In 1979, a group of women athletes at Michigan State University, their civil rights attorney, the institution's Title IX coordinator, and a close circle of college students used the law to confront a powerful institution-their own university. By the mid-1970s, opposition from the NCAA had made intercollegiate athletics the most controversial part of Title IX, the 1972 federal law prohibiting discrimination in all federally funded education programs and activities. At the same time, some of the most motivated, highly skilled women athletes in colleges and universities could no longer tolerate the long-standing differences between men's and women's separate but obviously unequal sports programs. In Invisible Seasons, Belanger recalls the remarkable story of how the MSU women athletes helped change the landscape of higher education athletics. They learned the hard way that even groundbreaking civil rights laws are not self-executing. This behind-the-scenes look at a university sports program challenges us all to think about what it really means to put equality into practice, especially in the money-driven world of college sports.
"The author skillfully uses excellent scholarship about the history, implementation, and consequences of Title IX, both generally and through the lens of a specific institution, as the landscape on which to effectively discuss the impact of rhetorical choices."
Professor Emerita, Brooklyn College, City University of New York
"An intricate tapestry made of threads pulled from court records, case notes, oral histories, personal interviews, basketball schedules, and social movement rhetoric….Part social history/part rhetorical study/part personal journey, Invisible Seasons reveals one sports story we rarely hear though it is one that has been crucial in an ongoing battle to level the playing field."
