Copyright 2002 Denver Publishing Company Rocky
Mountain News (Denver, CO)
July 27, 2002 Saturday Final Edition
SECTION: OPINION/COMMENTARY/EDITORIAL; Pg. 4B
LENGTH: 775 words
HEADLINE:
TITLE IX'S PERNICIOUS EFFECTS OFTEN OVERLOOKED
BYLINE: Vincent Carroll, ROCKY MOUNTAIN NEWS
BODY: Everyone in sports knows the story of the law
known as Title IX - how it supposedly has given tens of thousands of women a
chance to play intercollegiate sports, and how even hidebound athletic
departments are coming to provide the opportunities that women rightly
deserve.
The story has been celebrated in nearly every
major media outlet - and never more so than this year, the 30th anniversary of
the passage of Title IX.
Yet even the standard version
of Title IX's triumph is not entirely rosy. No honest report can ignore the fact
that men's sports such as wrestling, gymnastics and swimming are being dumped at
college after college, with no sign of let-up - even though NCAA schools already
offer some 500 more athletic programs for women than men.
No candid appraisal can miss the fact that schools are straining to
create additional teams for women (crew, synchronized swimming, archery,
equestrian, even bowling) and then to fill the available spots on them, while
men's teams are being ordered to bar walk-ons and arbitrarily keep rosters to a
minimum.
"Women are now 56 percent of the college
population nationwide, and will be 58 percent within a few years," says Jessica
Gavora, author of a new book on Title IX (Tilting the Playing Field: Schools,
Sports, Sex and Title IX, Encounter Books). "By the end of the decade, women
will have to account for nearly 60 percent of all athletes in order for schools
to be in compliance with Title IX, and the current split is roughly 60-40 the
other way.
"How will they achieve that 20 percent
swing? The evidence is growing that women's willing participation in sports is
just about tapped out, so a big part of the adjustment will have to come from
eliminating men's programs."
Gavora argues that this
grotesque outcome is unnecessary, unjust and a misuse of Title IX itself. As her
book points out, there is nothing in Title IX that mandates that the numbers of
male and female athletes mirror the percentage of men and women enrolled in a
school. Quite the contrary. Title IX is an anti-discrimination tool, not a quota
law, and it contains explicit language barring institutions from chasing quotas
at any cost. Yet schools feel they must do so because of the way the law is
enforced. So in their effort to lure women into competitive sports, for example,
universities nationwide (and in Colorado) already grant female athletes more
scholarship aid on average than male athletes receive. And this disparity is
very likely to balloon in coming years, although no language in Title IX
requires it.
Gavora punctures several other myths
regarding Title IX as well.
Myth 1: The explosion of
female athletics in the past 30 years in both high school and college is almost
wholly a result of Title IX. In fact, "in 1971, 1 in 27 high school girls played
sports. In 1972, the year Title IX was passed , 1 in 9 girls played sports.
Today that number is 1 in 3." In other words, the trendline for female
participation in sports began its historic shift upward sometime in the late
'60s and early '70s, before Title IX was a factor. Regulations for Title IX
weren't even written until late in the Carter administration - meaning the law
was totally unenforced till then - by which time 1 in 4 high school girls
already were on a team.
Myth 2: If men's sports are
being axed, it's football's fault. Football hogs too many scholarships and too
much money. Well, football does indeed hog a lot of scholarships, but football
can also be a major money machine that showers cash on remaining sports. Gavora
cites an analysis by the Chronicle of Higher Education demonstrating that
schools in conferences "with big-time football and basketball television
contracts and bowl games . . . are those that field the largest and most diverse
women's sports programs."
The presumption behind the
present enforcement of Title IX is that young men and women,
given free rein, will share an equal interest in playing sports. But what if
that's not true? Equal interest doesn't exist in almost any other educational or
extracurricular activity. In high schools, for example, girls heavily outnumber
boys "in student government and honor societies, on school newspapers and in
debating clubs," in choirs, orchestras and even in bands. If Title IX quotas
were enforced in those activities, thousands of girls would be forced to do
something else.
Should strict gender proportionality be
mandated in university science grants, in music and language classes, at
archeological digs? Why only in sports?
As the parade
of expiring men's teams lengthens, perhaps Gavora's message will begin to be
heard.
NOTES: COLUMN; Vincent Carroll is editor of the editorial pages. Reach him at
carrollv@RockyMountainNews.com
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