Buckeye: someone post a thread speculating that the SCOTUS ruling would kill Olympic sports, for that very reason.

If Title IX went away, The USA wouldn't win as many Medals in women's sports in the Olympics. That's really enough for me. I like the USA dominating the Olympics in medal counts.

(06-23-2021 11:59 PM)Erictelevision Wrote:  Buckeye: someone post a thread speculating that the SCOTUS ruling would kill Olympic sports, for that very reason.

IMO that thinking is unrealistic. There's no way the courts or congress or the general public will allow schools to use this need to pay players as a reason to eliminate women's sports or otherwise circumvent Title IX.

Title IX is reality and IMO is going nowhere, nor will its athletics requirements, even though IMO those requirements have always been nonsensical (ignore market realities) and even moreso now that the courts are telling the NCAA they have to honor free markets.

Free markets would truthfully eliminate almost all women's sports. Probably all of them.

What schools will be told is "you must honor free markets when it comes to paying players or at least NIL, but within the constraints of the massively market-distorting requirements of Title IX".

Crazy, but ....

Some comments here suggest that the only reason a sport should be offered at a given school is that it makes money. Sports have existed in our colleges and universities for more than a century, when there was very little money to be made in any of them. So academia must have considered sports to have educational value in and of themselves. I've not heard anyone suggest that whatever value there may have been at one time no longer exists.

And, I haven't heard anyone suggest that whatever that value is pertains only to men. So why should any narrow SCOTUS ruling have any effect on Title IX?

(06-24-2021 08:23 AM)ken d Wrote:  Some comments here suggest that the only reason a sport should be offered at a given school is that it makes money. Sports have existed in our colleges and universities for more than a century, when there was very little money to be made in any of them. So academia must have considered sports to have educational value in and of themselves. I've not heard anyone suggest that whatever value there may have been at one time no longer exists.

And, I haven't heard anyone suggest that whatever that value is pertains only to men. So why should any narrow SCOTUS ruling have any effect on Title IX?

IMO Athletics at the club or intramural level has educational, or at least recreational value. That should be characterized by true equal opportunity. On campus, there should be a range of intramural and club sports (basketball, softball, flag football etc. equally available to everyone male or female). Because that basically costs nothing. And it is truly open to the student body - anyone who wants to play, can.

But intercollegiate is IMO an entirely other matter, because that costs a lot of money. So it has to make money to pay for itself. And it doesn't offer benefits to everyone. It benefits the 12 or so elite athletes who have been recruited to the team, and the coaching staff making a nice salaries to coach them for games with 20 people in the stands at home, and truck them around the country to games vs other schools with 20 people in the stands there too. That's a massive waste, IMO.

The athletics that didn't make money 75 - 100 years ago also didn't cost any money, it was a much smaller-scale thing.

I think it’s funny sports stadiums build more restrooms for women than men, usually at a 3 for women to 2 for men ratio. Do we need a title #2 for bathroom equality?

(06-23-2021 06:36 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  That raises a good point about Title IX. There are some dumb rules about how to measure female "interest" in athletics at a school.

For example, IIRC, about 20 years ago the Bush administration came up with a commonsense approach that would involve surveying the student body, and if little to no interest was expressed in a sport, the school could drop it and not be out of compliance (or something like that, I forget the details).

This resulted in a howl of criticism from feminists, who invoked weird ideological theories, such as saying that of course females won't show interest because they have been Trained By Patriarchy or something to not care about athletics. So the schools need to have these sports whether any real women students care about them or not to undo the Legacy of Patriarchy and social conditioning, or something like that.

And amazingly, the wacko feminist ideology carried the day and the recommendation was withdrawn.

The Bush Administration withdrew their attempts to weaken the law in 2003. Polls back then showed 70% support among the public for Title IX. They got a lot of pushback from the public and politically it was not a wise move with an election coming up in 2004. They did sneak a change through in 2005, by allowing electronic surveys to gauge female students’ interest in playing sports. The Obama Administration reversed that decision in 2010.

In 1971, 7% of the athletes involved in high school sports were girls. In 2019, that number was 43%. In 1972, 43% of college students were female. In 2019, that number is about 57%. In 2019, women received 57% of bachelor’s degrees, 59% of master’s degrees. The country has changed and is not going backwards. Title IX is not going anywhere. There is no incentive for a politician to push for the elimination of the law or even change it.

