One Step Forward, One Step Back

This week we have been studying the difficulty women had in the 19th century to even be allowed to enroll colleges and universities that their male counterparts were encouraged to attend. In response to that, a lot of women’s colleges began to appear throughout the country, starting with the Seven Sister Colleges in the Northeast. Belmont University is a Christian school in Tennessee that began as a women’s school in 1889 before it merged with a male school in 1913. Recently, Belmont University has been under fire for the supposed “mutual agreement departure” of a very success, well-liked, lesbian women’s soccer coach Lisa Howe. Pat Griffin’s recent blog post on LGBT called “Cha-Cha-Cha-Changes at Belmont University” talks about the outcry that resulted from the departure of this coach, mostly from students and a wealthy donor in particular. The apparent reason Howe’s departure is because of the school’s Christian views, which do not agree with gay rights. The school responded to the public protests and the possible loss of a quite a lot of donor money by reevaluating its non-discrimination policy and adding sexual discrimination as intolerable. They then hired a new women’s coach, who happened to be a female, and all is apparently fine. I think all of this can be tied back to the stigma that surrounded the start of women’s colleges and women’s sports back in the 19th century. Women were always looked at to be less than that of males. They weren’t even allowed to participate in education like their male peers, much less sport to the extent that men did. Much of this has changed in recent years because of Title IX, but it seems that it is always one step forward and one step back. At one point, a threshold was reached where it is acceptable to have women in colleges, but then there were certain majors banned to those women and certain courses they were forced to take. Then physical training was allowed in women’s colleges, but it was much more under the radar than men’s sports and completely void of any spectatorship or commercialism. Title IX then came along and allowed women to have equal participation in sport, but this also came with its negative backlashes including women’s sports being “blamed” for the cutting of men’s programs. And now, we have finally reached an acceptance of women’s sports in colleges and the coaching of women’s sports by other women, when we reach another roadblock. Colleges and universities discriminating against perfectly capable and successful coaches based on their sexual orientation. Belmont claimed this was not the reason for the departure, but fellow athletes and students who knew Lisa Howe also knew the backlash she took for being open about her sexual orientation. Belmont had already taken a step forward when they hired a female coach, because that in itself can be rare in today’s society, but then they followed suit by taking one step back and releasing her for being of a different sexual orientation than they “approved” of. Although, in all of this, I am happy that Belmont at least is trying to make up for their actions. It doesn’t erase what happened, and what I’m sure happens at other colleges campuses but simply goes unnoticed. But because people are finally speaking up and saying this is wrong, maybe we can finally take one giant step forward and stay there.