As a senior member of the House Committee on Education and Labor, Buchanan helped lead the fight in 1972 in the House for enactment of the Education Act, Title IX, which requires equality for women in the programs of American colleges and universities, including athletics. He served as ranking Republican on the Equal Rights Subcommittee and the subcommittee with jurisdiction over the arts. For fourteen years, he was a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, where he championed the rights of people behind the Iron Curtain, especially Jewish and Christian dissidents, as well as the black majorities in Southern Rhodesia and South Africa. As ranking minority member of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on International Operations, he was one of the principal authors of the Foreign Service Act of 1980. In that year he received the Honor Award, Women's Action Organization (State Department, ICA, AID) and the Honor Award "for commitment to the advancement of women in the Foreign Service community".