Marquette Sports Law Review Volume 6 Article 4 Issue 2 Spring Black Women, Gender Equity and the Function at the Junction Alfred Dennis Mathewson Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarship.law.marquette.edu/sportslaw Part of the Entertainment and Sports Law Commons Repository Citation Alfred Dennis Mathewson, Black Women, Gender Equity and the Function at the Junction, 6 Marq. Sports L. J. 239 (1996) Available at: http://scholarship.law.marquette.edu/sportslaw/vol6/iss2/4 This Symposium is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at Marquette Law Scholarly Commons. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. BLACK WOMEN, GENDER EQUITY AND THE FUNCTION AT THE JUNCTION ALFRED DENNIS MATHEWSON* After teaching sports law for several years, I am struck that few peo- ple can articulate a coherent general thesis of what gender equity means or a clear vision of what the athletic picture will look like when it has been attained.' The law of gender equity, however, is not so difficult to find. The Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (§ 1983) and Title IX of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended by the Education Amendments of 1972,2 are the major sources of American gender equity law.3 The Equal Protection Clause has been used to address gender based discrimination in government sponsored athletics activities. Section 1983 has been used to challenge the exclu- sion of girls from sports activities using public facilities. Title IX, which is among the legislative progeny of Equal Protection jurisprudence, has been used to address disparities in the treatment of boys and girls in athletic programs within educational systems that receive federal 4 funding.