harris discusses the antislavery movement before the civil war. "oral at 10:00 a.m. on histories," our women in congress continues with barbara fanelli. then on "the presidency," a look at washington and alexander hamilton and a look at the historical accuracy of "hamilton: the musical." watch american history tv this labor day weekend on c-span3. >> "washington journal" continues. host: this week's spotlight on magazine segment takes a look at a recent "national affairs" article on the evolution of title ix. here to talk was about that article is contributor and author of the book shep melnick. good morning, professor melnick. guest: good morning. host: can you tell us the

history of title ix and why we're focusing on this now? guest: sure. aboutone way is to talk contemporary controversies and then to walk back of it. the obama administration issued ix, oneelines on title on sexual harassment, sexual assault, on public schools to crack down on sexual misconduct on campus in public schools. the other were a set of regulations on transgender, that a studentg can choose which facilities use come, bathrooms, locker rooms, and the like. that was all based on this 1972 law, title ix, which simply said anyone who receives federal funding cannot discriminate on the basis of sex. that was noncontroversial what was passed.

president nixon find it without any statement about the importance of it. " did notyork times even cover it when it was passed in 1972. there was white agreement that institutional policy that prevented women from entering various schools, programs, departments were illegitimate, and therefore should be prevented during between those, there is a big gap. so how did we get to the consensus that women should have equal a divisional to these much more contentious issues? what i try to show in my book, "the transmission of title ix," and in my article is that there is a large number of instrumental steps without understanding how we changed the focus of title ix, and in a nutshell, the translation was to go from eliminating barriers to

try to undo all stereotypes about women, whether it be in schools, among applicants, for the public at large, so that is a very large shift from exclusion to try to eliminate stereotypes. host: so how does this should happen without congressional oversight and public hearings? how does this happen basically without the public conversation? guest: that is a very good question. it is a key question. i will say congress has never change the keywording of title ix. congress is now completely out of it. there are two key parts of it, rules the heart to issue and regulations. usually that is done the administrative procedures act, the rulemaking process that requires public input. i think it invigorated process. the office for civil rights and

department of education last used a process for title ix in 1975, and ever since then, they have done so only through issuing college letters and guidance, which requires no public participation at all. that is part of the problem. the other is much of a good deal of the interpretation of title ix has taken place in court, which of course is fine, with agencies in the court have engaged in what i call institutional leapfrogging where the agency will take a small step, the court will build on that, the agency will take another step, the court will build on that, and the incremental process allows everyone to keep going forward without really explaining what they are doing and without very much public input at all. host: we want you to join in this conversation with shep melnick on title ix. we will open up regional lines for this conversation, so if you are in the eastern or central time zones, we want you to call

in at (202) 748-8000. you are in the mountain and pacific time zones, we want you to call in at (202) 748-8001. melnick, your have written that title ix has hurt opportunities for men but also for the women that it was designed to help. can you explain a little bit about what you meant by that? guest: sure. let me take the example of athletics, that most people identify title ix with. the first thing a want to say is title ix has had a tremendously beneficial effect in all kinds of areas. women have reached, not just reached parity with men in college attendance, but they exceed the number of men who graduate from college. college students are not women. they have more phd's than men.

this is terrific. been aetics, there have huge increase in women who put his faith in organized sports. i want to point out a key feature of title ix regulations is that they focus so narrowly on varsity sports, be most competitive level of sports, and the requirement of so-called parity, that is the number of women in varsity sports should be proportional to the number of females in attendance to college has put far too many resources into one narrow segment of college sports, and that is the varsity, highly-competitive level. and it is trying to force women into, i think, a very broken competition that we see

really corrupting college sports for men, and now that has spread over to women, so that we have created, in many areas, a subculture of athletes that is anti-intellectual, people are not taking advantage of college, and who does that hurt in the long run? it hurts women, because they are the ones excelling in academia, rei would like to see a focusing of those athletic regulations, so they do not merely focus on the most competitive part of college sports. i say here, as in so many things of college sports, the enemy is ncaa, who first tried to defeat title ix. host: are we seeing any pushback for title ix? are colleges or organizations or politicians or anyone looking at the changes you are describing

on how title ix is being used? guest: yes. the most important is on the sexual harassment, sexual assault rules. a lot of complaints not just from colleges but from civil libertarians, free-speech lawyers who say we have to protect the due process of the rice of the accused. were issued by the obama administration in 2011 and 2014 were run by the trump administration, and the trump administration is about to issue rulesrules -- proposed that will modify 2011, 2014. the "times" just leaks a story about that. we will find out what those proposals look like. while there are very few things that the trump administration has done that i think is good,

the fact that they have got to much more open his door rulemaking i think it's something that we should applaud. -- open participatory rulemaking i think is something that we should applaud. host: we go to twitter. "is congress up to updating title ix to reflect cultural changes?" paul says he would rather let the course do it. guest: i think it will be the latter. these are very contentious issues, and a lot of them are issues that politicians would like to avoid. the trump administration some changes in of these regulations, especially on sexual assault, i think the democrats make proposals to author them, but unless they can have support in both houses of congress and get the support

of the president, that is not going to pass, so i do not see any major change coming from progress. if you look back at the history since 1972, there have been no substantive changes in that time. congress is more gridlocked now that they have been any time in recent memory. i would not look there. i would look to the court and administrative agencies. host: once again, we're talking about the evolution of title ix. join thent to conversation, we have opened of regional times. if you are in the eastern or sometimes on, you can call us at (202) 748-8000. if you are in the mountain or pacific time zones, you can call us at (202) 748-8001. and you can always reach us on social media. on twitter, we are at @cspanwj, and on facebook, we are at facebook.com/cspan. usually whennick, we talk about the big monster in college sports, it is always college football and college basketball.