(06-24-2021 09:59 AM)SoCalBobcat78 Wrote:  

(06-23-2021 06:36 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  That raises a good point about Title IX. There are some dumb rules about how to measure female "interest" in athletics at a school.

For example, IIRC, about 20 years ago the Bush administration came up with a commonsense approach that would involve surveying the student body, and if little to no interest was expressed in a sport, the school could drop it and not be out of compliance (or something like that, I forget the details).

This resulted in a howl of criticism from feminists, who invoked weird ideological theories, such as saying that of course females won't show interest because they have been Trained By Patriarchy or something to not care about athletics. So the schools need to have these sports whether any real women students care about them or not to undo the Legacy of Patriarchy and social conditioning, or something like that.

And amazingly, the wacko feminist ideology carried the day and the recommendation was withdrawn.

The Bush Administration withdrew their attempts to weaken the law in 2003. Polls back then showed 70% support among the public for Title IX. They got a lot of pushback from the public and politically it was not a wise move with an election coming up in 2004. They did sneak a change through in 2005, by allowing electronic surveys to gauge female students’ interest in playing sports. The Obama Administration reversed that decision in 2010.

In 1971, 7% of the athletes involved in high school sports were girls. In 2019, that number was 43%. In 1972, 43% of college students were female. In 2019, that number is about 57%. In 2019, women received 57% of bachelor’s degrees, 59% of master’s degrees. The country has changed and is not going backwards. Title IX is not going anywhere. There is no incentive for a politician to push for the elimination of the law or even change it.

I totally agree that Title IX is going absolutely nowhere and those who think these court rulings on pay will end up weakening it in the least are fooling themselves.

I also think the way Title IX enforcement has evolved over the past 50 years has resulted in weird ideological requirements that are divorced from economic reality or even social reality. But that is a hard message to get across to the public, because it means going in to the ideological weeds with the wackos to combat it, whereas supporters of these bizarro requirements can easily shout "that big bad conservative is trying to Kill Title IX and Send Your Daughter Soccer Players Back To Home-Ec Class!" or whatever.

So yes, it's just not a winning proposition for a politician to push on.

(06-24-2021 08:36 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(06-24-2021 08:23 AM)ken d Wrote:  Some comments here suggest that the only reason a sport should be offered at a given school is that it makes money. Sports have existed in our colleges and universities for more than a century, when there was very little money to be made in any of them. So academia must have considered sports to have educational value in and of themselves. I've not heard anyone suggest that whatever value there may have been at one time no longer exists.

And, I haven't heard anyone suggest that whatever that value is pertains only to men. So why should any narrow SCOTUS ruling have any effect on Title IX?

IMO Athletics at the club or intramural level has educational, or at least recreational value. That should be characterized by true equal opportunity. On campus, there should be a range of intramural and club sports (basketball, softball, flag football etc. equally available to everyone male or female). Because that basically costs nothing. And it is truly open to the student body - anyone who wants to play, can.

But intercollegiate is IMO an entirely other matter, because that costs a lot of money. So it has to make money to pay for itself. And it doesn't offer benefits to everyone. It benefits the 12 or so elite athletes who have been recruited to the team, and the coaching staff making a nice salaries to coach them for games with 20 people in the stands at home, and truck them around the country to games vs other schools with 20 people in the stands there too. That's a massive waste, IMO.

The athletics that didn't make money 75 - 100 years ago also didn't cost any money, it was a much smaller-scale thing.

You make a good argument for eliminating all intercollegiate athletics, or at least banning all recruitment of athletes. If it only benefits athletes recruited to the team instead of athletes drawn from a student population who gained entry to the school solely on the basis of their academic performance and potential, what's the point? The recruited athletes could instead be recruited to (and paid by) a team with no affiliation to a college or university that exists for the purpose of satisfying the public's demand for entertainment.

I have two daughters and I believe I am quite Americanized but this thing is confusing to me.

Does the US government believe physical capacity of men and women are different?

If no, then the Title IX doesn’t make sense.

If yes, then the US government understands that certain physically demanding jobs can only be handled by certain (not all) men? Are we OK with this logic? It seems like we are being taught there is no such work in the world.

Also, if the equal access is that important, I guess the equal responsibilty is eqaully important. Why are only men required to register for the draft?

