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Winter Closure

Multiple Danforth campus libraries will be closed and inaccessible to patrons from December 21 until January 2. Read on for more details. 

Three female track runners leaving the block as four of their teammates watch.
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50 Years of Title IX During Women’s History Month

By AJ Robinson

Through Women’s History Month (March) and Sexual Assault Awareness Month (April), the exhibit 50 Years of Title IX will be on display in the Ginkgo Room at John M. Olin Library. Featured in the exhibit are materials from Washington University Libraries’ Special Collections and donations from alumni student organizers.

While not fully comprehensive, the story of Title IX implementation and legacy demonstrates the ongoing need for on-the-ground activism and advocacy to advance the aims of federal legislation in the pursuit of gender equality. Key items in the exhibition include documentation from the 1975 Washington University Title IX Self Evaluation commissioned by Chancellor William Danforth, a letter from legendary coach and athletics coordinator Lynn Imergoot to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch regarding the paper’s coverage of women’s sports, and materials from student activism in both distant and recent university history to bring justice for survivors of sexual violence.

Three female track runners leaving the block as four of their teammates watch.
Photograph of WashU athletes displayed in the TitleIX exhibition

The most recent materials are in a section titled “The Movement Toward Equality Continues, 2017-2020” because, while great progress has been made, the issues and conversations from the 70s and 80s resonate with recent #TitleMine demands and campus concerns today. (Title Mine is a trauma-informed, survivor-centered activist movement that serves as a bridge between the student body and the administration at Washinton University.) Reels from The Women’s Resource Center have preserved their very voices, and Special Collections staff made the audio available to both accompany the exhibit and for anyone to listen:

On March 29, 4-6 pm, the Libraries and Gender Equity & Title IX Compliance Office are sponsoring a talk with journalist and author Vanessa Grigoriadis called Blurred Lines: Rethinking Sex, Power, and Consent on Campus, also in the Ginkgo Room.

AJ Robinson is the subject librarian for Islamic studies, South Asian studies, and women, gender, and sexuality studies.