people always ask -- is title ix hurting those two big moneymaking sports for college, and how is college making it equitable for female athlete? or is that even the focus of title ix anymore? guest: that is one of the focuses of title ix. it used to be the most exclusive focus. i think it is hard to say that college football has been hurt at all by title ix. college football seems to be expanding in the amount of money it spends, the number of problems they create. the same is true of college basketball for america. what has happened is that in order to protect football and basketball, other male sports have been hurt. the wrestling teams, swim teams,

and so-called minor teams have been reduced in size in many schools, but on top of that, there have been a number of stratagems that schools have used to try to inflate the number of women who are counted as varsity athletes. triple counting of some track athletes. my favorite example is the university of arizona, actually, arizona state, a state that is in the desert, that has no varsity crew at the high school level. they created an artificial lake and started recruiting people to crews, beyond women's because you can have very large women's numbers on that. . there is a lot of about the increase in the amount of dollars with the spending on college sports and at a time the cost crunch in a lot of

areas, the fact that we are spending so much on athletics is a real problem, but a lot of say football and basketball are doing extraordinarily well. host: in your article, you talk about how title ix began with gender equity in sports, moved to sexual assaults, and now the issue of transgender rights seems to be coming up. tell us what title ix has to do with transgender rights in college. guest: sure. a good shorthand is to say title ix started by focusing on the classroom, then moved to to the playing field, and then strangely enough moved to the bedroom and the bathroom. what is this issue with transgender rights and access to sex-segregated facilities? the first thing to notice is the transgender right issue is not about the right of transgender students to have an education. i think everyone agrees with that. no school has set you should not be able to go to school.

that would be really horrible. the issue is -- how do you abortion facilities that -- aportion facilities, that by law, under title ix, can be segregated by sex? in the argument that the obama administration made an that many courts made us when you segregate on the basis of sex, you have got to do it on the basis of the gender that aidn' student identifies with or if you have male anatomy but they as female, email, -- they have to be treated entirely as female, which means female restrooms, showers, female roommates on travel or in dormitories. the problem with that is the law regulations say

sex, and the term was to distinguish gender identity from sex, so you really have to do a lot of legal maneuvering to say that sex equals gender, a term that was invented, basically, to distinguish the two. that is the legal issue. the policy really is who decides the best treatment, the most humane and sympathetic treatment of transgender students and other students who might feel that their privacy has been invaded. is it the federal government, through a set of dear colleague letters and guidance, or is it locally school officials? call let's take a quick from john who is calling from rio rancho, new mexico. well, they coddle the

teams at my college, they cut the women's volleyball, they cut skiing, they cut everything in favor, as the gentleman stated, of keeping our last team football team and ask about team. resident pool, they get their cut come i think teams,1 teams or eight they are the worst team in football year in and year out, but we have cut our national championship soccer teams, both men and women's, where we have onwon national championships, favor of skiing, in keeping football and basketball for budgetary reasons. it is funny that you bring up the lgbtq reasons because we

have a strong lpbgbtq presents. -- presence. it is a real problem, and we had a kid in texas who i think two years in a row won the women's wrestling tournament. he says "hey, i am a woman," puts on some duct tape, and he wins the title two years in a row. it is a man who says he is a woman. this is going to be a problem, if it is not a problem already. i do not have a question, but we have cut everything at the university of new mexico. host: let's let you answer that, professor melnick. what do you think of the issues he is bringing up in new mexico? guest: two issues he mentioned that i think are important, one is the amount of spending on sports, and what i would say is the issue of women's sports has become so intertwined with the

general issue of spending with sports, they are afraid to take a close look at the entire aspect in order to solve these problems. i will say new mexico is not the only school that is losing money on football. virtually every school is losing on football, and in my view, that is a very bad way to stand academic resources. on the issue of transgender students, in athletics, this is where the problem is going to become particularly severe, because the argument of transgender rights is that sex is not a matter of biology, or rather gender is not a matter of biology, it is a sense of internal identification. allow the extent that we segregated facilities in sports

is because there are biological differences. so these two issues than collide. we have dealt with these difficult issues in the olympics and in other places for years. it is going to be a growing problem of trying to figure out who can compete in various sports, so this is an area you will hear a lot more about in the coming years. host: let's take one more call from mike who is calling. do you have a quick question here for professor melnick? guest: yes. good morning. america.ing, why do we need to change title ix? it was supplemental to the civil rights act of 1964. i think what you are trying to deploy is a feeling, a feeling that everybody needs to get along. let's share everything. let's share bathrooms.

let's share everything. i think it is ridiculous. let's get back to the old-fashioned way. what were you born? were you point a voice or were born a boy were your or were you born a girl? if you are reassigned, ok. i am sick of all of this in america. thank you, jesse. host: your reaction? guest: this shows a level of emotional response in the way in which culture wars have been excited by title ix. title caller, i would say ix itself is not the problem. title ix says women should have equal educational opportunity. it has done enormous amount of good in a variety of areas. it has unleashed the potential of millions of women, so title ix is not the problem. i tend to agree that the office

for civil rights and the courts have gone too far in misinterpreting the law, but i think it is important to keep in mind that the basic statutes, the basic purpose is solid. we should all support it. and it would be a good idea to get back to the basic purpose of the law. host: we want to thank professor shep melnick, author of "the transmission of title ix," and the article in "national affairs ." thank you. guest: thank you for having me. live tos it that you the memorial services for senator john mccain in washington, d.c. join us tomorrow morning for "washington journal" at 7:00 a.m., and have a great day. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2018] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org]