(06-24-2021 12:04 PM)random asian guy Wrote:  I have two daughters and I believe I am quite Americanized but this thing is confusing to me.

Does the US government believe physical capacity of men and women are different?

If no, then the Title IX doesn’t make sense.

If yes, then the US government understands that certain physically demanding jobs can only be handled by certain (not all) men? Are we OK with this logic? It seems like we are being taught there is no such work in the world.

Also, if the equal access is that important, I guess the equal responsibilty is eqaully important. Why are only men required to register for the draft?

Don't feel bad - I've lived in America for all of my 50-something years, and it's confusing to me too.

Liberal social-engineering projects often are.

Quo: or MAYBE ensuring women and girls are treated equally!

(06-24-2021 12:33 PM)Erictelevision Wrote:  Quo: or MAYBE ensuring women and girls are treated equally!

IMO, insisting that if there are 80 scholarship football players, there must be 80 athletics scholarships for women, even if from a market POV these are essentially "make work" positions because there is no actual market demand for the women's athletics, is just bureaucratic pedantry, and is of no benefit to the great mass of female students at the school. The 80 girls who get the scholarships benefit and the edifice of coaches and staff who get paid to lead these zombie-teams do as well. But that's it.

Has little if anything with girls being treated equally, IMO.

(06-24-2021 12:47 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(06-24-2021 12:33 PM)Erictelevision Wrote:  Quo: or MAYBE ensuring women and girls are treated equally!

IMO, insisting that if there are 80 scholarship football players, there must be 80 athletics scholarships for women, even if from a market POV these are essentially "make work" positions because there is no actual market demand for the women's athletics, is just bureaucratic pedantry, and is of no benefit to the great mass of female students at the school. The 80 girls who get the scholarships benefit and the edifice of coaches and staff who get paid to lead these zombie-teams do as well. But that's it.

Has little if anything with girls being treated equally, IMO.

Why not just make 80 women's scholarships available for the 80 best women interested in any extra curricular activity athletic or not?

(06-24-2021 11:36 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(06-24-2021 09:59 AM)SoCalBobcat78 Wrote:  

(06-23-2021 06:36 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  That raises a good point about Title IX. There are some dumb rules about how to measure female "interest" in athletics at a school.

For example, IIRC, about 20 years ago the Bush administration came up with a commonsense approach that would involve surveying the student body, and if little to no interest was expressed in a sport, the school could drop it and not be out of compliance (or something like that, I forget the details).

This resulted in a howl of criticism from feminists, who invoked weird ideological theories, such as saying that of course females won't show interest because they have been Trained By Patriarchy or something to not care about athletics. So the schools need to have these sports whether any real women students care about them or not to undo the Legacy of Patriarchy and social conditioning, or something like that.

And amazingly, the wacko feminist ideology carried the day and the recommendation was withdrawn.

The Bush Administration withdrew their attempts to weaken the law in 2003. Polls back then showed 70% support among the public for Title IX. They got a lot of pushback from the public and politically it was not a wise move with an election coming up in 2004. They did sneak a change through in 2005, by allowing electronic surveys to gauge female students’ interest in playing sports. The Obama Administration reversed that decision in 2010.

In 1971, 7% of the athletes involved in high school sports were girls. In 2019, that number was 43%. In 1972, 43% of college students were female. In 2019, that number is about 57%. In 2019, women received 57% of bachelor’s degrees, 59% of master’s degrees. The country has changed and is not going backwards. Title IX is not going anywhere. There is no incentive for a politician to push for the elimination of the law or even change it.

I totally agree that Title IX is going absolutely nowhere and those who think these court rulings on pay will end up weakening it in the least are fooling themselves.

I also think the way Title IX enforcement has evolved over the past 50 years has resulted in weird ideological requirements that are divorced from economic reality or even social reality. But that is a hard message to get across to the public, because it means going in to the ideological weeds with the wackos to combat it, whereas supporters of these bizarro requirements can easily shout "that big bad conservative is trying to Kill Title IX and Send Your Daughter Soccer Players Back To Home-Ec Class!" or whatever.

So yes, it's just not a winning proposition for a politician to push on.

With all due respect, quo, if you characterize attempts to weaken Title IX as "a common sense approach" and call people who don't agree with that as "wackos", that's evidence that the "ideological weeds" are just as deep on both sides. Is it the 70% of Americans who support Title IX who are the wackos or the 30% who don't?

