External Influences Shaping Gender Equity,
Helen Remick
Assistant Provost for Equal Opportunity, University of Washington

At the University of Washington, lines of waiting women often snake out of the bathrooms in the business building. When the building was constructed, designers assumed that women would make up only 15 percent of business students; now that women's numbers equal men's, women are left standing in line while men breeze past them.

Although Title IX's impact on athletics programs has received the most attention, Helen Remick, the University of Washington's Title IX officer since 1975, is quick to note that its implications reach much further than sports teams. When Remick and her colleagues conducted a university-wide evaluation of Title IX compliance in 1975-76, they considered everything from counseling, housing, publications, and, yes, bathrooms. In the engineering building, for instance, they found that while men had two bathrooms per floor, one for students and one for faculty, women had only one bathroom on the first floor of a three-story building. Though they were able to remedy the situation by converting some of the men's bathrooms to women's, Remick notes that building codes continued to guarantee inadequate facilities for women until as late as 1990.

Remick has spent her career working to rectify these and other inequities for women in education and beyond. To those who have worked to make their campuses Title IX-compliant, the University of Washington's bathroom inequities will sound familiar. But, while Title IX poses similar challenges and promises for colleges and universities across the country, working in Washington state has meant that Helen Remick's approach to achieving equity has not been shaped by Title IX alone. Washington state laws and state and federal court cases have also had significant impacts on her Title IX work, particularly where athletics are concerned.

In 1972, Washington became one of nine states to pass an Equal Rights Amendment. Based on the state ERA, female student athletes and coaches sued Washington State University for sex discrimination in Blair vs. Washington State University. They won the 1986 case; however, the court excluded football from all calculations for participation, funding, or scholarships, claiming that football is a business and therefore not subject to anti-discrimination statutes. A year later, the Supreme Court of Washington State overturned this aspect of the court's decision, thus requiring Washington colleges and universities to include football in all of its calculations.

During much the same time period, Title IX enforcement in athletics moved more slowly. In 1978, a complaint was filed with the U.S. Department of Education Office of Civil Rights (OCR) alleging inequities in athletics at the University of Washington, but OCR did not start an investigation until 1982 because they didn't have appropriate guidelines until then. During the OCR's investigation, Remick's office conducted a parallel investigation. As the OCR was preparing its final report--which would have found the University of Washington out of compliance--the Supreme Court's decision in Grove City College v Bell (1984) held that colleges whose students receive federal financial aid must comply with Title IX regulations, even if the college receives no federal funding directly. However, the Court stipulated that only the college's financial aid program was affected, not all of the school's programs. As a result of this case, the OCR found the University of Washington in compliance with Title IX because financial aid to women athletes was proportionate to their participation rates.

While the Civil Rights Restoration Act eventually reversed the limitations imposed on Title IX enforcement by the Grove City College case, the Washington State Equal Rights Act has played a more central role than Title IX in achieving equity for women athletes and coaches. Further, in response to the Blair case, the state legislature passed a state gender equity law in 1989, essentially restating Title IX as a state law.

Though enforcing equity in athletics has been challenging, Remick and her colleagues have made progress. Since 1988, the University has had an athletic director, Barbara Hedges, who is committed to equality in the athletic program. For example, Hedges has established an environment in which corporate sponsors are expected to support women's sports and lesser-known men's sports along with spotlight-grabbing men's sports like football and basketball.

Though she continues to oversee Title IX enforcement, the scope of Remick's work at the University of Washington has broadened over the years. She spent much of the 1980s fighting for comparable worth across the country. Based on her work investigating sexual harassment allegations and overseeing such investigations, she has also written several articles about sexual harassment, including one about the secondary traumatization experienced by investigators. As the Assistant Provost for Equal Opportunity, Remick now oversees sexual harassment training, affirmative action in employment, and overall civil rights policy.

From her perspective, one of the biggest issues facing women right now are family and work/life issues. She notes that she will be retired long before childcare issues are solved. While the Family and Medical Leave Act has helped to guaranteed leave, many parents cannot afford to take unpaid leave and/or may not be able to return to full time jobs given the expense of childcare. A psychologist by training and a long-time comparable worth advocate, Remick argues that we are facing daunting public policy issues with childcare. How can we guarantee children the care they need from well-trained childcare workers who are paid a living wage and yet still manage to have affordable childcare? But then again, it was a failure of imagination that assumed an engineering school would never need more than one ladies bathroom. Nothing is insurmountable. Not even affordable, quality childcare and decent wages for their caretakers. As Susan B. Anthony insisted, "Failure is impossible."