Vivian Barfield, Assistant Director of Athletics: Title IX and the Fight Against Discrimination in Sports

Vivian Barfield joined the Department of Athletics as the first female assistant athletic director at the University of Massachusetts Amherst in January 1975. Barfield's position was created to bring the University into compliance with Title IX of the Higher Education Act of 1972. Title IX, which is still in effect today, protects anyone in a federally funded educational program from discrimination on the basis of their gender. According to the catalog entry for Barfield's papers in the University Archive, she was “charged with upgrading the women’s’ athletic program and contributing to the decision-making process in men’s athletics.”

Barfield left the University after less than eighteen months on the job, following a protracted conflict with the department head, Frank McInerney. In her resignation letter, Barfield made it clear why she was leaving. “I firmly believe I cannot affect more positive actions for student athletes and coaches,” Barfield wrote, “because of the present administrator’s leadership within the Department of Athletics.” The department, Barfield claimed, was plagued by male bias, paternalism, and a dysfunctional decision-making process.

These selections from Barfield's papers offer a glimpse of life in the workplace for women in the 1970s. Barfield's efforts to improve conditions for women athletes and coaches were short-lived. Nevertheless, her experience as a female administrator suggests that protection against gender discrimination for students and student athletes, as well as the women who administered their sports programs, was long overdue.

Finding aid for the Vivian Barfield Papers