I have question without an agenda - I just want to know the answer. Are intercollegiate team sports widely played outside the US and Canada? For that matter, are they played in high schools?

It seems to me there is some justification for high school athletics as a way to serve the national interest by promoting physical fitness in our youth, apart from any lessons that might be learned about teamwork and leadership and perseverance (though those are a bonus). In a less agrarian society, and in a world where hand to hand combat skills are no longer as valuable as they were centuries ago, organized sports seem somewhat vestigial. Yet they persist.

If my memory serves me correctly (and it's been 60 years since I was in high school) a lot of guys played football because it seemed like a way to improve their chances of getting laid. Maybe that's not so true any more. What does the trick today?

(06-24-2021 12:56 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(06-24-2021 12:47 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(06-24-2021 12:33 PM)Erictelevision Wrote:  Quo: or MAYBE ensuring women and girls are treated equally!

IMO, insisting that if there are 80 scholarship football players, there must be 80 athletics scholarships for women, even if from a market POV these are essentially "make work" positions because there is no actual market demand for the women's athletics, is just bureaucratic pedantry, and is of no benefit to the great mass of female students at the school. The 80 girls who get the scholarships benefit and the edifice of coaches and staff who get paid to lead these zombie-teams do as well. But that's it.

Has little if anything with girls being treated equally, IMO.

Why not just make 80 women's scholarships available for the 80 best women interested in any extra curricular activity athletic or not?

Sure, that works for me. But I bet it wouldn't work for the radicals.

(06-24-2021 01:07 PM)ken d Wrote:  

(06-24-2021 11:36 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(06-24-2021 09:59 AM)SoCalBobcat78 Wrote:  

(06-23-2021 06:36 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  That raises a good point about Title IX. There are some dumb rules about how to measure female "interest" in athletics at a school.

For example, IIRC, about 20 years ago the Bush administration came up with a commonsense approach that would involve surveying the student body, and if little to no interest was expressed in a sport, the school could drop it and not be out of compliance (or something like that, I forget the details).

This resulted in a howl of criticism from feminists, who invoked weird ideological theories, such as saying that of course females won't show interest because they have been Trained By Patriarchy or something to not care about athletics. So the schools need to have these sports whether any real women students care about them or not to undo the Legacy of Patriarchy and social conditioning, or something like that.

And amazingly, the wacko feminist ideology carried the day and the recommendation was withdrawn.

The Bush Administration withdrew their attempts to weaken the law in 2003. Polls back then showed 70% support among the public for Title IX. They got a lot of pushback from the public and politically it was not a wise move with an election coming up in 2004. They did sneak a change through in 2005, by allowing electronic surveys to gauge female students’ interest in playing sports. The Obama Administration reversed that decision in 2010.

In 1971, 7% of the athletes involved in high school sports were girls. In 2019, that number was 43%. In 1972, 43% of college students were female. In 2019, that number is about 57%. In 2019, women received 57% of bachelor’s degrees, 59% of master’s degrees. The country has changed and is not going backwards. Title IX is not going anywhere. There is no incentive for a politician to push for the elimination of the law or even change it.

I totally agree that Title IX is going absolutely nowhere and those who think these court rulings on pay will end up weakening it in the least are fooling themselves.

I also think the way Title IX enforcement has evolved over the past 50 years has resulted in weird ideological requirements that are divorced from economic reality or even social reality. But that is a hard message to get across to the public, because it means going in to the ideological weeds with the wackos to combat it, whereas supporters of these bizarro requirements can easily shout "that big bad conservative is trying to Kill Title IX and Send Your Daughter Soccer Players Back To Home-Ec Class!" or whatever.

So yes, it's just not a winning proposition for a politician to push on.

With all due respect, quo, if you characterize attempts to weaken Title IX as "a common sense approach" and call people who don't agree with that as "wackos", that's evidence that the "ideological weeds" are just as deep on both sides. Is it the 70% of Americans who support Title IX who are the wackos or the 30% who don't?

I don't think the 70% who support Title IX are wackos. First, I support Title IX as an overall program - as many have said it goes far beyond athletics, encompasses all aspects of college life, and in most of its domain it is good policy. If it wasn't clear, I have only been critical of Title IX as it is enforced with respect to scholarship athletics.

