WEBVTT - Successful But Not Equal 0:00:00.640 --> 0:00:04.000 It was the filibuster to end all filibusters in the U. S. Senate. 0:00:04.519 --> 0:00:08.080 In February nineteen sixty four, just three months after President 0:00:08.160 --> 0:00:10.880 John F. Kennedy was shot and killed in Dallas, Texas, 0:00:11.240 --> 0:00:14.319 the House of Representatives passed a landmark civil rights bill. 0:00:15.000 --> 0:00:18.440 Among other things, the bill banned discrimination in public facilities 0:00:18.640 --> 0:00:22.360 on the basis of race and other traits. Kennedy's successor, 0:00:22.440 --> 0:00:26.599 Lyndon Johnson, spearheaded the historic legislation. Its purpose is not 0:00:26.760 --> 0:00:31.200 to punish. Its purpose is not to divide, but to 0:00:31.440 --> 0:00:35.840 end divisions, divisions which have lasted all too long. Many 0:00:35.840 --> 0:00:38.639 in America were not happy to see such divisions end. 0:00:39.120 --> 0:00:42.480 The House passed the bill, then several Southern Senators began 0:00:42.479 --> 0:00:46.239 a record setting attempt to frustrate its passage. They succeeded 0:00:46.240 --> 0:00:48.960 to laying a vote for almost three months. Their epic 0:00:49.000 --> 0:00:51.440 filibuster came to an end just before ten a m. 0:00:51.520 --> 0:00:55.240 On the morning of June tenth, nineteen sixty four, an 0:00:55.240 --> 0:00:59.480 exhausted Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia, a former KKK member, 0:01:00.000 --> 0:01:03.000 It is nearly fourteen hours of speaking on the Senate floor. 0:01:03.840 --> 0:01:07.200 His lengthy address was in vain nine days later, the 0:01:07.240 --> 0:01:10.440 Senator approved the Act and President Johnson signed the bill 0:01:10.560 --> 0:01:16.840 in a nationally televised ceremony. Tonight, I urge every public official, 0:01:18.400 --> 0:01:24.920 every religious leader, every business and professional man, every working man, 0:01:25.040 --> 0:01:31.880 every housewife. I urge every America to join in this 0:01:32.040 --> 0:01:37.919 effort to bring justice and hope to all our people. 0:01:38.440 --> 0:01:41.240 The Civil Rights Act of nineteen sixty four was truly 0:01:41.280 --> 0:01:44.479 a landmark moment for African Americans, but it was also 0:01:44.520 --> 0:01:48.920 a game changing moment for women, including every housewife in America, 0:01:49.120 --> 0:01:52.559 as the President referred to them. Nestled into Title seven 0:01:52.560 --> 0:01:55.600 of the Act was a single word, sex, and that 0:01:55.640 --> 0:01:59.400 word kick started a revolution that is still unfolding today, 0:01:59.560 --> 0:02:06.639 from core rooms to World Cup soccer fields. It's ready 0:02:06.640 --> 0:02:15.240 to call transcends. The passion cannot begins me poten root. 0:02:16.440 --> 0:02:25.799 Now we found our way. Let us play. Let us 0:02:26.960 --> 0:02:30.440 from Ozzie. This is the threat. I'm Sean braswell. This 0:02:30.480 --> 0:02:33.360 season on the Thread, we've celebrated the twentieth anniversary of 0:02:33.360 --> 0:02:36.560 the ninety Niners and their unforgettable Women's Soccer World Cup 0:02:36.639 --> 0:02:39.520 victory with a journey back through time to see everything 0:02:39.560 --> 0:02:41.640 that led up to that moment at the Rose Bowl 0:02:41.680 --> 0:02:45.760 in In this final episode, we conclude the journey that 0:02:45.840 --> 0:02:49.560 began with Brandy Chastain's winning penalty kick by revisiting a 0:02:49.639 --> 0:02:53.639 historic anti discrimination law, Title seven of the Civil Rights 0:02:53.720 --> 0:02:56.720 Act of nineteen sixty four, and we'll find out how 0:02:56.760 --> 0:02:59.760 that legislation still governs the fate of the current US 0:02:59.800 --> 0:03:03.360 women national team, even after their triumphant victory at this 0:03:03.480 --> 0:03:07.919 year's World Cup in France. Before the U. S Senate 0:03:07.960 --> 0:03:10.800 considered it, the Civil Rights Act of nineteen sixty four 0:03:10.880 --> 0:03:14.360 underwent a contentious debate in the House of Representatives. Like 0:03:14.440 --> 0:03:17.840 their Senate colleagues, the Southern congressman in the House opposed 0:03:17.880 --> 0:03:21.080 to the law tried everything in their power to sabotage