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June Horton Gable Educator-Feminist-Fulbright Scholar 1920-2011

June Horton Gable was a remarkable educator and feminist who pointed the way to equal opportunity for girls and boys beginning in Sacramento, California and spreading throughout California and beyond.

Ms. Gable joined the Sacramento City School District as a junior high teacher in 1959. She became involved in feminism during the early days of the women’s movement, late 1960’s, and was president of the Sacramento Chapter of the National Organization for Women (NOW) from 1972-1974.

During her years with NOW, she assisted Sacramento City School District to win the first federal grant awarded to implement Title IX, a groundbreaking law banning gender discrimination in all school programs that receive federal funding. In 1976, she was appointed the district’s Title IX manager and assigned to eliminate bias in every aspect of education, including student activities, staff hiring, policies and written material. “We’ve seen great changes,” she told the Sacramento Bee in 1984. Now, words and ideas such as sexual stereotyping, role modeling and sexism—which were unknown…10 years ago—are read in newspapers and magazines and heard on radio, television and in movies.”

Ms. Gable’s support for opportunities for women took her around the world. She was a delegate to the 1975 United National Conference in Mexico City for International Women’s Year. She lectured on women’s right at the University of Cape Town in South Africa and spent three months as a Fulbright Scholar touring and writing about the role of women in India in 1977. She participated in global study projects throughout Asia, South America, Africa, Europe, the Middle East, Caribbean and the South Pacific.

Born in Brooklyn, New York, Gable moved as a child to Minnesota. Her earliest role model of a strong woman was her mother, who had quit school in the fifth grade to pick coal off railroad tracks in the Bronx to keep her family’s apartment warm in the winter. Gable attended the University of Minnesota and graduated Summa Cum Laude 1942 with majors in history, government and politics. She went on and completed her Master’s degree in 1945. She taught school in Iowa, San Bernardino and finally in 1950 accepted a teaching position in Sacramento City Unified School District. After the 1975 passage of Title IX, the federal gender equality law, SCUSD, under June’s leadership, became the first district in the United States to win federal funding to address inequities against women and girls. In 1976, as Title IX manager, she established a resource center which provided a wealth of resources, programming, and gender equity training for educators. Many of the resources she developed were distributed across the globe.

June Gable retired in 1987, receiving honors and recognition from the U.S. House of Representatives, the California Senate, the Sacramento City Council and Sacramento County Board of Supervisors. Within two months of retirement, she accepted an appointment to serve on the California Commission on the Status of Women. For nine years, she was an ardent advocate for strengthening of women’s history in school curriculums.

June Horton Gable died at her home in Sacramento in 2011 at the age of 90.