Student reporting project examines the 50th anniversary of Title IX
Fifty years since the U.S. government passed Title IX, prohibiting sex-based discrimination at federally funded schools and colleges, a team of Newhouse School students and faculty came together to explore the impacts of the historic legislation at Syracuse University and throughout society.
“Entitled to Equality,” an enterprise reporting project hosted on the Newhouse School’s multimedia news site, The NewsHouse, looks at both the successes and failures of Title IX. It was published at equality.thenewshouse.com in May. Companion pieces were aired on WAER and published in Syracuse’s South Side newspaper, The Stand, and in Syracuse.com/The Post-Standard.
“We wanted to know both how Title IX has advanced gender equality, and how it hasn’t always fulfilled its intentions in the past half-century,” says Jon Glass, executive producer of The NewsHouse and professor of practice of magazine, news and digital journalism.
More than 85 undergraduate and graduate students from most Newhouse majors contributed to the project as reporters, photographers, graphic designers, videographers, editors, content producers, social media coordinators and in other roles. Months of reporting resulted in 17 stories, videos and interactive packages.
Glass said the team found that, “while Title IX has improved gender equality on college campuses and in athletics, there’s still work to be done to reach true equality and prevent sex-based discrimination and harassment in these spaces.”
The reporting project is organized around three themes:
- Equal Shot: The impact of Title IX on gender equity in sports from a look at the data of female head coaches to quidditch’s special Title 9¾ rule that aims to create equity on the pitch.
- Enforcing Equity: How campus culture, as well as federal and university regulations, perpetuate sexual violence.
- No Exceptions: Broader trends related to the legislation, such as non-binary high school students fighting for their rights and men working to prevent gender violence.
This is the fifth year Glass and a team of professors and students have led a student reporting project, with past initiatives examining inequality in Syracuse, the legalization of marijuana, issues along the U.S.-Canadian border and the March for Our Lives protests in Washington, D.C. and Syracuse.
Student project coordinators Emma Folts ’22 (content director), Brooke Kato ’21, G’22 (visuals director) Chelsea Stern ’22 (social media director) and Lucinda Strol ’23 (design director) were charged with managing their respective teams of students from content ideation to execution.
In addition to Glass, who was project director and executive producer, faculty and staff members involved with the project were Shelvia Dancy and Greg Munno (content coordinators and team leaders), Seth Gitner (site developer and design coordinator), Harriet Brown (editing coordinator), Milton Santiago (visuals coordinator), Chris Bolt (audio coordinator) and Aileen Gallagher, Eric Grode and Ashley Kang (story coordinators).
The project was supported by a gift from alumnus David Flaum ’68 and his wife, Jackie, and by a grant from the the Syracuse Office of Undergraduate Research and Creative Engagement (SOURCE).