it. 0:03:21.440 --> 0:03:25.079 Historian Rosalind Rosenberg it looked as though the Act would pass, 0:03:25.680 --> 0:03:28.640 at which point a Southern Congressman by the name of 0:03:28.680 --> 0:03:32.920 Howard Smith from Virginia rose to ask for an amendment 0:03:33.120 --> 0:03:36.800 to Title seven, and that amendment was the word sex. 0:03:37.160 --> 0:03:40.520 That employers should be barred from discriminating not only on 0:03:40.560 --> 0:03:43.880 the basis of race and national origin and religion, but 0:03:43.960 --> 0:03:47.880 also on the basis of sex. This was an addition 0:03:48.000 --> 0:03:50.960 that looked as though it might well scuttle the Civil 0:03:51.040 --> 0:03:53.880 Rights Act, which Howard Smith hoped would be the case. 0:03:54.720 --> 0:03:57.720 Smith figured that many Northern congressmen and labor leaders might 0:03:57.800 --> 0:03:59.760 change their minds on the bill if they thought it 0:04:00.120 --> 0:04:02.640 women had to be hired on an equal footing with men. 0:04:03.240 --> 0:04:05.880 He proposed the change almost jokingly. He said he was 0:04:05.880 --> 0:04:08.760 going to do it to help quote the minority sex. 0:04:09.400 --> 0:04:11.800 Karen Blumenthal is the author of let Me Play the 0:04:11.880 --> 0:04:17.839 Story of Title nine. Now, some of the men in 0:04:17.839 --> 0:04:21.600 Congress thought that was hilarious, because women, of course, were housewives, 0:04:21.600 --> 0:04:23.400 and they were mothers. They were not people who went 0:04:23.400 --> 0:04:25.839 into the workplace. But there was at least one woman 0:04:25.839 --> 0:04:28.440 in Congress listening to Smith who did not think it 0:04:28.480 --> 0:04:31.320 was funny at all. So Martha Griffith's is one of 0:04:31.320 --> 0:04:34.480 the unsung heroes of the women's movement. She was the 0:04:34.520 --> 0:04:37.120 granddaughter of a suffragette. She had grown up as a 0:04:37.240 --> 0:04:40.400 very good student, a debater in high school. She wanted 0:04:40.440 --> 0:04:42.720 to go to college, but the family funds were tight, 0:04:42.800 --> 0:04:44.880 and her father said, no, we're gonna have to spend 0:04:44.920 --> 0:04:47.719 money sending your brother to college. Martha's mother would not 0:04:47.800 --> 0:04:50.880 deny her daughter that chance. She took in borders and 0:04:50.920 --> 0:04:53.760 work spare jobs so Martha could go to college and 0:04:53.800 --> 0:04:56.279 then law school. So she went to the University of 0:04:56.320 --> 0:05:00.279 Michigan Law School, was very successful there and decided later 0:05:00.360 --> 0:05:03.520 to run for Congress. She was one of the first 0:05:03.600 --> 0:05:07.000 women elected to Congress in the nineteen fifties who was 0:05:07.040 --> 0:05:10.840 not following a husband. Griffiths served ten terms in Congress 0:05:10.920 --> 0:05:13.159 and was the first woman ever to serve on the 0:05:13.200 --> 0:05:16.880 powerful House Ways and Means Committee. This interview clip from 0:05:16.920 --> 0:05:19.320 nineteen seventy four will give you a sense of what 0:05:19.360 --> 0:05:22.200 Martha Griffiths was like. At the time, it looked like 0:05:22.240 --> 0:05:25.159 the Equal Rights Amendment, in shrining gender equality in the U. 0:05:25.200 --> 0:05:30.400 S Constitution, might actually get ratified and tell the passage 0:05:30.400 --> 0:05:33.520 of the Equal Rights Amendment. Was there no protection for 0:05:33.600 --> 0:05:38.000 women under the law in our constitution? Not really. They 0:05:38.080 --> 0:05:41.440 never applied the fourteenth Amendment to women. They didn't apply 0:05:41.520 --> 0:05:44.320 the fifteenth when the fifteenth Amendment had been written, which 0:05:44.320 --> 0:05:47.040 had every citizen could vote, in the name of heavens, 0:05:47.040 --> 0:05:49.719 Why couldn't women vote. Why did you have to have 0:05:49.760 --> 0:05:52.680 the nineteenth Amendment? Well, of course, the answer was they 0:05:52.680 --> 0:05:57.359 didn't consider women people. Griffiths was a force in Congress. 