Celene Reynolds, an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Indiana University Bloomington and author of "Unlawful Advances," delves into how radical feminist activism reshaped Title IX. She uncovers how sexual harassment, once overlooked, became recognized as sex discrimination through pivotal legal battles at elite universities. The discussion spans the historical roots of activism, the evolution of Title IX policies, and the ongoing challenges in higher education. Reynolds emphasizes the importance of continued advocacy to maintain progress in gender equality and protect marginalized groups.
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Vague Law, Big Leverage
Title IX's text was deliberately broad and vague, allowing shifting interpretations over time.
That vagueness enabled feminists to repurpose Title IX from athletics to prohibit sexual harassment in education.
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Cornell Consciousness Raising
Women at Cornell coined the term "sexual harassment" during a consciousness-raising session in a course on women and work.
Lynn Farley documented these discussions in her book Sexual Shakedown, which predated McKinnon's work.
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Movement Tactics Enter Campus
Feminist organizers brought movement tactics into campuses, linking grassroots activism to legal strategies.
That integration made universities sites for creating new rights and complaint mechanisms.
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When the US Congress enacted Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, no one expected it to become a prominent tool for confronting sexual harassment in schools. Title IX is the civil rights law that prohibits education programs from discriminating “on the basis of sex.” At the time, however, the term “sexual harassment” was not yet in use; this kind of misconduct was simply accepted as part of life for girls and women at schools and universities. In Unlawful Advances: How Feminists Transformed Title IX(Princeton UP, 2025), Celene Reynolds shows how the women claiming protection under Title IX made sexual harassment into a form of sex discrimination barred by the law. Working together, feminist students and lawyers fundamentally changed the right to equal opportunity in education and schools’ obligations to ensure it.
Drawing on meticulously documented case studies, Reynolds explains how Title IX was applied to sexual harassment, linking the actions of feminists at Cornell, Yale, and Berkeley. Through analyses of key lawsuits and an original dataset of federal Title IX complaints, she traces the evolution of sexual harassment policy in education—from the early applications at elite universities to the growing sexual harassment bureaucracies on campuses today—and how the work of these feminists has forever shaped the law, university governance, and gender relations on campus. Reynolds argues that our political and interpretive struggle over this application of Title IX is far from finished. Her account illuminates this ongoing effort, as well as the more general process by which citizens can transform not only the laws that govern us, but also the very meaning of equality under American law.
New Books in Women’s History Podcast
Jane Scimeca, Professor of History at Brookdale Community College, website here
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