“Women in Predicament history professor says”

The article was published in the February 21, 1985 issue of The Battalion on page eight. Karen Attaway, the reporter for this article, interviewed a history professor, Dr. Sarah Alpern. Attaway wrote this article for women’s week at Texas A&M and posed the question,”are women seen as human beings or merely as females?” Throughout the article Alpern and Attaway give an overview of women’s political activity, compelling women to use the political agency that they have.

This newspaper article comes to print in the era of Title IX. It was enacted as part of the Education Amendments in 1972, preventing sex based discrimination. In the year before this article was published, 1984, the court case Grove City College v. Bell decided that Title IX only applied to students who receive federally funded grants, scholarships, and loans, not the whole institution. This opened the door for more sex discrimination. However three years later in 1987 the Civil Rights Restoration Act was introduced to reaffirm Title IX. Women’s rights are important and legislation. This article shows that even after the introduction of what is one of the most important pieces of legislation in regards to sex discrimination, women’s rights still were not necessarily important to the people in power.