0:05:57.600 --> 0:06:00.320 She was not afraid to speak her mind. It's an 0:06:00.320 --> 0:06:04.120 airline chief executive involved in an employment dispute told Griffiths 0:06:04.160 --> 0:06:07.919 that his company wanted stewardesses that were quote young, attractive, 0:06:08.040 --> 0:06:11.760 and single. Griffiths wrote him back a stinging letter that asked, 0:06:12.120 --> 0:06:16.000 what are you running an airline or a whorehouse? Martha 0:06:16.040 --> 0:06:18.440 Griffiths also did not have the patients to stand by. 0:06:18.520 --> 0:06:22.320 While Howard Smith joked about employment discrimination on the floor 0:06:22.360 --> 0:06:27.080 of Congress, author Karen Blumenthal. When the laughter stops, Martha 0:06:27.120 --> 0:06:30.039 Griffith stands up and says, you know, I guess if 0:06:30.080 --> 0:06:33.919 there's any question that women are a second class, you know, 0:06:34.040 --> 0:06:38.000 your response would prove that the men quieted down. So 0:06:38.279 --> 0:06:41.279 she proposes that women should indeed be included in the 0:06:41.320 --> 0:06:43.320 Civil Rights Act, that this is not a joke, that 0:06:43.360 --> 0:06:45.599 women need to work just like men do, and that 0:06:45.680 --> 0:06:49.200 they shouldn't be discriminated against. Griffith's appealed to the white 0:06:49.200 --> 0:06:51.400 men in the chamber by pointing out that without the 0:06:51.400 --> 0:06:55.039 word sex, the bill would favor black women over white women. 0:06:55.560 --> 0:06:58.520 She argued, quote, a vote against this bill today by 0:06:58.520 --> 0:07:01.240 a white man is a vote against his wife, or 0:07:01.279 --> 0:07:05.400 his widow, or his daughter or his sister. So when 0:07:05.400 --> 0:07:09.040 the time came, Congress, to the surprise of many, actually 0:07:09.120 --> 0:07:13.600 approved adding sex to the Civil Rights Act that affected employment. 0:07:14.160 --> 0:07:16.920 And when this happened, somebody in the visitors gallery yelled, 0:07:17.360 --> 0:07:21.520 we made it. We are human. A couple of days later, 0:07:21.640 --> 0:07:25.520 the House passed the entire Civil Rights Bill, sex included. 0:07:31.880 --> 0:07:35.160 We've now completed this season's journey back through history, from 0:07:35.200 --> 0:07:37.240 the fight over a single word in the Civil Rights 0:07:37.280 --> 0:07:39.960 Act in nineteen sixty four to the penalty kick heard 0:07:39.960 --> 0:07:45.760 around the world. Let's recap. Thanks to Congresswoman Martha Griffith's 0:07:45.760 --> 0:07:48.120 the word sex appears in Title seven of the Civil 0:07:48.200 --> 0:07:52.440 Rights Act of ninety four. Then, because of a trailblazing 0:07:52.520 --> 0:07:55.800 legal scholar named Polly Murray, sex not only stays in 0:07:55.880 --> 0:07:58.440 that law, but a new legal foundation is laid for 0:07:58.480 --> 0:08:02.160 sex discrimination that culminates with the passage of Title nine, 0:08:02.560 --> 0:08:07.200 another landmark law that banns sex discrimination in education. But 0:08:07.280 --> 0:08:09.679 Title nine would never have been passed without the efforts 0:08:09.680 --> 0:08:12.440 of women like Bunny Sandler and Edith Green, and it 0:08:12.520 --> 0:08:14.560 never would have been enforced without the women of the 0:08:14.640 --> 0:08:18.720 nineteen seventy six Yale Crew team. Thanks to these figures, 0:08:18.920 --> 0:08:21.240 Title nine would usher in a new era of women's 0:08:21.280 --> 0:08:25.000 sports in America. Among those early beneficiaries of Title nine 0:08:25.040 --> 0:08:27.320 were the members of the first U. S women's national 0:08:27.400 --> 0:08:30.760 soccer team in the mid nineteen eighties. These women had 0:08:30.760 --> 0:08:34.319 hand me down uniforms and virtually no compensation, but they 0:08:34.360 --> 0:08:37.320 had a love of the game that transcended their circumstances, 0:08:37.559 --> 0:08:40.160 and that paved the way for the ninety Niners, whose 0:08:40.200 --> 0:08:43.559 triumph on that summer day in Pasadena put an exclamation 0:08:43.640 --> 0:08:47.079 point on almost four decades of history. But it's a 0:08:47.160 --> 0:08:50.320 journey that is not over. Women's sports in America may 0:08:50.360 --> 0:09:02.080 be successful, but they are far from equal. Title nine 0:09:02.080 --> 0:09:06.320 to me is opportunity. Tracy Noonan was a goaltender for 0:09:06.360 --> 0:09:10.000 the ninety Niners. It was opportunity for girls that we 0:09:10.040 --> 0:09:12.120 hadn't had before. When I look at when my mom 0:09:12.160 --> 0:09:14.200 grew up, she would have loved to have played soccer. 