Timeline of Education Laws and Court Decisions^621,622

1972: Title IX of the 1972 Education Amendments to the Civil Rights Act prohibits educational institutions from discrimination by sex if they receive federal funding.

1974: The Women’s Educational Equity Act funds the development of nonsexist teaching materials and model programs that encourage full educational opportunities for girls and women.

1982: Mississippi University for Women v. Hogan, 458 U.S. 718 (1982), establishes that public schools may not discriminate on the basis of sex without exceedingly persuasive justification, under the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

1994: Congress adopted the Gender Equity in Education Act to train teachers in gender equity, promote math and science learning by girls, counsel pregnant teens, and prevent sexual harassment.

1996: United States v. Virginia, 518 U.S. 515 (1996), affirms that the male-only admissions policy of the state-supported Virginia Military Institute violates the Fourteenth Amendment.

1997: Cohen v. Brown University: elaborating on Title IX, the Supreme Court declined to hear a challenge to a lower court ruling that college athletic programs must actively involve roughly equal numbers of men and women to qualify for federal support.

2005: Jackson v. Birmingham Board of Education 544 U.S. 167, the Supreme Court rules that Title IX prohibits punishing someone for complaining about sex-based discrimination.