Quote:!##!!@@ Title IX!!!!!!
Agreed.
An interesting treatise on the subject:
Title IX: Time for Change
By Kevin Gabrielson
What if someone told you that you could not play the sport you love? What if a coach said that you had to be cut, not because you weren't good enough, but because of a quota? This situation and others like it happen all to often today in college athletics, all because of a law called Title IX. The Federal law passed in 1975 states that "No person in the United States shall on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subject to discrimination under any educational program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance". This law basically means that schools must prove that they have equal participation in men and women's teams. Colleges can show that they meet these standards by one of three ways: by showing that they have a program of expanding the opportunities for the underserved sex, by showing that they meet the interests and abilities of that sex or by showing that the number of male/female athletes is proportionate to their enrollment (Lesher 38). Unless the school meets one of these three prongs they risk losing hundreds of thousands of dollars in federal aid.
Title IX has been a highly controversial topic ever since it was put into effect. The original intent of Title IX was to rid gender discrimination in universities receiving federal aid. However, it now seems to be serving more as a wall around men's Olympic sports such as wrestling, gymnastics, soccer, etc.
There are many problems with the structure of Title IX; the biggest of them is with trying to meet the proportionality requirements of the law. Proportionality means that the ratio of men's athletic positions to women's athletic positions offered must be within 5 percent of the schools enrollment ratio. For example if a college has an enrollment ratio of 60% male and 40% female, the college must make at least 37.5% of their total athletic positions offered for female sports. This is often the hardest requirement for Colleges to meet. Most colleges fail to meet this requirement due to the inability to balance the large amount of men that participate in football with any female sport. For example NCAA Online reports, in 1998 there were 231 division one-football teams that averaged 103 men on a squad. Making a total of 23,791 division one-football players. The closet women's sport in total participation is track with a total of 8,043 female participants (NCAA). This causes many colleges to drop other men's programs such as wrestling, track, soccer and gymnastics rather than add other women's sports.
For example in 1974 when the NCAA had 404 member colleges, 401 of them offered wrestling, but today there are only 261 programs. That is a loss of 140 programs even though there are now more NCAA member colleges than ever before. Similarly, 101 men's gymnastics teams, 64 men's swimming teams, and 46 water polo teams are gone (Harberer). Men's gymnastics has now reached a number less than 40, which is the minimum number, required to hold a NCAA tournament (Harberer). Many feel the dropping of men's programs to meet these standards is a form of reverse discrimination.
The proportionality issue also relates to the amount of money spent on programs; this includes scholarships, games, traveling equipment, etc. Again this brings up the problem with not having a female equivalent of football. Football expenses out weigh any other sport recognized by the NCAA. The large amount of money provided for football takes away from the budget of many smaller male sports to keep in compliance with Title IX. For instance at the University of Texas the men's gymnastics team must pay for all expenses, including national finals in Ohio which they usually finish first or second. A sport that receives such great honors should be given somewhat of a budget,but it isn't. However, the women's gymnastics team has all its expenses paid for from the school (Harberer). This can also be viewed as a direct form of reverse discrimination.
Title IX has affected thousands of prospective student athletes in choosing a college. Many men's sports have been forced to reduce their scholarships in order to be proportional to women's sports; this can often affect the performance of a team. For instance I am a wrestler at N.C. State. Before Title IX, the program gave out approximately 15 full scholarships and placed in the top 10 in the nation consistently. Since getting our scholarships dropped to 6.4 we haven't broke the top 25. While all women's programs at N.C. State are fully funded (Fowler).
At the university of Cincinnati more than 70% of the athletes are male, which puts them at risk to lose federal aid. Bob Goin athletic director at the University of Cincinnati said his only option to meet these requirements is to drop the men's track team (Editorial). This is exactly why Title IX must be changed.
There is no doubt that Title IX has given many more opportunities to female athletes on the college level. The amount of female athlete participation has more than doubled from 64,390 in 1982 to 145,832 in 1999 (NCAA). This is great for women but not so for men. Nearly 100,000 male athletes have been dropped from athletic programs due to Title IX.