0:09:14.240 --> 0:09:15.880 She you know, I know that the high school that 0:09:15.920 --> 0:09:17.640 she went to, they weren't allowed to They didn't have 0:09:17.720 --> 0:09:21.240 female sports. Noonan was born in nineteen seventy three and 0:09:21.280 --> 0:09:24.600 into a generation of women who had significantly more opportunities 0:09:24.640 --> 0:09:28.000 to compete and to play. Someone once called Title nine 0:09:28.280 --> 0:09:30.920 the biggest thing to happen to sports since the invention 0:09:30.960 --> 0:09:34.120 of the whistle. Nina Chaudrey is general counsel at the 0:09:34.200 --> 0:09:37.520 National Women's Law Center, a nonprofit founded in the same 0:09:37.600 --> 0:09:41.760 year as Title nine. Title nine has been a game changer, 0:09:41.800 --> 0:09:45.920 and it has allowed women to really emerge from their 0:09:45.960 --> 0:09:50.040 second class status, which is where they were relegated. The 0:09:50.120 --> 0:09:53.679 participation numbers for women in sports before and after Title 0:09:53.760 --> 0:09:58.680 nine are stunning. Karen Blumenthal. Before Title nine is passed, 0:09:59.120 --> 0:10:01.679 there's only seven undered girls in the entire United States 0:10:01.720 --> 0:10:05.840 playing soccer. In five years, there's eleven thousand girls playing 0:10:06.240 --> 0:10:09.520 and it didn't stop there. Before Title nine. One in 0:10:09.640 --> 0:10:13.319 twenty seven girls played sports in America. Today that number 0:10:13.320 --> 0:10:15.800 is closer to two and five. The number of young 0:10:15.840 --> 0:10:18.640 women playing high school sports is ten times as high 0:10:18.679 --> 0:10:21.320 as it was in the nineteen seventies. And these numbers 0:10:21.360 --> 0:10:24.560 continue to grow and grow. And the supporters are of 0:10:24.600 --> 0:10:27.240 course parents, and not just moms, but dads who love 0:10:27.320 --> 0:10:29.920 to play sports and wanted the same thing for their daughters. 0:10:31.320 --> 0:10:33.680 Emily Pickering, one of the members of the first US 0:10:33.720 --> 0:10:37.720 women's national team, is one of those parents, you know, 0:10:37.760 --> 0:10:40.440 And I tried to teach that to my daughter, and 0:10:40.440 --> 0:10:42.840 and instill in her the fact that you know, we've 0:10:42.840 --> 0:10:47.440 come a long way, and and Title nine really changed 0:10:47.480 --> 0:10:51.079 the landscape of everything for women, and it's a landscape 0:10:51.120 --> 0:10:54.800 that is here to stay. Marrily Dean Baker, Princeton's first 0:10:54.840 --> 0:10:59.360 female athletic director, summed it up. I was called a tomboy. 0:10:59.559 --> 0:11:04.160 My daughters are called athletes. And during the nineteen nineties, 0:11:04.480 --> 0:11:08.000 many Americans became aware of just what amazing female athletes 0:11:08.040 --> 0:11:14.600 they had. That's next on the thread. At the Olympic 0:11:14.679 --> 0:11:18.160 Games in Atlanta, US women won thirty nine gold medals, 0:11:18.280 --> 0:11:23.200 including team victories in softball, basketball, and soccer. Americans started 0:11:23.240 --> 0:11:26.400 to pay attention Karen Blumenthal, and so the women all 0:11:26.440 --> 0:11:29.120 started winning gold. And then a couple of years later, 0:11:29.160 --> 0:11:32.439 the soccer team comes around, and these women are fierce, 0:11:32.720 --> 0:11:37.280 they're good, they're muscular, they're talented, and they're winning. This 0:11:37.400 --> 0:11:41.480 was the payoff for giving women the simple opportunity to play. 0:11:41.760 --> 0:11:45.040 And then, of course comes that fateful summer day in Pasadena. 0:11:47.080 --> 0:11:49.839 Whether this one was that it continues from the roast 0:11:49.920 --> 0:11:57.199 ball and Pasadena, the one, the one that's world historians 0:11:57.200 --> 0:12:02.520 Susan Ware, ninety thousand people coming to watch a women's 0:12:02.559 --> 0:12:07.520 sporting event. This is just enough to make any older 0:12:07.559 --> 0:12:11.360 woman's heart flutter, you know, the thought that that many 0:12:11.440 --> 0:12:17.520 people cared so much about women's sports and is barely 0:12:18.040 --> 0:12:22.360 twenty five years after the passage of Title nine, where 0:12:22.360 --> 0:12:26.160 women's sports were basically at zero. But the ninety nine 0:12:26.360 --> 0:12:29.199 did not just inspire a new audience for women's sports. 