college sport

DISCRIMINATION IN COLLEGE ATHLETICS IS NOT FAIR PLAY

 

QUOTAS ARE WRONG

Let's hope the U.S. Commission on Athletic Opportunity agrees when it issues its recommendations to the Department of Education in February.

Touring the country for the past six months, commission members have heard firsthand how the federal law known as Title IX has created de facto gender quotas in collegiate sports and has led to the elimination of men's programs.



The value of Title IX, and its role in expanding opportunities for women in education and sports programs, isn't in question. The law states that no person can be excluded from participation in programs or activities on the basis of sex.

The devil is in the regulations.

Issued in 1979, the regulations state that a college can comply with the law by meeting one of three criteria: the percentage of its female athletes mirrors the percentage of women in its student body; the school is expanding its programs to meet the interests and abilities of women; or the school is fully accommodating women's interests.

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    The first test -- proportionality -- means that if 56% of the student body is female, then 56% of the athletes must be female. During the past decade, regulators have made this virtually the only test of compliance, forcing colleges and universities to impose gender quotas on sports programs. As a result, almost 400 men's sports teams have been eliminated since the early 1990s.

But while quotas make compliance simple, that doesn't make them fair. For one thing, they don't account for levels of interest. If more boys than girls show an interest in sports -- and research shows that they do -- it doesn't matter. If a school expands opportunities for women and even has openings unfilled, it doesn't matter. Only meeting the quota matters.

Imagine what would happen if the government demanded that universities establish quotas for male participation in female-dominated interests such as arts, music and literature. Elimination of academic programs there would be just as devastating to women as this system has been for men.
 

The answer is simple: eliminate quota enforcement and allow colleges and universities to provide opportunities for all according to student interest.

Krista Kafer is an education policy analyst at The Heritage Foundation, a Washington-based public policy research institute.

Title IX forces schools to eliminate men's sports programs.

The first thing Jamie Moffatt wants to make clear is that he is not trying to trash Title IX. But he firmly believes Title IX is broken and needs to be repaired.

The National Women's Law Center said the Bush Administration "weakened" Title IX. They claimed that the "Department of Education makes it easy for schools to escape their responsibility under Title IX."

There is more to the troubles in college sports than the battle between the Atlantic Coast Conference and the Big East. Title IX,  has produced unintended consequences.

"They say that Title IX is under attack and it is not. They say that Griffith was attacking Title IX, and he didn't. He was just trying to reform Title IX," said Pearson.

Title IX is no longer just a civil-rights measure that guarantees equal opportunity for women in college athletics but is now seen as a rigid rule based on strict proportionality that does more to harm men than it does to help women.

Since most NCAA schools remain well short of proportional compliance, it is natural to assume relaxing Title IX's requirements would only exacerbate the existing gender disparity.

Former Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Norma Cantu candidly acknowledges her desire to rebut the widely held view that Title IX is responsible for the decline in the number of men's sports opportunities.

The three sports of swimming, track, and wrestling that bring home the most Olympic medals for the United States have been hit the hardest by Title IX.

"These are perilous times," said Brand. "The future of Title IX is uncertain. We do not know what Secretary Paige will do with the recommendations of the Commission on Opportunity in Athletics."

Proportionality has led to an understandable outcry among male athletes, coaches and alumni and a growing movement to reform Title IX.

When it comes to cutting men's track programs, West Virginia is hardly alone. In the last few years, universities such as St. John's, Tulane, Vermont, Toledo and Bowling Green have all axed their men's track teams.

While 96 NCAA colleges scratched wrestling from 1980-90, only 20 programs have been dropped in the past five years. Supporters point to several reasons why wrestling should not be cut.

 Title IX improving the application of current Federal standards for measuring equal opportunity."

And, these are the people, who, for whatever reasons (such as Title IX) are not adding new wrestling teams to college athletics.

Part 1   Women enjoy a distinct advantage over men in college athletics.
Part 2   Bakke believed that his rejections were in direct violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th amendment.
Part 3   Football seems to be the issue when dealing with scholarships. A school is permitted 85 scholarships for football.
Part 4   When Title IX was created it was crafted with intent to make it easy for schools to comply with its guidelines.
Part 5   For the first time since 1968, the USA freestyle wrestlers failed to win a single gold medal.
Part 6   Every college is required to have a designated Title IX coordinator.
Part 7   Over 110,000 women participated in intercollegiate sports. Where as in 1971 just about 25,000 participated.

 

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