The year was 1969. I had been teaching part-time at the University of Maryland for several years during the time I worked on my doctorate and shortly after I finished it. There were seven openings in the department, and I had just asked a fellow faculty member and friend why I was not considered for any of the openings. My qualifications were excellent. "But let's face it," he said, "You come on too strong for a woman."

My reaction? I went home and cried. I had no idea that this rejection would not only change my life but would ultimately change the lives of millions of women and girls because it triggered a series of events that would lead to the passage of Title IX, the law that prohibits sex discrimination in educational institutions receiving federal dollars.

Although sex discrimination was illegal in certain circumstances, I quickly discovered that none of the laws prohibiting discrimination covered sex discrimination in education. I turned to the civil rights movement to see what African Americans had done to break down segregated school systems and employment discrimination, with the hope of learning what might be applicable to women's issues. I discovered a presidential Executive Order prohibiting federal contractors from discrimination in employment on the basis of race, color, religion and national origin that had been amended by President Johnson, effective October 13, 1968, to include discrimination based on sex. This discovery meant that there was a legal route to combat sex discrimination on campuses that held federal contracts.

The Director of the Office of Federal Contract Compliance at the Department of Labor, Vincent Macaluso, had been waiting for someone to use the Executive Order in regard to sex discrimination. Together we planned the first complaint against universities and colleges, and the strategies to bring about enforcement of the Executive Order.

Two months later under the auspices of the Women's Equity Action League (WEAL), I began what quickly became a national campaign to end discrimination in education and eventually culminated in the passage of Title IX. On January 31, 1970 WEAL filed a historic class action complaint against all universities and colleges in the country with specific charges against the University of Maryland. The charges were filed with the U.S. Department of Labor under Executive Order 11246, as amended, and asked for an immediate compliance review of all institutions holding federal contracts. Individuals did not need to be named; the charges were filed on behalf of all women in higher education.

The WEAL complaint charged "an industry-wide pattern" of discrimination against women in the academic community and asked for an investigation in the following areas: admission quotas to undergraduate and graduate schools, financial assistance, hiring practices, promotions, and salary differentials.

In the next few months, the limited press coverage about WEAL's filing began to electrify women throughout the academic community. Many women faculty members contacted me, sometimes with personal stories of discrimination but almost always with a concern about the general problem of discrimination in their institution in general.

To file a complaint against their institution under the Executive Order, I asked the women to gather information, especially about the number and rank of men compared to women in a few selected departments. I then compared this information to data about the "availability of women," usually the number and percentage of women doctorates in those fields. The result was striking: many departments had no women at all, even though women often obtained as many as 25 percent of the doctorates in those fields. The pattern was clear: the higher the rank, the fewer the women. The more prestigious the field, the department, or institution, the fewer the women were. At the administrative ranks, women were a rarity; at that time even many women's colleges were headed by men.