Resistance to Civil Rights Is Nothing New: Brown v. Board, Title IX, and a Call for Solidarity
By Shekinah Hall
Even as we celebrate landmark civil rights anniversaries this year — the Civil Rights Act of 1964 at 60, Brown v. Board of Education at 70, and Title IX at 52 — and the strides we have made towards racial and gender equity, we continue to see mass resistance to achievements like the 2024 Title IX rule with the same oppositional rhetoric and exclusionary motivations of the past.
Sixty-seven years ago, civil rights leaders gathered tens of thousands of people at the steps of the Lincoln Memorial for a “Prayer Pilgrimage” to advance and defend civil rights. The roster of organizers and speakers included Leadership Conference founders A. Philip Randolph and Roy Wilkins, Bayard Rustin, Ella Baker, and Harry Belafonte, among many other prominent leaders, with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. closing out the program with his “Give Us the Ballot” speech.
Brown v. Board of Education, which held that racial segregation in public education was unconstitutional, had been decided exactly three years earlier. In his address, Dr. King noted that the May 17 decision was “a great beacon light of hope to millions of disinherited people throughout the world who had dared only to dream of freedom.” But the promise of Brown had not yet been fulfilled, as states openly defied the decision. Brown was indeed a momentous decision, but it was not self-executing. “Give us the ballot,” Dr. King said, and “we will ensure its implementation,” including by electing lawmakers who would be committed to a “manifesto of justice.” But it would take 10 more years, with the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, before the nation would see implementation and enforcement of what Brown stood for.
The Civil Rights Act of 1964, and specifically Title VI and Title VII, established fundamental protections in education and employment. Title VI prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, or national origin in any program or activity that receives federal funding. Title VII prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin by employers with respect to their employees and applicants for employment. While Title VI addressed racial discrimination in education settings and Title VII expanded Title VI protections for employees to include sex, there was still a need for a broader protection against sex discrimination in education — which was ultimately achieved through Title IX.
Rep. Patsy Mink of Hawaii, the first woman of color elected to Congress, authored the text of Title IX, which was modeled after Title VI: “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.” In this way, key gaps in current civil rights law would finally be filled to outlaw sex-based discrimination in education. (The Equality Act would build upon this to prohibit discrimination based on sex by any recipient of federal financial assistance.)
In 1972, Congress passed the bipartisan bill, and President Nixon signed into law what was then known as Title IX of the Education Amendments Act of 1972, and which in 2002 was renamed the Patsy Mink Equal Opportunity in Education Act to honor the primary author and sponsor of the legislation.
Title IX has been credited with profoundly changing education in the United States by breaking down barriers to academic and athletic opportunities for millions of students. Its passage produced historic increases in women’s and girls’ participation in both K-12 and college athletics, admission to and diversified course offerings in institutions of higher education, and the implementation of reporting structures with designated support staff to address sexual harassment and assault on college campuses.
In April 2024, the U.S. Department of Education published updates to its regulations interpreting and enforcing Title IX, including restoring protections for student survivors, clarifying protections for LGBTQ+ students and pregnant and parenting students, and undoing many harmful rule changes from the previous administration’s rule in 2020 that limited the scope and efficacy of Title IX enforcement. Among the clarifying protections for LGBTQ+ students was a reinforcement that Title IX’s prohibition of sex discrimination includes discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
Conservative state leaders and advocacy groups swiftly pushed back against the Title IX rule changes, launching a multi-state operation to challenge the rule in courts across the country. Claiming concern for women’s and parents’ rights and co-opting civil rights language to distort the protection of nondiscrimination laws, opponents contend that the rule is an overreach of presidential constitutional authority and that it conflicts with state laws and policies — such as those that ban transgender students from using restrooms that align with their gender identity. Once again states drew from the same well as the opposition to the Brown decision.
In several states, governors and other state leaders explicitly instructed their agencies, colleges, and school boards to not comply with the new Title IX regulations. As waves of bills aimed to ban transgender students from participating on sports teams that align with their gender identity crashed through conservative-led state legislatures, 25 governors sent a joint letter to the Department of Education urging the Biden administration to withdraw the proposed rule.
The updated Title IX rule has been challenged in eight lawsuits, brought by a total of 26 states and five conservative advocacy groups. These lawsuits resulted in injunctions that halted the 2024 Title IX rule from going into effect in more than 400 K-12 schools across 44 states (as of August 2024).
These tactics are not new. In response to the Brown decision, legislators across the South signed on to a Southern Manifesto in 1956, declaring their opposition to racial integration in public schools. Following the manifesto was the call for “Massive Resistance” — a body of laws passed aimed to prevent Brown from being implemented. For example, some states passed laws that punished integration efforts by eliminating schools’ state funds while other states had counties that closed down their entire school systems to avoid integration, some for years at a time. Several states passed laws to optionalize school attendance while others instituted “freedom of choice” systems in which families could choose the schools to send their students (with the expectation that white families would choose to maintain their segregated status). Additionally, some school systems doubled down by building new segregated schools or even addressing long-overdue repairs in Black schools to try and argue against integrated schooling. Southern governors publicly declared their intention to defy Brown and explored all legal and legislative avenues they had at their disposal to challenge school integration.
Today’s anti-civil rights rhetoric is remarkably similar to the rhetoric of the past:
1954: “If we can organize the Southern States for massive resistance to this order I think that, in time, the rest of the country will realize that racial integration is not going to be accepted in the South.” – Virginia Senator Harry Byrd
2024: “Florida rejects Joe Biden’s attempt to rewrite Title IX. We will not comply, and we will fight back. We are not going to let Joe Biden try to inject men into women’s activities.” – Florida Governor Ron DeSantis
1963: “I shall refuse to abide by any such illegal federal court order even to the point of standing in the schoolhouse door, if necessary. … In the name of the greatest people that have ever trod this earth I draw the line in the dust and toss the gauntlet before the feet of tyranny and I say segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.” – Alabama Governor George Wallace
2024: “If Biden gets his way, female college students will shower and change next to male college students, referring to someone using biologically correct pronouns will get you all in front of a disciplinary board for harassment and scholarships previously reserved for women will now be open to anyone claiming to be a woman. … My message to Joe Biden and the federal government is that we will not comply.” – Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders
It was the collective action of civil rights activists — policy advocates, litigators, grassroots organizers, and more — to combat southerners’ massive resistance through nonviolent protesting, lobbying, litigation, and political and media pressure that led to the historic passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. This collective action is urgently needed right now.
As we turn toward 2025, now is the time to be engaged in our democracy and hold our leaders accountable — including policymakers on every level, our courts, Congress, and the agencies charged with upholding and protecting our civil rights. We must remain steadfast in our fight for civil rights and continue banding in solidarity as we work to fulfill the promises of Brown, the Civil Rights Act, and Title IX.
Shekinah Hall is the senior associate of the education equity program at The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.