Title IX Rematch

In 1972, the year Title IX was passed, a total of 29,972 women competed in college sports. In 2001, that number had grown five-fold to 150,916. In high schools today, roughly 2.8 million girls play sports—ten times the number in 1972. These increases clearly indicate that Title IX, an amendment to the Education Act that banned discrimination in education on the basis of sex, has dramatically changed the face of American athletics. However, these advances are under serious threat. A federal commission is proposing changes in the law’s implementation—changes that would seriously undermine the law’s original goals.

Title IX’s vulnerability first surfaced last February when a coalition of men’s sports groups, including the National Wrestling Coaches Association, filed a suit claiming that Title IX had gone too far and is now discriminating against men in its attempt to bring equity for women. While the Department of Justice dismissed the lawsuit, it raised a great deal of public debate and pressured President George W. Bush to form a federal commission to examine these claims. Last month, the Commission on Opportunities in Athletics voted to allow the official use of interest surveys as a tool in enforcing Title IX as well as calculating sporting opportunities by counting positions available on sports teams, rather than actual players. If adopted, these measures would drastically reduce athletic prospects for girls and women.

The wrestlers claim that Title IX is the culprit behind their decline. They argue that the law’s proportionality requirement forces men’s collegiate sports teams to disband in order to achieve numerical equality with women’s sports teams. Yet, while it may serve a university’s interests to use Title IX as an excuse for cutting funding to sports teams, there is nothing in the law or its enforcement guide that necessitates cutting men’s teams.

There are actually three different ways in which the courts have consistently said that a university can comply with Title IX. Although universities can apply the proportionality standard, they can also comply in other ways: by demonstrating a history of expanding sports opportunities for women, or by meeting the athletic needs of its female students “fully and effectively.” As a result of these alternatives, a study done two years ago by the U.S. General Accounting Office reported that out of 74 universities that were in compliance with the law from 1994 to 1998, only 21 used the proportionality standard as evidence.

Opponents of the proportionality standard may argue that it makes no sense to cut men’s programs where there is a high level of interest in order to create women’s programs where interest may be minimal. But as tempting as that argument sounds, it does not reflect reality. According to the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), today 150,916 women compete in intercollegiate sports, accounting for 43 percent of college varsity athletes—an increase of more than 403 percent from 1971. These dramatic statistics make it hard to believe that women have no interest in playing sports. In fact, it proves the opposite to be true.

Unfortunately, the commission has not rejected a proposal that would allow universities to comply with Title IX by conducting regular surveys of their student bodies to assess interest in athletics. But this implies that while men do not have to prove their interest in sports, women must do so in order to have equal rights to play. What’s more, interest surveys could hurt attempts to recruit female athletes. There will be no motivation to encourage participation of women but rather every motivation to discourage it.

In addition, while it may be true that there has been a decline in the number of collegiate men’s wrestling teams, the decline is not primarily due to Title IX. The simple truth is that those athletic departments are often putting more money into popular and more profitable men’s sports including football and basketball—not into women’s sports. As the National Women’s Law Center points out, 53 universities dropped their wrestling teams from 1984 to 1988, a period in which Title IX was not enforced for intercollegiate athletics.

Instead of possibly weakening Title IX on the basis of unfounded claims, the commission should strengthen it. The harsh reality is that Title IX remains one of the most violated civil-rights laws in the country. Too many schools still fail to give women equal opportunity in athletics. While 54 percent of the students at large universities and colleges are women, these schools give their female athletes only 41 percent of the opportunities to play, 33 percent of their total operating budgets, and 30 percent of recruiting dollars. These statistics do not nearly fulfill the requirement of equity in Title IX.

The commission is expected to submit a final report by the end of this month to Education Secretary Roderick R. Paige, who is then responsible for making the final recommendations to President Bush. It is crucial that he reject any misguided proposals the commission endorses, uphold Title IX and urge its vigorous enforcement. Otherwise he—and ultimately the Bush administration—will have to defend their inexcusable actions to more than half of the population. Title IX helped many women and any attempt to weaken this landmark law will not escape their notice.

Anat Maytal ’05, a Crimson editor, is a government and women’s studies concentrator in Currier House.