Girls have always enjoyed playing sports. But before Title IX, they did not always get the chance to play on school sports teams. Passed in 1972, the new law required that schools provide girls with equal opportunities to play sports. This nonfiction book explores the history and impact of Title IX, and engages students in reading as they build their comprehension, vocabulary, and literacy skills. Important text features include a glossary, index, and table of contents. The Reader's Guide and culminating activity direct students back to the text as they develop their higher-order thinking skills. Check It Out! provides resources for additional reading and learning. With TIME For Kids content, this book aligns with national and state standards and will keep students engaged in reading.

Girls have always enjoyed playing sports. But before Title IX, they did not always get the chance to play on school sports teams. Passed in 1972, the new law required that schools provide girls with equal opportunities to play sports. This nonfiction book explores the history and impact of Title IX, and engages students in reading as they build their comprehension, vocabulary, and literacy skills. Important text features include a glossary, index, and table of contents. The Reader's Guide and culminating activity direct students back to the text as they develop their higher-order thinking skills. Check It Out! provides resources for additional reading and learning. With TIME For Kids content, this book aligns with national and state standards and will keep students engaged in reading.

“We trained just as hard and we have just as much love for our sport. We deserve to play just as much as any other athlete. . . . I am sick and tired of being treated like I am second rate. I plan on standing up for what is right and fighting for equality.” —Sage Ohlensehlen, Women’s Swim Team Captain at the University of Iowa Fifty years ago, US president Richard Nixon signed Title IX into law, making it illegal for federally funded education programs to discriminate based on sex. The law set into motion a massive boom in girls and women’s sports teams, from kindergarten to the collegiate level. Professional women’s sports grew in turn. Title IX became a massive touchstone in the fight for gender equality. So why do girls and women—including trans and intersex women—continue to face sexist attitudes and unfair rules and regulations in sports? The truth is that the road to equality in sports has been anything but straightforward, and there is still a long way to go. Schools, universities, and professional organizations continue to struggle with addressing unequal pay, discrimination, and sexism in their sports programming. Delve into the history and impact of Title IX, learn more about the athletes at the forefront of the struggle, and explore how additional changes could lead to equality in sports. “Girls are socialized to know . . . that gender roles are already set. Men run the world. Men have the power. Men make the decisions. . . . When these girls are coming out, who are they looking up to telling them that’s not the way it has to be? And where better to do that than in sports?” —Muffet McGraw, Head Women’s Basketball Coach at Notre Dame “Fighting for equal rights and equal opportunities entails risk. It demands you put yourself in harm’s way by calling out injustice when it occurs. Sometimes it’s big things, like a boss making overtly sexist remarks or asserting they won’t hire women. But far more often, it’s little, seemingly innocuous, things . . . that sideline the women whose work you depend on every day. You can use your privilege to help those who don’t have it. It’s really as simple as that.” —Liz Elting, women’s rights advocate

Changing the Game is set at a fictional university in the mid-1990s. A debate over the role of athletics quickly expands to encompass demands that women's sports and athletes receive more resources and opportunities. The result is a firestorm of controversy on and off campus. Drawing on congressional testimonies from the Title IX hearings, players advance their views in student government meetings, talk radio shows, town meetings, and impromptu rallies. As students wrestle with questions of gender parity and the place of athletics in higher education, they learn about the implementation—and implications—of legal change in the United States.

Celebrate the 50th anniversary of Title IX, the law that opened the door for greater opportunities for girls and women, with this refreshed edition of the nonfiction illustrated middle grade book about an important victory in the fight for equality. Not long ago, people believed girls shouldn’t play sports. That math and science courses were too difficult for them. That higher education should be left to the men. Nowadays, this may be hard to imagine, but it was only fifty years ago all of this changed with the introduction of the historical civil rights bill Title IX. This is the story about the determined lawmakers, teachers, parents, and athletes that advocated for women all over the country until Congress passed the law that paved the way for the now millions of girls who play sports; who make up over half of the country’s medical and law students; who are on the national stage winning gold medals and world championships; who are developing life-changing vaccines, holding court as Supreme Court Justices, and leading the country as vice president. All because of Title IX and the people who believed girls could do anything—and were willing to fight to prove it. This updated edition of Let Me Play includes new chapters about how Title IX is being used in the fight for transgender rights and justice for sexual assault survivors and a refreshed epilogue highlighting the remarkable female athletes of today and the battles they’re still fighting.

Many know Title IX as groundbreaking legislation that protects people from sex-based discrimination in education programs and activities that receive federal financial assistance. Yet, many do not know the history of women’s sports before Title IX, the history of the amendment, and the struggle for its implementation. These topics and more are discussed in Ware’s well-researched and reader-friendly Introduction, followed by 26 provocative, pertinent documents. The carefully selected writings, organized in chronological order, balance the views of policymakers, legislators, and commentators with the voices of individuals whose lives were shaped by the law. Ware purposely presents conflicting points of view to encourage analytical thinking and lively classroom discussion about gender equity, both in sports and in American society as a whole.