0:12:29.600 --> 0:12:33.240 Tracy noon in again. So the legacy to me is, 0:12:33.559 --> 0:12:36.959 you know, really about inspiring that next generation that this 0:12:37.000 --> 0:12:39.120 is what women's soccer can look like. You know, it 0:12:39.160 --> 0:12:41.600 was a big moment I think for not only the 0:12:41.679 --> 0:12:44.679 young girls in this country, but also for boys and 0:12:44.720 --> 0:12:48.400 for men to understand that this is a marketable sport 0:12:48.679 --> 0:12:51.000 and it's just not something to keep the girls busy with. 0:12:53.080 --> 0:12:56.680 That impact upon men and boys has been particularly special. 0:12:57.240 --> 0:12:59.160 Tim Nash is the author of It's Not the Glory 0:12:59.360 --> 0:13:02.280 and has covered the women's national team for decades. One 0:13:02.280 --> 0:13:08.080 of the cool things about is they actually gave fathers 0:13:08.200 --> 0:13:13.000 an opportunity to go to a sporting event with their daughters, 0:13:13.160 --> 0:13:16.360 and it was their daughters picking the event, and the 0:13:16.480 --> 0:13:22.440 level of acceptance from boys about girl soccer players just 0:13:22.440 --> 0:13:25.760 went through the roof. Kristen Press was eleven years old 0:13:25.800 --> 0:13:28.920 in the summer of I think for everyone who saw 0:13:28.920 --> 0:13:30.640 the game, it was the first time that you had 0:13:30.640 --> 0:13:35.000 seen women in such a magnitude. Now she is a 0:13:35.040 --> 0:13:37.760 striker for the current national team, it was like, Wow, 0:13:37.800 --> 0:13:39.400 this is what we could do, this is what we're 0:13:39.440 --> 0:13:42.840 chasing after. That's so much bigger than we imagined. National 0:13:42.840 --> 0:13:46.680 team defender Crystal Dunton turned seven during the World Cup. 0:13:47.320 --> 0:13:50.440 It was hard for women to even be taken seriously 0:13:50.480 --> 0:13:52.600 already at that time, and I think them winning it 0:13:52.679 --> 0:13:55.560 and the success they've had really allowed the world to 0:13:55.600 --> 0:13:58.040 see we can play the sport. You know, it's not 0:13:58.080 --> 0:14:01.440 just a man's game, it's it's every one's game. It 0:14:01.760 --> 0:14:06.120 is now everyone's game. And for the assistant coach, Lauren 0:14:06.200 --> 0:14:08.560 greg that is one of the beautiful things about what 0:14:08.600 --> 0:14:13.560 the nine accomplished. They had created generation. They wouldn't know 0:14:13.600 --> 0:14:16.320 any differently, and that's I think one of the things 0:14:16.400 --> 0:14:19.040 I'm most proud about. Like I have a seventeen and 0:14:19.080 --> 0:14:21.760 a twelve year old daughter. They don't know any different. 0:14:23.920 --> 0:14:26.360 But that doesn't mean that women today are treated equally. 0:14:26.960 --> 0:14:31.320 If I just look back over my lifetime historian Susan 0:14:31.360 --> 0:14:36.480 Ware again and think about the amazing changes that have 0:14:36.600 --> 0:14:40.400 happened for women just in the past forty going on 0:14:40.600 --> 0:14:45.760 fifty years. It is a truly phenomenal amount of social 0:14:45.840 --> 0:14:50.400 change for women more broadly, and also in women's sports. 0:14:51.000 --> 0:14:53.840 And yet if you go, oh, if you go to 0:14:53.880 --> 0:14:57.880 any high school and you start asking the girls about 0:14:58.160 --> 0:15:01.840 how are they treated, how are they teams treated? Well, 0:15:02.360 --> 0:15:07.520 when the boys team comes in third, they get announced 0:15:07.560 --> 0:15:09.680 on the p A and there's a it's a big deal. 0:15:09.760 --> 0:15:14.760 But when our volleyball team, you know, when state, nobody 0:15:14.800 --> 0:15:19.000 really pays attention. They're just all these small things that 0:15:19.120 --> 0:15:25.360 remind us that women's sports are still struggling for equality. 