And even then, I would not characterize most who support that enforcement as wackos. IMO the vast majority are just uninformed (they don't realize that eliminating some of these enforcements would have no tangible impact on the vast majority of women at college) and/or are just inclined to not question the sloganeering of the few feminist ideologues behind that enforcement.

(06-24-2021 01:20 PM)ken d Wrote:  I have question without an agenda - I just want to know the answer. Are intercollegiate team sports widely played outside the US and Canada? For that matter, are they played in high schools?

It seems to me there is some justification for high school athletics as a way to serve the national interest by promoting physical fitness in our youth, apart from any lessons that might be learned about teamwork and leadership and perseverance (though those are a bonus). In a less agrarian society, and in a world where hand to hand combat skills are no longer as valuable as they were centuries ago, organized sports seem somewhat vestigial. Yet they persist.

If my memory serves me correctly (and it's been 60 years since I was in high school) a lot of guys played football because it seemed like a way to improve their chances of getting laid. Maybe that's not so true any more. What does the trick today?

Honest question from someone who last walked a high school 20 years after you did, in the early 1980s:

Did "getting laid" take place in high schools back in the early 1960s? From movies of that era, I get the idea that the most that happened back then was kissing and maybe some under-the-sweater fondling in the back seat of cars at Drive-In movies. But were some guys actually hitting triples and home runs in American high schools before the Beatles hit these shores? Girls were actually up or down with that when Fabian, the Four Seasons and Dion & the Belmonts were playing on the radio?

And by that I mean on a reasonably regular basis, not like once in a blue and red moon?

(06-24-2021 01:07 PM)ken d Wrote:  

(06-24-2021 11:36 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(06-24-2021 09:59 AM)SoCalBobcat78 Wrote:  

(06-23-2021 06:36 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  That raises a good point about Title IX. There are some dumb rules about how to measure female "interest" in athletics at a school.

For example, IIRC, about 20 years ago the Bush administration came up with a commonsense approach that would involve surveying the student body, and if little to no interest was expressed in a sport, the school could drop it and not be out of compliance (or something like that, I forget the details).

This resulted in a howl of criticism from feminists, who invoked weird ideological theories, such as saying that of course females won't show interest because they have been Trained By Patriarchy or something to not care about athletics. So the schools need to have these sports whether any real women students care about them or not to undo the Legacy of Patriarchy and social conditioning, or something like that.

And amazingly, the wacko feminist ideology carried the day and the recommendation was withdrawn.

The Bush Administration withdrew their attempts to weaken the law in 2003. Polls back then showed 70% support among the public for Title IX. They got a lot of pushback from the public and politically it was not a wise move with an election coming up in 2004. They did sneak a change through in 2005, by allowing electronic surveys to gauge female students’ interest in playing sports. The Obama Administration reversed that decision in 2010.

In 1971, 7% of the athletes involved in high school sports were girls. In 2019, that number was 43%. In 1972, 43% of college students were female. In 2019, that number is about 57%. In 2019, women received 57% of bachelor’s degrees, 59% of master’s degrees. The country has changed and is not going backwards. Title IX is not going anywhere. There is no incentive for a politician to push for the elimination of the law or even change it.

I totally agree that Title IX is going absolutely nowhere and those who think these court rulings on pay will end up weakening it in the least are fooling themselves.

I also think the way Title IX enforcement has evolved over the past 50 years has resulted in weird ideological requirements that are divorced from economic reality or even social reality. But that is a hard message to get across to the public, because it means going in to the ideological weeds with the wackos to combat it, whereas supporters of these bizarro requirements can easily shout "that big bad conservative is trying to Kill Title IX and Send Your Daughter Soccer Players Back To Home-Ec Class!" or whatever.

So yes, it's just not a winning proposition for a politician to push on.

With all due respect, quo, if you characterize attempts to weaken Title IX as "a common sense approach" and call people who don't agree with that as "wackos", that's evidence that the "ideological weeds" are just as deep on both sides. Is it the 70% of Americans who support Title IX who are the wackos or the 30% who don't?

Having a majority doesn’t necessarily mean something is necessarily the right, smart, or ethical decision.

If Bill Gates and 99 other people are in a room together, and the 99 all vote to beat up Bill Gates and take all his money, that might be the most popular idea but it doesn’t make it right.