In this June 20, 2012, file photo, former Sen. Birch Bayh speaks during a forum in the South Court Auditorium at the White House to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Title IX.Former U.S. Sen. Birch Bayh, who championed the federal law banning discrimination against women in college admissions and sports, died at his home Thursday at age 91.
“It was clear that the greatest danger or damage being done to women was the inequality of higher education,” Bayh said in a 2012 interview. “If you give a person an education, whether it’s a boy or girl, young woman or young man, they will have the tools necessary to make a life for families and themselves.”
Bayh used his position as head of the Senate’s constitutional subcommittee to craft the 25th Amendment on presidential succession and the 26th Amendment setting the national voting age at 18.The issue of presidential succession was fresh when Congress approved the amendment in 1967. The vice presidency had been vacant for more than a year after President John F. Kennedy’s assassination because there was no provision for filling the office between elections.
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.
Bayh won his first election to the state Legislature in 1954; his son Evan was born the following year. Bayh rose quickly in politics, becoming the Indiana House speaker in 1959 at the age of 30. He earned a law degree from Indiana University, completing law school while serving in the Legislature.