Sustainable Development Goal 3

SDG 3, though admirable in its ambitious intent, exhibits limited capacity to transform the world. According to the World Bank (2022), though minimal data are available to show the most recent effects of COVID-19 on UHC per country, strong indicators reveal that at the end of 2021, global service coverage rates remained far below pre-pandemic levels, and financial protection profoundly worsened. At the basis of ensuring health and well-being for all is each individual’s ability to access health services. Whether to learn about family planning, to receive a vaccine, or to proactively monitor health, access to quality, affordable health services contributes to all of the SDG 3 targets. Ensuring that such services are accessible and affordable requires an increased focus on PHC in health system strengthening efforts. Unfortunately, the language and policies of the SDG documents fail to acknowledge the profound role PHC plays in achieving UHC, which remains a costly oversight in terms of the human lives lost to preventable conditions. The COVID-19 pandemic undoubtedly impacted health and well-being in ways that the UN did not foresee when creating the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development; nevertheless, weak healthcare systems have exacerbated its effects. As a result, millions of people continue to lack access to the very things deemed the right of every human: health and well-being.

The TCJA and Social Inequality in the United States

Despite the popular American notion that inequality is merely the result of an individual’s personal actions and decisions, in reality a majority of inequality stems from the structural forces of society. These forces include the social institutions, organizations, and groups in which we act and are acted upon. The decisions that political leaders make regarding tax policy, educational loans, welfare, tariffs, and other issues, all immensely influence the economic and social fate of individuals (Marger, 2014). The recent passage of the tax reform known as the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act represents one such decision that will burden the futures of millions of lower- and middle-class Americans. The reform affects virtually all taxpayers and makes changes that impact all kinds of taxes, including individual, corporate, partnership and other “pass through” business entities, and estate. While proponents label it a “victory for the Middle Class” the reform embodies the exact opposite.

Several provisions of the TCJA favor the wealthiest Americans, especially the top one percent of the population, but in an attempt to deter attention away from these permanent components, supporters of the reform focus on the minimal beneficial provisions incorporated for the middle class. The reform is grounded in the trickle-down economics idea made popular in the late 1970s, primarily contending that lower tax rates lead to greater growth for individuals, businesses, and the government (Lowrey, 2017). When analyzing the components of the TCJA, including the adjustment of the tax brackets, the reallocation of tax cuts, the reduction of the estate and corporate tax rates, the increased federal deficit, the potential ways in which states will make up for lost revenue, and the repeal of the individual mandate of the Affordable Care Act, the result is an extensive accentuation of inequality in the United States. In other words, the vast income and wealth gaps that currently exist will only widen, and the dwindling idea that individuals become successful through hard work will cease to exist as a fundamental characteristic of the American lifestyle.

Title IX and Social Change

When asked to name a sports idol, the responses of both non-athletes and athletes competing at all levels share one thing in common: overwhelmingly male. Despite recent growth in responses naming females, the male majority reflects the cultural norms and expectations that have ruled the sports world for decades. From the 19^th century to the early 21^st century, competitive sport provided an outlet for men to demonstrate their masculinity and reinforce the dominant American values of individual achievement, competitiveness, and winning. Throughout most of this time period, though difficult to conceptualize due to the modern progress of women’s sports, women were forced by cultural definitions to choose between being an athlete and being a woman.[1] Opportunities to participate in athletics were extremely limited, and the women’s leagues that arose were meager in comparison to their male counterparts. Along with minimal opportunity, women who participated risked damaging their feminine and heterosexual image.

A combination of historical context, institutional processes, and social elements created the momentum needed to shift societal perception of female athletes and their capabilities. Unbeknownst to its creators, Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 arguably impacted the women’s sports realm more than any other area. Congress enacted this legislation with two main objectives in mind: to avoid the use of federal resources to support discriminatory practices and to provide individual citizens effective protection against those practices.[2] The legislation stated that, “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.”[3] By focusing on issues such as equal pay, tenure track opportunities, and sex bias in school texts, Title IX originally made no mention of sport.[4] This all changed, however, when NCAA officials, campus officers, athletic directors and coaches, booster organizations, and university presidents explicitly expressed their fear of the legislation’s impact on athletics. To these people, Title IX added to a long, growing list of unfunded, often expensive, federal mandates for educational institutions. Sensing that such fear stemmed from the potential threat the law presented in challenging the status quo and expanding female athletes’ opportunity in sport, proponents of Title IX pushed harder. In other words, however uncertain “women in PE” felt about Title IX, the more they discovered how strenuously men in sports opposed the legislation, the clearer it became how important Title IX could become.[5] Therefore, athletics arose as the primary source of contention among those directly affected by Title IX policy, and as a result, women’s intercollegiate athletics became the law’s most prominent beneficiary.[6]

Although the original intent of Title IX and the unanticipated growth in women’s athletics resultant from the act prove reputable, educational institutions’ frequent misinterpretation and improper implementation of its components has inhibited the effectiveness of the act, and distorted its underlying purpose. While misinterpretation has mainly resulted from the ambiguous language of the law, many institutions are still culpable of intentionally distorting its meaning and stalling the implementation process. It is vital to analyze, understand, and correct the misuses and unintended consequences of Title IX, because sport is an integral and influential part of society. The story of Title IX is also relevant to recent U.S. history because the events leading up to Title IX’s passage, and the struggle ever since to figure out how to implement the law fairly, provide both a historical and timely test case of the interplay between legislative and social change.[7] As Strom argues, when a law ceases to work for positive improvements and simply becomes a way to get back at the system that perpetrated discrimination, we have lost our focus on what it means to work toward gender equality.[8]