The late U.S. Rep. Patsy Takemoto Mink, champion of the landmark Title IX legislation, will be the 12th woman honored in the U.S. Mint’s American Women Quarters™ Program. Mink, a University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa alumna, filled her life with firsts—the first Japanese-American woman admitted to practice law in Hawaiʻi, the first Asian American woman, and first woman of color, to be elected to the U.S. Congress. She fought for gender and racial equality, affordable childcare and environmental protection. The quarter honoring her work and legacy will be released in 2024.
- Read more about the Patsy Takemoto Mink Chair of Law and Social Justice.
The quarter design depicts Mink holding her landmark Title IX legislation and wearing a lei representing her home state of Hawaiʻi. In the background, a view of the U.S. Capitol Building prominently features the south wing, home to the U.S. House of Representatives, where she served in Congress.
In 2022, UH, and the state of Hawaiʻi, celebrated Mink and the 50th anniversary of Title IX, and to honor Mink’s profound and successful efforts to bring gender equity to education, Congress renamed Title IX as the Patsy T. Mink Equal Opportunity in Education Act. The act states, “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.”
“The 50th anniversary of this landmark legislation, championed by Hawaiʻi’s own Patsy Mink, marks decades of hard-fought progress for girls and women in classrooms, on the court, and in leadership positions across the country,” said Jennifer Rose, director for the UH Office of Institutional Equity. “Over the last half century, Title IX has had incredible impacts on the ways that society at large not only treats girls in education, but approaches and condemns sexual harassment and sexual violence more broadly.”
Previously, the U.S. Mint honored the late UH Hilo and Hawaiʻi Community College instructor Edith Kanakaʻole with a quarter celebrating her legendary legacy as a kumu hula, Native Hawaiian cultural practitioner and scholar.
