Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 requires colleges and
universities to fund male and female athletics at levels proportionate
to enrollment. Title IX has indeed pulled money from men's
scholarships, although many schools are not in compliance with Title
IX:
"While over 50% of our college populations are female, female athletes
still receive approximately 36% of all sports operating expenditures,
42% of all college athletic scholarship money, 42% of all athletic
participation opportunities, and 32% of all college athlete
recruitment spending( 1999-00 NCAA Gender-Equity Report and NCAA
Participation Statistics, 2002).
While more female athletes are getting a college education because of
the award of $372,476,500 in athletic scholarships each year, male
athletes receive 36 percent ($133 million) more than that amount
(1999-00 NCAA Gender-Equity Report, Women's Sports Foundation
calculation)."
Womens' Sports Foundation
http://www.womenssportsfoundation.org/cgi-bin/iowa/issues/geena/record.html?record=862
"Title IX of the Education Amendments Act of 1972 barred sex
discrimination in any educational program or activity which receives
federal funding. In the decades since, women's athletics have
burgeoned in high schools and colleges. Title IX was and remains an
important and laudable victory for the women's movement.
More recently, however, misguided feminist lawsuits and political
lobbying have changed Title IX from a vehicle to open up opportunities
for women to a scorched earth policy whereby the destruction of men's
athletics has become an acceptable substitute for strengthening
women's athletics...
Title IX's modern application has struck hardest at minority men.
Lawsuits brought to balance the number of athletic scholarships
awarded to men and women have decreased the number and value of men's
scholarships, upon which minority men often rely to finance their
educations."
Glenn Sacks: Title IX Lawsuits are Endangering Men's College Sports
http://www.glennjsacks.com/title_ix_helps.htm
"Title IX has been a mess since the day it was born. Hold onto your
political correctness -- this is not a condemnation of equal
opportunity. This is a well-rationalized 30-year view of the federal
law that prohibits sex discrimination in education.
That's discrimination as it applies to both sexes. That's why the
National Wrestling Coaches Association recently filed a suit alleging
the Department of Education improperly implements Title IX.
The wrestling coaches have a point. College administrators have been
lazy over the years, axing men's scholarships and programs in order to
comply with Title IX."
CBS Sportsline: Football needs to start making Title IX sacrifices
http://cbs.sportsline.com/b/page/pressbox/0,1328,5427007,00.html
Here's an excerpt from an interesting article about the impact of
Title IX on college athletics:
"Title IX, a 1972 federal law requiring gender equity at public
institutions, has been a boon to women athletes while representing a
sea change for universities... But because collegiate athletic
programs were so imbalanced before Title IX, schools' strategies to
achieve gender equity have boiled down to two: find a lot more money
to support women's sports, or cut men's sports.
Many schools have been forced to choose the second option."
The Columbus Dispatch: The Gender Trends
http://www.dispatch.com/news/special/bucks/STITL9.html
"The lack of scholarships for baseball players, wrestlers and gymnasts
results from federal government enforcement of a provision of the
Civil Rights Act designed to remove barriers female athletes faced
three decades ago, [Jessica] Gavora says. The federal government
enforces this law by demanding that colleges offer sports scholarships
to female athletes in proportion to the distaff side of the student
body, Gavora explains.
'Title IX of the Civil Rights Act mandates equal participation in
sports for women even though women participate in sports at a lower
rate than men,' Gavora says. Gavora herself played basketball in high
school.
To comply with the law, colleges routinely cut men's sports teams and
offer scholarships in every conceivable women's sport, according to
Gavora. Gavora currently works as a speechwriter and advisor to U. S.
attorney general John Ashcroft.
'Female athletes today receive more scholarship aid per capita than
men,' Gavora points out. Three decades of compliance with Title IX
have left male athletes across the country with 60,000 fewer
opportunities, Gavora points out. The NCAA records 500 more ladies
teams than men's, Gavora says."
Academia: Title IX / Whatever Happened to College Baseball?
http://www.academia.org/news/title_IX.php
There have been recent proposals that Title IX should establish a 50%
male/50% female standard instead of using proportionality. Since,
under the current law, more than 50% of college sports funding is
allocated to women (because women represent more than 50% of college
students), going to a 50/50 split would result in over a hundred
million dollars going to scholarships for men rather than women:
"Proposal 3. Establish a 50% male/50% female standard instead of
proportionality and permit institutions to vary up to 3.5% below
50-50...
Female College Athletic Scholarship Loss:
Annually,-$130,739,777
Over a Generation,$2.615 billion"
Women's Sports Foundation
http://www.womenssportsfoundation.org/cgi-bin/iowa/issues/rights/article.html?record=938
"When UMass faced a budget crunch this spring, it chose to eliminate
four men's teams and three women's teams, saving $1.1 million, but did
not touch its Division I-AA football program, which lost about $1.5
million last year. The university will be in compliance with Title IX
next year, with a 52 percent-48 percent ratio of female to male
students and athletes...
Football isn't the problem, say the wrestling proponents. They blame
the proportionality test, which Lopiano says is absurd, since there
are two other tests in which schools can be found in compliance - the
assessment of interest and a demonstrated effort to come into
compliance.
Some schools, like UConn, did not drop teams to achieve compliance.
But UConn capped men's rosters and cut men's scholarships in sports
such as track and field, tennis and swimming.
Despite changes in attitudes toward women and sports, Title IX
advocates fear that if proportionality is scrapped, or modified, Title
IX won't have any bite."
WrestleGirl: News Page
http://www.wrestlegirl.com/gnews642.htm
The interpretation and enforcement of Title IX has varied as time has
passed, and this year brought a new shift, away from strict quotas:
"The Bush administration announced yesterday [July 11, 2003] that
colleges and universities no longer must prove 'substantially
proportionate' participation of men and women in sports programs as
the main way to comply with the federal Title IX sex-discrimination
ban.
The ruling bowed to wishes of many college presidents, coaches and
athletic groups who asked the administration to move away from quotas
governing intercollegiate sports.
In a letter to college presidents and other officials yesterday, the
U.S. Education Department's Office of Civil Rights abandoned a 1996
Clinton administration ruling that 'proportionality' - equal numbers
of men and women in college sports programs - was the most important
component of a three-part test for compliance with Title IX."
Washington Times: Title IX rules abandon sex quotas in athletics
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20030712-120547-4081r.htm
An excellent collection of information related to Title IX may be found here:
University of Iowa: Gender Equity in Sports
http://bailiwick.lib.uiowa.edu/ge/
Google search strategy:
Google Web Search: "title ix" + "education amendments of 1972"
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=%22title+ix%22+%22education+amendments+of+1972
Google Web Search: "sports scholarships" + "title ix"
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=%22sports+scholarships%22+%22title+ix
Google Web Search: "title ix" + "men's scholarships"
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=%22title+ix%22+%22men%27s+scholarships
I hope this information is helpful. If anything is unclear, or if a
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pinkfreud |