0:15:25.840 --> 0:15:28.880 Karen Blumenthal. It's not as bad as in the seventies, 0:15:28.880 --> 0:15:31.800 where literally women's teams had to go home, launder their 0:15:31.800 --> 0:15:34.040 own uniforms and hand them off to another team for 0:15:34.120 --> 0:15:38.640 their next game, but it's still not equitable. Women easily 0:15:38.640 --> 0:15:42.400 make up the majority of students on American college campuses today, 0:15:42.640 --> 0:15:46.280 yet they are still often underrepresented on sports teams. Their 0:15:46.280 --> 0:15:49.120 teams still receive lower budgets and have worse facilities than 0:15:49.160 --> 0:15:53.280 their male counterparts. Nina Chaudry again, the General Council of 0:15:53.320 --> 0:15:57.280 the National Women's Law Center. Many schools across the country 0:15:57.280 --> 0:15:59.800 are out of compliance. I sometimes say that I could 0:15:59.800 --> 0:16:03.320 throw a dart at a map, and wherever atlanted, that 0:16:03.400 --> 0:16:06.720 school would be out of compliance. There's no shortage of examples. 0:16:07.280 --> 0:16:11.080 Often we see disparities between bloys baseball fields and girls 0:16:11.080 --> 0:16:14.040 softball fields. That's a big one, because I think it's 0:16:14.120 --> 0:16:18.000 very visible when boys have press boxes and dugouts and 0:16:18.120 --> 0:16:20.920 lighting and girls have none of the above. And Nina 0:16:21.000 --> 0:16:24.640 Chaudrey says not all women are treated equally either. While 0:16:24.640 --> 0:16:27.840 we've certainly come a long way since Title nine for 0:16:28.040 --> 0:16:32.600 women and girls of color in particular, and other groups 0:16:32.640 --> 0:16:35.600 of women who are marginalized, I think there's still even 0:16:35.600 --> 0:16:40.360 more work to do. And even at the pinnacle of 0:16:40.360 --> 0:16:44.000 women's sports, the national soccer team, things are not much better. 0:16:44.480 --> 0:16:47.360 The United States has dominated women's soccer for almost three 0:16:47.400 --> 0:16:50.960 decades thanks to Title nine and the women of the 0:16:51.000 --> 0:16:54.280 early U S national teams. The national team has won 0:16:54.280 --> 0:16:57.520 four World Cups and four Olympic gold medals. It is 0:16:57.520 --> 0:17:00.960 successful by almost any measure you can imagine. But here 0:17:01.000 --> 0:17:03.840 in twenty nineteen, the US women are not treated the 0:17:03.880 --> 0:17:09.640 same as their male peers, not even close. Title nine 0:17:09.680 --> 0:17:13.679 has created opportunities for millions of female athletes and contributed 0:17:13.720 --> 0:17:18.360 to the phenomenal success of the women's national team in soccer. Unfortunately, 0:17:18.440 --> 0:17:24.320 what hasn't changed is the great wage disparities and discrimination 0:17:24.880 --> 0:17:29.919 based on gender that plague our society, including in sports, 0:17:30.080 --> 0:17:34.080 and we are conducting a legal fight to try to 0:17:34.160 --> 0:17:37.920 remedy that for these great women champions. Jeffrey Kessler is 0:17:37.960 --> 0:17:40.399 an attorney at the Winston Strong Law firm who is 0:17:40.440 --> 0:17:43.520 representing the women's national team in their current legal fight 0:17:43.600 --> 0:17:47.760 for equal pay. This morning, the US women's soccer team 0:17:47.800 --> 0:17:51.480 is making moves off the field with a gender discrimination 0:17:51.560 --> 0:17:56.040 lawsuit against their employer, the US Soccer Federation, the goal 0:17:56.640 --> 0:18:01.359 changing working conditions and what players get paid. Carly Lloyd, 0:18:01.640 --> 0:18:06.119 Alex Morgan, and Megan Repeto are the team's star athletes 0:18:06.400 --> 0:18:09.040 and among the twenty eight players named in the class 0:18:09.080 --> 0:18:13.120 action lawsuit. They actually filed it on International Women's Day 0:18:13.160 --> 0:18:18.960 in March, alleging institutionalized gender discrimination. Caitlin Murray is a 0:18:19.040 --> 0:18:22.280 journalist and author of the National Team, The Inside Story 0:18:22.320 --> 0:18:24.639 of the Women Who Change Soccer. For a lot of 0:18:24.640 --> 0:18:28.080 the American public, something like this takes them by surprise 0:18:28.240 --> 0:18:32.399 because we see these players with these big endorsement deals 0:18:32.880 --> 0:18:37.960 and their stars and their popular and you just kind 0:18:37.960 --> 0:18:41.480 