title IX was part of the Equal Rights Act, which was coming out of committee and on its way to nowhere. But in the spirit of “what can we do,” Senator Bayh tacked it on the HEA as an amendment that made our country and, arguably, the world, a better place for everyone.
Title IX usually brings to mind women’s athletics, and while it’s true that women’s sports would probably not exist in any meaningful form today without Title IX, the meat of the amendment was about education—any educational institution accepting federal money had to provide equal opportunity for women.
So where does my friend Bob fit into this? Bob worked for Senator Bayh for 13 years, starting as an 18-year-old college student fresh from Hammond, Indiana. He drove the Senator and ran errands, and eventually became his political director. He had an inside view of the creation of Title IX, the ERA, the Bayh-Dole Act that revolutionized research and development through fair patent practices, and on life in electoral politics. He is also Senator Bayh’s biographer.
I contacted Bob, who lived in Rockville until recently, to ask for a few minutes of his time to talk about Title IX in preparation for a series of interviews with some of Rockville's women leaders. Instead of the 15-minute phone interview I initially asked him for, this incredibly busy and generous man joined us in the garage for almost two hours.
I was born the day before Title IX was introduced on the Senate floor, and although I’ve had my fill of “you’re so much prettier when you smile” and criticisms for returning to work after my son was born (he’s 20 and I’m still salty about this), I know I benefitted from Title IX in ways my older mentors did not when they were girls and young professionals. As someone who knew the world before and after, I asked Bob how he had benefited from Title IX. He talked about becoming a better person by shedding his prejudices, and he shares in a frank and direct way what he believed and how he behaved before and after Title IX and the Civil Rights Movement. His candor shows that we can fix ourselves, and how we uplift others when we do so. He also lit up when his daughter-in-law and granddaughter came up, and he talked about his daughter-in-law as a feminist. My initial response was, “yeah, so,” but in Bob’s pre-Title IX life, the act of feminism was revolutionary, and the fact that he takes so much pride that she, and his granddaughter, can be anything they want in the world he helped Senator Bayh create was another reminder of how far we’ve come, and that we should take none of it for granted.
The warm-up and sound check was so interesting in its own right, that it was not edited out. The conversation is far-ranging, moving from title 9 to other accomplishments Bob was party to during Senator Bayh’s tenure. He also has advice for local election candidates towards the end of the interview.
Enjoy!
Suzan
S1E4
