Grappling with Title IX

OLYMPIC SPORTS AND TITLE IX

Every fourth summer, athletes seek to remind us that the Olympic ideal is a spirit that soars above politics and brings the world together through the nobility of sport. Of course, that’s not always how it works out and in my years as an Olympic wrestler, it was the shadow of the Cold War that loomed over the games. Grappling with Soviet wrestlers, it was thought, epitomized a larger, worldwide struggle.

In this Olympiad, it seems, the achievements and aspirations of some of our finest athletes are being tarnished by hostilities of a different sort, American gender politics.

That’s because, for some people, the competition serves as a ready-made opportunity to praise Title IX, the federal anti-discrimination law that has become an ideological choke hold in amateur sport.

For the men, collegiate Olympic teams have been cut across the board, decreasing the talent pool in sports like swimming, wrestling, track and field, and gymnastics. On the women’s side, meanwhile, nearly every accomplishment is chalked up to Title IX, even though the law played no role in many of those sterling athletic careers.

A recent presidential commission heard testimony detailing the damage that the current Title IX regulations have strewn on America’s college campuses. UCLA’s swimming team, with scores of Olympic medals, gone. The University of Miami diving program, which produced Greg Louganis, axed. Kent State Hockey, no more. U. Mass gymnastics, hang ‘em up. Consider what happened to Kevin Bracken, member of the 2000 Olympic team. His senior year Illinois State University, rather than add a women’s program, dropped its wrestling team.

Because of the unreasonable way the federal athletics law is enforced, school administrators fear that only by making their rosters “proportional” to the gender numbers of enrollment can they be safe from government investigation and trial lawyers.

What does that look like in practice? Imagine that at the opening ceremonies of the Athens Games, the 282 men and 263 women who march out under the American flag had the current Title IX rules applied on the spot. To make the team proportional. (according to the U.S. population, 52 percent women and 48 percent men) an entire team of male athletes would be herded aside and asked to take a seat in the stands.

That terrible ritual, complete with tears and disbelief, is playing out on college campuses year after year. The most recent was at Southern Methodist University, just last month, where two dozen athletes on the men’s track team were told to hand in their spikes, for good.

A broad majority of the presidential commissioners wanted some sort of common-sense reform to prevent this spiteful practice. One provision already in Title IX says that schools can comply by providing teams based on the level of interest. So, the commission suggested, we should find some ways to measure how interested men and women are in athletics. They were greeted with accusations of sexism even though most of the commissioners were women themselves.

Let’s be plain, there are men and women coaches across this land who believe Title IX is in need of repair. They mentor and train both men and women athletes. Indeed, you would be hard pressed to find anyone in this country more devoted the athletic spirit and the opportunity to compete than these college coaches. They believe deeply in the original intent of Title IX – equal opportunity for everyone.

But the political choke holds and personal rhetorical fouls hurled at them call for a loud, public whistle. The coaches, you see, are not that big on politics. We seldom even know one another’s favorite candidates. We don’t have political action committees and probably haven’t made many campaign contributions.

But on Title IX reform, the coaches, working together as the College Sports Council, have been met with a bare-knuckles Washington fight, filled with some of the most hostile language of the gender activist movement. And that, to be honest, has been the toughest part.

An article in the Washington Post called the coaches’ a bunch of sad sacks. It said they were anachronistic. Loaded adjectives like Neanderthal, pig-headed, and good ol boy are designed to paint a picture of a scowling coach looming over a pony-tailed little girl. And with that cartoon in mind, who needs to look at facts?

But the anger, threats and sharp language are intentional and have everything to do with why the law is so slow to reform. That’s because any elected official who stands up to make a principled argument that gender quotas have no place in equal opportunity will have a glaring scarlet “S” pinned to their lapel for sexist.

The heart of the issue for those who care for dialogue is the difference between fair opportunity and equal outcome. The coaches believe that there should be opportunities for all male and female athletes no matter how many or how few show up to play. The gender activist groups are demanding we impose “proportionality,” an athlete quota based on college enrollment, even if you have to eliminate male athletes just to make those numbers balance.

Now that’s an important philosophical question and one that cuts to the core of what is meant by equality in America. I think a fair argument could be made that nowhere else in our civic life would Americans tolerate a quota like the one imposed on college athletics. It is not done in collegiate dance, or engineering, or nursing, or even college enrollment where it is 56% women to 44% men –why no calls for proportionality there?

And yet, somehow, the only ones standing up for reform are the parents, coaches and athletes. They are the ones living under the dark cloud of Title IX litigation each collegiate athletic season. But our future Olympic teams will suffer too as the pools from which the U.S. recruits and develops its athletes and coaches are inexorably drained. The three sports of swimming, track, and wrestling that bring home the most Olympic medals for the United States have been hit the hardest. Americans cannot expect continued dominance by their athletes abroad if they allow the elimination of college teams to continue at home.

There are fair-minded Americans, men and women alike, who care about preserving Title IX and applying it even-handedly. They are making a valid case and are offering real, workable solutions that will allow all athletes the same chance to compete. They deserve to be heard. Slandering them as sexist or ignorant is one of the cheapest, dirtiest forms of politics.

Surely we can all find some middle ground to restore common sense and fairness to the law.

The Weekly Standard
Dan Gable

Dan Gable is the former head wrestling coach at the University of Iowa, three time Olympic coach, and an Olympic gold medalist.