Copyright 2002 Globe Newspaper Company  
The Boston Globe
May 29, 2002, Wednesday ,THIRD EDITION
SECTION: NATIONAL/FOREIGN; Pg. A3

LENGTH: 865 words

HEADLINE: US FACES DEADLINE IN SUIT ON ANTIBIAS RULES IN COLLEGE SPORTS WRESTLING COACHES SAY THAT TITLE IX PROMOTES QUOTAS

BYLINE: By Mary Leonard, Globe Staff

BODY:
WASHINGTON - The Bush administration has until midnight tonight to respond to a lawsuit filed by wrestling coaches who argue that the way the government has enforced a law barring gender discrimination in college athletics has reduced opportunities for male athletes and threatens to drive some sports out of intercollegiate competition.

The expected response is being watched closely by women's groups who warn that President Bush risks a political backlash from soccer moms and dads if he tinkers with the 30-year-old federal law, widely known as Title IX.

   In the lawsuit, a coalition of sports groups led by the National Wrestling Coaches Association contends that current federal regulations promote gender quotas in college athletics, result in cutbacks in men's teams, and "effectively mandate the very discrimination that Title IX prohibits."

A number of universities have been sued under Title IX, which bars sex discrimination in intercollegiate athletics at schools receiving federal funds. The wrestling coaches, representing a sport that has lost 170 college teams in the past 20 years, have brought the first legal challenge directly against the Education Department, which enforces Title IX.

Conservative groups, led most vocally by the Independent Women's Forum, are pushing for a rewrite of the regulations that they say have turned Title IX into a blunt instrument that does not take the interests of student athletes into account.

Dan Langan, a spokesman for the Education Department, denied a report published yesterday in the Chronicle of Higher Education that the administration was contemplating a moratorium on Title IX enforcement while it reviewed its regulations.

"That is impossible; the department cannot suspend enforcement of Title IX," Langan said. "Right now, our focus is on meeting the deadline."

Colleges can comply with Title IX by demonstrating they have increased and continue to add opportunities for women athletes or by showing that athletic programs meet the interests of women on campus.

But the target of the wrestling coaches' lawsuit is the "proportionality rule." The safest way for colleges to follow the law and not risk their federal funds is to have the percentage of male and female varsity athletes in rough proportion to the proportion of men and women in the undergraduate student body. For example, if 54 percent of a university's students are women, then about 54 percent of its athletes should be women.

Mike Moyer, executive director of the wrestling association, said he supports Title IX but thinks that its enforcement imposes quotas on men's teams, causing "an alarming number of traditional Olympics sports to vaporize" at colleges across the country.

"We want the administration to get rid of gender quotas forever and come up with a more fair and reasonable standard, with opportunities based on interests," Moyer said.

The White House has not commented on the lawsuit or whether it will review or change the enforcement of Title IX rules. During the 2000 campaign, candidate George W. Bush said that he supported Title IX but that "I do not support a system of quotas or strict proportionality that pits one group against another."

Many women's advocacy groups fear that the administration wants to end the proportionality rule. Gerald Reynolds, whom Bush appointed during a congressional recess to direct the Education Department's civil rights office, has a record of opposing what he has termed gender and racial preferences. The National Women's Law Center opposed Reynolds's nomination out of concern that he would not protect Title IX.

The women's groups also saw it as a bad sign earlier this month when Education Department officials said they intended to reinterpret Title IX to permit single-sex public schools.

"We would be outraged if the Bush administration was unprepared to defend and aggressively enforce rules that have been upheld by the courts and have provided significant benefits, in terms of opening doors, for female athletes," said Jocelyn Samuels of the National Women's Law Center.

Some college coaches and athletic directors say they are concerned about the elimination since 1980 of more than 400 men's teams, which they assert is an unintended consequence of colleges getting into compliance with the proportionality rule. Wrestling has been hit the hardest, but the number of men's track and gymnastics teams also has declined.

A new group called the College Sports Council - which represents the College Gymnastics Coaches Association, the College Swim Coaches of America, and the US Track Coaches Association - has joined the lawsuit.

A report last year by the General Accounting Office said that between 1981 and 1999 the number of collegiate women's athletic teams increased from 5,695 to 9,479, compared with a 36-team increase for men, to a total of 9,149. Because men play on teams with large rosters, such as football and baseball teams, the number of men participating in 1999 was 232,000 compared with 163,000 women. The agency said that among the schools that added one or more women's teams, 72 percent did so without cutting any men's sports.

LOAD-DATE: May 29, 2002