Today, March 8, 2025, is International Women’s Day! Coincidentally, the United Nations began celebrating International Women’s Day as part of the International Women’s Year in 1975. That same year the Title IX (June 23,1972) Amendment stipulated full compliance with the law.
Title IX transformed education for women. After centuries of discrimination, the landmark civil rights law leveled the playing field in sports and allowed millions of women to earn degrees.
Speaking at Illinois State's 50th Title IX Celebration with legendary basketball coach Jill Hutchison, Olympian Cathy Boswell and other superstar alumni.
Gradually, Title IX revolutionized women’s lives in the US by opening doors to education and athletics.
Unfortunately here and globally, women are still subject to sex abuse and domestic violence and denied access to health care, education and equal opportunity in the work place.
In our hometowns, we see firsthand Title IX’s impact, as our daughters, granddaughters and great granddaughters enjoy the opportunities that my generation, and women prior to my time, fought so hard to ensure.
The 2025 Sterling High School Golden Warriors basketball team fell a game short a trip down state to Redbird Arena, my alma mater, in their run to repeat the 1977 first Illinois state championship. Their rise to glory was no less phenomenal. In four years they turned a 3-26 losing team into a championship contender.
This year's team with their tough defense and fighting spirit were reminiscent of SHS’s 70s and 80s teams like that 1977 state championship team, which included Coach McKinzie and Coach Smith, a dad/daughter, brother/sister combo, the 2025 team was also a family affair uniting sisters, coaches, dads, daughters and their families.
With perfect timing, Coach Jackson’s team gave the community a reason to cheer at a scary time when many civil rights and federal departments protecting health and education threaten to collapse at an alarming rate.
I am proud of Sterling’s stellar basketball season. Like many Sterlingites who may have moved away, I still bleed blue and gold. Our Sterling High School days remain tattooed in our hearts.
As a pioneer, I lived daily the battle for equality and I have had the privilege of seeing opportunities for women explode. I am also old enough and wise enough to know our rights could disappear.
Today, in the Caitlin Clark and Paige Bueckers era, we celebrate the popularity and media exposure of women’s basketball. We love watching the NCAA’s March Madness, the Unrivaled 3-on-3 inaugural season and the W. We appreciate the opportunities awaiting our daughters, not only in basketball, but in so many other arenas.
But work must continue in the US and around the globe to improve women’s health care, to protect reproductive rights, to guarantee equal pay, to curb the epidemic of violence against females, and to allow the voices of other women to be heard worldwide.
Today women succeed, not only on the playing fields, but in education, business, medicine and other professions where we were never allowed before.
Today we are winning, but the risk of losing all has never been so great.
Today, we must fight to guarantee these rights will remain for future generations.
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Five decades ago, the UN started the First National Women’s Day. Fifty years ago Title IX was fully enacted.
What can we do today to assure women’s opportunities and their contributions will stand in the next century?
Indeed a day worth celebrating! Our daughters and granddaughters may never fully appreciate what you and others have gone through to give them the freedoms they enjoy today, but this celebration helps bring that to light. Thank you for keeping the light shining.
Thanks Tinie. Yes, it is hard to imagine how far the game evolved since our playing days when we had to beg to get into a pick up game. It is hard for any of the younger generation to understand what WE (and I mean you too) back in the day because now looking back in retrospect it seems unbelievable. What I fear the most is that in this present climate, all the progress could be erased. It does give me hope to know that you keep marching.