of assume that things have always been pretty good for them. 0:18:41.520 --> 0:18:45.840 But in actuality, this team has been waging similar battles 0:18:45.920 --> 0:18:49.080 the entire time it has existed. She's right. The current 0:18:49.160 --> 0:18:52.080 national team comes from a long line of fighters. It's 0:18:52.080 --> 0:18:57.119 in their DNA were no strangers to confrontation. Just before 0:18:57.119 --> 0:19:00.879 the Olympics, the team learned that the US Soccer Federation 0:19:01.000 --> 0:19:03.879 was still unwilling to pay them anything remotely close to 0:19:03.920 --> 0:19:06.560 what the men's team received. The men were to be 0:19:06.560 --> 0:19:10.199 given bonuses if they received gold, silver, or bronze medals 0:19:10.200 --> 0:19:12.639 at the Olympics. The women would only get theirs if 0:19:12.640 --> 0:19:15.919 they won gold. They decided they were going to boycott 0:19:15.960 --> 0:19:20.639 playing for the national team unless US Soccer offered the 0:19:20.720 --> 0:19:23.919 same bonuses that they were offering to the men's team. 0:19:23.960 --> 0:19:26.600 So nine of the team's veterans, including Mia Hamm and 0:19:26.640 --> 0:19:32.080 Michelle Acres, refused to attend training camp. Tracy Noonan, they 0:19:32.080 --> 0:19:34.640 held out they risked not going to the very first 0:19:34.640 --> 0:19:38.200 Olympics um but that was kind of a starting point 0:19:38.359 --> 0:19:40.280 of all right, we have some leverage here and we 0:19:40.320 --> 0:19:42.960 need to start to use it. Months later, the players 0:19:42.960 --> 0:19:46.560 in US Soccer reached a compromise. In the end, US 0:19:46.560 --> 0:19:49.959 Soccer agreed to give the women a bonus if they 0:19:50.000 --> 0:19:52.960 won gold or silver, so it was still not equal 0:19:53.000 --> 0:19:56.600 to the men's bonus. The still had to fight for 0:19:56.640 --> 0:19:59.640 their rights. Even after they won the World Cup in Pasadena, 0:20:00.240 --> 0:20:03.399 the players organized their own nationwide victory tour following the 0:20:03.400 --> 0:20:07.320 World Cup because US Soccer had nothing planned. Then US 0:20:07.359 --> 0:20:09.720 Soccer threatened to sue the team to stop the tour. 0:20:10.440 --> 0:20:13.320 That's when Mia Ham, the team's best known player, dropped 0:20:13.320 --> 0:20:17.119 a bombshell in defense of her teammates. She responded, quote, 0:20:17.400 --> 0:20:20.199 if you sue US, I'm prepared to never play for 0:20:20.320 --> 0:20:25.879 US Soccer again. The US Soccer Federation caved. Two decades later, 0:20:26.080 --> 0:20:29.440 the unfair treatment persists. For the past three years, US 0:20:29.480 --> 0:20:33.000 women's soccer games have generated more revenue than US men's games, 0:20:33.480 --> 0:20:36.359 but the women still do not enjoy a level playing field. 0:20:37.040 --> 0:20:40.879 Team lawyer Jeffrey Kessler again, they are the more prominent 0:20:41.240 --> 0:20:46.359 television and media attraction and sponsorship attraction right now, Yet 0:20:46.920 --> 0:20:51.680 by all calculations, even putting aside the World Cup for all, 0:20:51.720 --> 0:20:55.000 there are other matches, they are making no better than 0:20:55.080 --> 0:20:58.400 sevent in terms of what the men could make. There 0:20:58.520 --> 0:21:01.080 is one important difference between the men's and women's teams, 0:21:01.080 --> 0:21:04.520 according to Kessler, and it's not gender. The imployant difference 0:21:04.560 --> 0:21:07.760 between those teams is that the women are consistently the 0:21:07.800 --> 0:21:10.520 double one ranked team in the world and the repeated 0:21:10.560 --> 0:21:14.000 world champion, and the men have not been as successful. 