Champion of Title IX, ERA, former Sen. Birch Bayh dies
Lawmaker also wrote two constitutional amendments
Former Sen. Birch Bayh, the author of two major constitutional amendments as well as legislation that dramatically improved women’s rights in classrooms and on athletic fields, died March 14 at his home in Easton, Md. He was 91.
The cause was pneumonia, his family said in a statement.
In three terms on Capitol Hill, the liberal Democrat from conservative Indiana became one of his era’s most productive legislators and wiliest political adversaries, particularly in clashes over
U.S. Supreme Court nominees put forward by the Nixon administration.
In 1980, Bayh was targeted by Republicans energized by Ronald Reagan’s presidential bid and was defeated by a brash young challenger, Rep. Dan Quayle, later vice president under President George H.W. Bush. But the Bayh name remained resonant in Indiana, and his elder son, Evan, served as governor and U.S. senator.
Birch Bayh, an Indiana native, was an unlikely avatar of constitutional reform when he arrived in Washington in 1963. By chance, he landed on the Senate Judiciary Committee, although he was just three years out of law school.
Chairman Bayh became the main author and advocate of the 25th Amendment. Ratified in 1967, the amendment established clear procedures for appointing a vice president if a vacancy occurred. It also set rules for replacing the president should the incumbent become seriously disabled.
Bayh also wrote the 26th Amendment, adopted in 1971, setting the national voting age at 18.
Next Bayh co-authored what would have been the 27th Amendment, the Equal Rights Amendment, prescribing equal treatment of women in all fields. Congress approved it in 1972. Sensing that the measure might sink because of opposition in state legislatures —ultimately, it did — Bayh produced Title IX of the 1972 education act. It banned gender discrimination in schools receiving federal support.
Title IX provoked controversy lasting decades, particularly the requirement that schools devote equal resources to male and female athletes.
Forty years after Title IX’s enactment, when Bayh was being honored by female professional basketball players, he recalled the argument he made in the 1970s: “In a country that prides itself on equality, we could not continue to deny 53 percent of the American people equal rights.”