There are many aspects about Title IX that must be revised. For example the proportionality standards must be changed. Even with all of the men's programs that have been dropped due to Title IX, almost 90% of U.S. colleges and universities remain out of compliance (Editorial). Which shows that men's and women's programs may never be proportional, not because female sports aren't offered, but because of the simple fact that maybe there are just more men than women that have the desire to compete in athletics in college.
The original intent of the proportionality was meant to allow more women to compete. I agree with this fully but instead of adding women's programs, men's programs are being dropped. Maybe there should be more leeway than 5% in proportionality. We could get an idea of how many women as compared to men wish to participate in collegiate sports by taking numerous surveys on campuses or via the Internet.
With all of the problems caused by Title IX it is clear to see that something must be changed. This is why I propose Title IX revise its requirements so that dropping existing men's programs is not a valid method of meeting Title IX requirements. This would keep colleges from using Title IX as an excuse for dropping less profitable sports such as wrestling and men's gymnastics. As long as the school shows progress being made towards adding other women's programs they should not be penalized for not meeting Title IX standards.
There is one problem I see that may occur by this revision. Where does the money for these new women's teams come from? To me this question is very simply answered. The fact of the matter is the money is out there. Colleges need to tighten up their budgets. For example the University of Cincinnati feels the need to drop men's track rather than add a women's sport because it will cost money. Yet they somehow found more than $300 million dollars to expand their campus (Editorial).
Another way to raise money would be to write senators and lawmakers to push for more federal funding for colleges that do not fit Title IX requirements. Also investigate politicians so you can vote for one that will look into revising Title IX.
In future elections, anyone who believes Title IX needs revision should continue to vote for the Bush administration's view of Title IX. On February 25th of this year the Chronicle of Higher Education wrote a section on presidential responses on Title IX. Bush stated, "I support Title IX. Title IX has opened up opportunities for young women in both academics and sports, and I think that's terrific. I do not support a system of quotas or strict proportionality that pits one group against another. We should support a reasonable approach to Title IX that seeks to expand opportunities for women rather than destroy existing men's teams" (Iowans). This is exactly the view we should take towards the revision of Title IX. We do not need to keep women from expanding their opportunities but we do need to keep that from inversely affecting men's opportunites.
For the politicians already in office we must generate enough interest on this issue in order to get them to take the time to look at Title IX and realize that more federal funding should be provided for collegiate sports. We must also get more women to agree with the fact that while women's sports are steadily increasing men's are decreasing rapidly. Having more women supporting the revision of Title IX would only strengthen the argument.
By changing the proportionality requirements of Title IX to be fair to both men and women the law will actually do what was first intended by eliminating discrimination of sex in college sports. Along with the proportionality of participants in collegiate sports the proportionality of scholarships must also be changed. Many collegiate programs fund most of their scholarships through there own fundraisers. Even when a program has enough of their own money to provide more scholarships they are not allowed to due to the restrictions of Title IX. This can be corrected in the same way. The amount of money provided by the school should remain proportional but there should be no limit to the amount of scholarships a team can provide with their own fundraisers.
There may not be one solution to solve all the problems of gender inequity in collegiate athletics. There already are a handful of people pushing for revision of Title IX. However we need more people to get involved now or many sports, which once flourished in college, are completely phased out. If all colleges followed the intention of Title IX by looking for methods of raising money to provide more women's sports rather than simply dropping men's programs there would be no problems with the law as it stands. Maybe in a perfect world this could be possible. The truth of the matter is we do not live in a perfect world. All too often someone is getting cheated out of what they deserve. We must put a stop to all of the discrimination, which Title IX brings. The only way this will happen is for people to let there opinions be heard. Every year more and more men's programs are being dropped because of Title IX. The time for revision of Title IX is now.
at the same time, although I think that they considered dropping field hockey, another sport that BSU is very good at.
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