0:21:15.800 --> 0:21:18.919 In May twenty nineteen, US Soccer filed its response to 0:21:18.960 --> 0:21:21.560 the team's complaint. It did not dispute that the men's 0:21:21.560 --> 0:21:24.479 and women's players are not paid equally, but it claims 0:21:24.480 --> 0:21:27.480 that those inequities are a result of quote different pay 0:21:27.520 --> 0:21:31.680 structures for performing different work. US Soccer claims that's because 0:21:31.680 --> 0:21:36.200 the two teams negotiated separate collective bargaining agreements. Essentially that 0:21:36.240 --> 0:21:38.960 the women are comparing apples to oranges, and if the 0:21:38.960 --> 0:21:42.720 women got apples, it's because they negotiated for them. That 0:21:42.920 --> 0:21:49.399 is true, but irrelevant. Every type of wage discrimination is 0:21:49.440 --> 0:21:53.960 agreed to by the employee. That's how you work. So 0:21:54.200 --> 0:21:58.280 just like you could not agree to a collective boggy 0:21:58.320 --> 0:22:02.199 agreement received less than the of a wage, you can't 0:22:02.600 --> 0:22:05.720 use a collective boggy agree with as a defense to 0:22:05.840 --> 0:22:10.520 say it's okay, we could justify a jedda base wage 0:22:10.520 --> 0:22:14.120 discrimination because you agreed to it. Perhaps the biggest grievance 0:22:14.200 --> 0:22:17.359 is about bonuses for World Cup performance. Each member of 0:22:17.359 --> 0:22:20.600 the women's team, for example, or ninety dollars for reaching 0:22:20.600 --> 0:22:23.399 the quarterfinals of the World Cup this year, The men's 0:22:23.400 --> 0:22:26.679 players would receive six times that if they performed as well. 0:22:27.200 --> 0:22:29.960 The US Soccer Federation did not respond to our request 0:22:30.000 --> 0:22:37.119 to comment. One thing is certain, the current national teams 0:22:37.200 --> 0:22:39.760 drive to fight for equality is as strong as their 0:22:39.840 --> 0:22:42.240 drive to win the World Cup. We caught up with 0:22:42.320 --> 0:22:44.240 a few of the current players in New York City 0:22:44.560 --> 0:22:46.800 just before they left to compete in the World Cup. 0:22:47.320 --> 0:22:49.360 We asked them about the challenge of trying to win 0:22:49.480 --> 0:22:52.159 on the field and in the courtroom at the same time. 0:22:52.640 --> 0:22:54.439 It's a little bit different. You know, on the field 0:22:54.480 --> 0:22:57.280 where we're focused, who are prepared to win this is 0:22:57.320 --> 0:23:00.720 midfield or Carly Lloyd, one of the team's captains. Off 0:23:00.720 --> 0:23:03.840 the field, you know, it's it's a there's a lot 0:23:03.880 --> 0:23:06.480 more that we, I think is women have to do. 0:23:07.160 --> 0:23:09.200 We kind of have to be a lot more active 0:23:09.200 --> 0:23:12.520 than some of the male figures. On social media and 0:23:12.560 --> 0:23:15.159 you know, doing all interviews and you know, fighting for 0:23:15.240 --> 0:23:18.879 equality and the equal pay and all of these things. 0:23:19.160 --> 0:23:22.240 The upside of the fight is huge, though, Midfield or 0:23:22.240 --> 0:23:26.240 Morgan Bryan, I do think, you know, we're pioneering women's 0:23:26.240 --> 0:23:29.160 sports and and pushing for more, and so I think 0:23:29.160 --> 0:23:31.840 that's something that we've always had in our d NA 0:23:32.040 --> 0:23:33.919 and wants to be a part of us, is that 0:23:33.960 --> 0:23:36.280 we not only are great on the field and and 0:23:36.320 --> 0:23:38.600 push along the women's game, but we're also pushing along 0:23:38.640 --> 0:23:41.760 women and the team now has a bigger platform than ever. 0:23:42.200 --> 0:23:46.040 Striker Alex Morgan, I think this team has the capability 0:23:46.080 --> 0:23:50.000 to really create shockwaves throughout the world, and I think 0:23:50.040 --> 0:23:51.760 we have the platform to be able to do so. 0:23:51.840 --> 0:23:54.560 And now it's just following through and making sure that 0:23:54.600 --> 0:23:56.399 we're playing at our best every single day, because this 0:23:56.480 --> 0:23:58.760 is going to be the most challenging World Cup that 0:23:58.840 --> 0:24:01.800 we've ever played in. Many worried before the World Cup 0:24:01.840 --> 0:24:04.359 that the lawsuit would be a distraction and hinder the 0:24:04.400 --> 0:24:08.320 team's performance. The team's attorney, James Kessler, well, is that 0:24:08.359 --> 0:24:10.280 a distraction to be? I don't have to trade the 0:24:10.280 --> 0:24:11.960 play of the World Cup. So we have a very 0:24:12.000 --> 0:24:14.920 good division of labor will take care of the legal side. 0:24:14.960 --> 0:24:17.120 They can take care of the plague side, and hopefully 0:24:17.520 --> 0:24:20.399 we'll achieve victories on both sides. The U S women 0:24:20.440 --> 0:24:23.119