Title IX: evil or equalizer? Just ask your daughters

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© St. Petersburg Times
published May 31, 2002

What is the proper gift for a well-intended act of legislation nearing its 30th anniversary? Derision? Scorn? How about taking it to court?

So we have the revisionist reaction to Title IX. Passed 30 years ago as an education amendment prohibiting discrimination against females, the law recently has come under attack for supposedly unintended consequences.

George Will called Title IX a train wreck in a recent Newsweek article. Washington writer Jessica Gavora blames Title IX for a number of societal ills in her book Tilting the Playing Field: Schools, Sports, Sex and Title IX.

The National Wrestling Coaches Association has filed suit against the department of education, alleging Title IX has caused the elimination of hundreds of nonrevenue-producing NCAA men's teams.

In other words, dang them civil rights.

All Title IX has done is ensure young girls and women have the same opportunities as males in our public schools. Color me pinko, but I have a difficult time finding the evil in that.

Because of Title IX, more scholarships are available for women. Because of Title IX, women's athletics enjoy a higher profile. Because of Title IX, girls can understand the joys of the playing field like never before.

"Without Title IX, I don't think women's athletics would have advanced nearly as far as they have, and there still are needs to be met," University of Florida athletic director Jeremy Foley said. "It's hard to argue that women shouldn't have the same opportunities as men. Should they have it at the expense of men's programs? Obviously that's not what you would like.

"But the underlying premise of providing equal opportunities for women? How can you argue with that?"

Critics do manage to find arguments against Title IX. And not without some convoluted justification.

Facing the possibility of losing federal funding because they are not in compliance with Title IX, many universities have panicked. Instead of exploring additional opportunities for women, they have slashed men's programs such as wrestling, gymnastics and swimming so their ratio of male and female athletes would be more proportional.

This is the complaint of the wrestling coaches association. But ire should be directed at their universities and not Title IX.

Schools with football programs that are twice the size of NFL rosters should not have to cut men's programs to make room for women.

It could be argued the elimination of some men's sports is completely motivated by finances. Though wrestling programs have been cut, baseball, soccer and basketball programs have been added in the past 20 years.

Since Title IX passed in 1972, participation in male high school sports has increased 7 percent. Participation in male college sports has increased 21 percent. Males have not lost openings since Title IX, they've gained.

"The economic situation is not as good for some universities as others," UF associate athletic director Ann Marie Rogers said. "Some have chosen to cut some of their men's sports. But it's been disturbing to women that they continually blame Title IX for these cuts, when often times they haven't managed their money very well."

Gavora's book argues Title IX, though well-meaning, was an unnecessary piece of legislation. She contends most of the strides made in women's athletics were made in the 1970s before Title IX was being enforced.

But the idea colleges would have voluntarily gotten around to equality does not fly. If schools supposedly are cutting men's programs only under the threat of legal action today, who believes they would simply have added women's sports out of the kindness of their souls? Gavora suggests feminists have twisted the basic premise of Title IX into creating unneeded quotas. She goes beyond athletics and points out numerous abuses of power in educational settings in the name of Title IX.

She points out Title IX's greatest strides were made, principally, during the Carter and Clinton administrations.

Perhaps it is merely coincidence Carter and Clinton were the last two Democrats to serve as presidents. And perhaps it is coincidence Gavora is the chief speech writer for Republican Attorney General John Ashcroft.

(If we were going to get into political agendas, we might also point out Ashcroft's views were so wildly popular as a U.S. Senator in Missouri that he lost his 2000 re-election bid to an opponent who had been dead for a month. But bringing that up would seem petty.)

The bottom line is Title IX, like much legislation, is imperfect. Bureaucracy and misguided legal precedents have given it greater authority than intended. Wary of cries of gender discrimination, teachers and administrators have been forced to take political correctness to extremes.

Yet that does not nullify the greater good accomplished by this law. A child could tell you that.

You can ask as soon as she comes off the field.

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