New US Postage Stamps Celebrate 50 Years of Title IX

The U.S. Postal Service has released new ‘forever’ stamps marking the 50th anniversary of Title IX, the landmark civil rights law that prohibits gender-based discrimination in any federally funded school, university, or education program. Signed into law by Richard Nixon in 1972, the legislation, which was an amendment to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, addressed widespread inequality in the treatment of girls and women in academic institutions—a practice that extended to their exclusion from participation in school athletic programs.

USPS stamps, celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the passage of Title IX.

In her recent book, All In: An Autobiography, Billie Jean King calls Title IX “the third most important piece of U.S. legislation in the twentieth century after the Nineteenth Amendment, which assured women’s right to vote, and the Civil Rights Act of 1964.”

The passage and implementation of Title IX, which King helped spearhead, dramatically changed the academic landscape for women with merely thirty seven words: “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.”

Illustrator Melinda Beck created the suite of 4 stamps celebrating Title IX. Each image presents a female silhouette and the visual iconography of a specific sport. The artist explains, "The women on the four stamps represent female athletes, specifically a runner, a swimmer, a gymnast, and a soccer player. I have included details that give each athlete their own personality and reflect the diversity of women in sports 50 years after the passage of Title IX."