1 / 4FILE - In this June 20, 2012 file photo, former Sen. Birch Bayh, D-Ind., the author of Title IX in Congress, is applauded by Senior Adviser to the President and Chair of the Council on Women and Girls Valerie Jarrett, left, and tennis great Billie Jean King, center during a forum in the South Court Auditorium at the White House in Washington in a gathering to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Title IX.
But it was his work to pass the landmark Title IX law that solidified his legacy. He wrote and was the lead sponsor of the 1972 law, which prohibits gender discrimination in education — known as Title IX for its section in the Higher Education Act. Tennis great Billie Jean King, who worked with Bayh on women's rights issues, released a statement with his family Thursday saying the former senator was"one of the most important Americans of the 20th century."
The amendment led to the presidency of Gerald Ford less than a decade later when Ford first succeeded Spiro Agnew as vice president and then took over the White House after President Richard Nixon's resignation during the Watergate scandal. Bayh had begun preparing to make a run for the 1972 Democratic presidential nomination when his first wife, Marvella, was diagnosed with breast cancer. He dropped that campaign but entered the 1976 presidential campaign, finishing second to Jimmy Carter in the opening Iowa caucuses but then faring poorly in later primaries.
He graduated from Purdue University's School of Agriculture after spending two years in the Army and met his future wife during a 1951 National Farm Bureau speaking contest in Chicago, which she won as an entrant from Oklahoma. They soon married and moved to the Shirkieville farm.
George Bush Sr. was also a co signer on it.
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