Distinguished Lecture Series
The Borghild-Strand Distinguished Lecture series is given twice yearly and exemplifies the Tucker Center’s commitment to community outreach and public education by making links to the Twin Cities metro and outstate areas. It provides a venue for the most influential individuals in women’s sports to share their knowledge and expertise. The Spring lecture is also sponsored through the Edith Mueller Park and Recreation Memorial Award.
"Title IX at 40: Changes, Challenges, and Champions"
The Tucker Center Spring 2012 Distinguished Lecture
Monday, April 23 - 7:00-9:00pm
Cowles Auditorium - Hubert H. Humphrey Center - West Bank
About the Lecture
As we celebrate the 40th anniversary of Title IX,
the landscape of sports for girls and women has undergone dramatic and
transformative change. One of the most successful pieces of civil rights
legislation in this country, Title IX has allowed record numbers of females to
engage—and succeed—in sport participation at all levels of competition.
In spite of such gains, numerous myths and stereotypes about Title IX
remain and challenges to the federal law threaten to reverse progress.
To honor the 40th anniversary of Title IX, the Tucker Center has
assembled a trio of champions who have changed and challenged the
landscape of sport for females and who will discuss the impact of this
groundbreaking legislation from their respective positions of expertise
and experience.
For a printable flier, click here.
About the Panelists
Peg Brenden, JD, has been a Compensation
Judge with the Minnesota State Office of Administrative Hearings for the
past 25 years. Judge Brenden is uniquely qualified to understand and
appreciate Title IX. In 1972, while still a high school senior, she
became a pioneering plaintiff in a groundbreaking federal lawsuit,
Brenden v. Independent School District 742—one of the first Title IX
cases nationwide to deal with the issue of equal rights for girls in
high school sports. As a result of that suit, Brenden earned the right
to play on her high school (boys’) tennis team and went on to play
intercollegiate tennis (on the women’s team) at Luther College.
Brenden’s story and courage reflects how one person can truly create
change.
Judith M. Sweet, MS, MBA, is a nationally
known expert on Title IX. Of her many accomplishments, she served terms
as secretary-treasurer (1989) and president (1991) of the NCAA, the
first woman to serve in each of those positions. She is also a former
NCAA senior vice president (2001-06) and director of athletics emerita
(University of California, San Diego, 1975-99). She was one of the first
women in the nation selected to direct a combined men’s and women’s
athletics program. In 2011 Sweet received the NACWAA Lifetime
Achievement Award and was recently selected by the Sports Business
Journal as a member of the 2012 class of “The Champions: Pioneers &
Innovators in Sports Business”—an award that in part reflects the
numerous ways she’s changed women’s sport.
Deborah Brake, JD, has been a Professor of
Law and Distinguished Faculty Scholar at the University of Pittsburgh
School of Law since 1998 and she was formerly senior counsel at the
National Women’s Law Center. She is a nationally recognized expert and
author on Title IX and gender equality in sports and on gender
discrimination more broadly. Her book Getting in the Game: Title IX
and the Women’s Sports Revolution, was published by New York
University Press in 2010 and her law review articles have appeared in
numerous prestigious journals. Brake’s legal scholarship explores the
theoretical underpinnings of equality law, including the law’s treatment
of punitive responses to equality claims under Title IX.
The panel will be moderated by Tucker Center
Affiliated Scholar Rayla Allison, JD, a national expert on Title
IX case law and founder of the Sport Business Institute in the School of
Kinesiology at the U of M.
Previous lectures
Click here to find out more about previous lectures from the Tucker Center or here to visit our multimedia archives.