She is best known for being instrumental in the creation of Title IX, a portion of the Education Amendments of 1972, in conjunction with representatives Edith Green and Patsy Mink and Senator Birch Bayh in the 1970s.

Some of her papers are held in the Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America, at the Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University.

She was the second daughter of Ida Ernst Resnick and Abraham Hyman, Jewish immigrants from Russia and Germany who owned a women's clothing store in Rockaway, New Jersey.

Historically, City College had been seen as "the poor man's Harvard" and had only recently begun admitting women into its graduate programs.

[8] The following year, Resnick married Jerrold Sandler, an educational broadcaster who became champion for public radio funding, and had two children with him: Deborah Jo in 1954 and Emily Maud in 1956.

[9] Sandler worked a series of odd jobs as a research assistant, nursery school teacher, a guitar instructor, and as a secretary as a result of moving repeatedly with her husband.

[13] The WEAL was an organization active from 1968 to 1989, which was primarily focused on utilizing legal action and lobbying to enhance the status of women across the country.

[14] The now defunct organization is best known for its work overseeing the implementation of, "the contract compliance executive order as it applied to sex discrimination.

Through this discovery, Sandler worked with the Director of the Office of Federal Contract Compliance at the Department of Labor, Vincent Macaluso, and through her position with the WEAL, she began to file class-action lawsuits against colleges and universities nationwide.

[15] Concurrently during her nationwide legal campaign, Sandler continued to press women in academia to write their congressional representatives to increase awareness and exposure on the issue of sex discrimination in education that were directed at the Secretary of Labor.

Using the data compiled by the WEAL, Sandler was able to provide Green and Mink with the material they needed to hold hearings on sex discrimination in education and to draft potential legislation addressing the issue.

[12][20][21] The hearings held in June 1970 by the committee were successful in generating a wealth of materials to be used in supporting an effort to end sex discrimination in higher education.

[24] For her significant work on formulating and then executing a plan to address sex discrimination within higher education, Sandler has been described by many as "the Godmother of Title IX.

In 1982, co-authoring a report with Roberta M. Hall, the two first created the term "chilly climate," which they defined as "an environment that dampens women's self-esteem, confidence, aspirations and their participation.

"[36] Sandler and her role in implementing Title IX is highlighted in the documentary film Rise of the Wahine (2014), directed by Dean Kaneshiro.