Menstuff® has compiled the following information on Title IX.
Title IX
Girls & Women in
Sports
Eliminating Title IX Opportunities at
Howard University
Dogmatism Over Common
Sense
Title IX Turns 30: Transcript: Donna
Lopiano, Women's Sports Foundation
Leveled Playing Field? Title IX Opened Some
Sports to Women, Closed Others to Men
Game Point for Girls: Law That
Leveled Playing Fields Turns 30
Girls'
Athletics Under Imminent
Threat
Title
IX Factoids
Books
Resources
Title IX simply states: "No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, or denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any educational program or activity receiving federal financial assistance."
The law does not say that educational institutions must provide equal opportunity for women and girls in athletics. The law does not say that women coaches must be compensated fairly for coaching women's and girls' sports. The law does not say that educational institutions can provide a learning environment that helps women and girls learn and enroll in "non-traditional" subjects, such as math, technology, and science. The law does not say that woman and girls must be free from sexual harassment in school. The law does not say that each school district must have a Title IX coordinator, that is, a person responsible for helping to ensure compliance with all aspects of Title IX, and a complaint procedure so that a student can safely bring these issues to the school's attention. But Title IX has spawned all of these things.
Here are some examples of Title IX's legacy: In 1992, a group of women students sued Brown University, claiming that its decision to lower the varsity status and funding of its women's gymnastic and volleyball teams denied women equal opportunity under Title IX. It looked as if the University was "cutting and de-funding" equally, because the school had also demoted men's water polo and golf. But after evaluating the University's entire athletic program, the women students argued that the cuts to the women's teams disproportionately affected their opportunities to participate in athletics. After a five-year court battle, in the case of Cohen v. Brown University, the federal court of appeals agreed with the women students and sent the matter back to the University to work out an athletic program that complied with Title IX.
Under the regulations issued by the Federal Department of Education, one of the factors determining whether a school is in compliance with Title IX is an examination of the "assignment and compensation of coaches and tutors." Over the years, female coaches at high schools in West Virginia, Illinois and New York, and at universities, including the University of Southern California, Boston University, Utica College of Syracuse University and the University of North Carolina have challenged their pay, their assignments and their workload as unequal to their male counterparts. These cases have met with successes and failures.
In an innovative program designed to encourage female participation in achievement in technology, a public school in Manchester, Connecticut offers a unique high school technology course. The course provides one classroom for girls only and one for both boys and girls, and provides both classrooms with female mentors, career counseling and improved lab space to help overcome the conditions resulting in limited participation by girls in this field.
In a number of recent decisions, the United States Supreme Court has held that a school district cannot ignore the complaints of students who are being sexually harassed by fellow students. In the most recent case, Davis v. Monroe County Board of Education, LaShonda Davis, a fifth grade girl, was constantly and severely sexually harassed 1. with sexually explicit taunts and sexual grabbing 2. by a fifth grade boy. Despite her reports to teachers and the principal's knowledge of the incidents, very little was done to discipline the harasser or protect the young girl. After a lengthy court battle, in which the school district tried to have the case thrown out without a trial, the Supreme Court found that the harassment and the school's inaction effectively deprived LaShonda of an equal education and allowed her lawsuit against the school district to proceed. The case is scheduled to go to trial this summer.
While there are some exceptions, Title IX applies to most schools, even private schools, as long as they receive some amount of federal funds. It covers elementary through higher education.
Every school or school district covered by Title IX is required,
under the regulations issued by the Federal Department of Education,
to have a "Title IX coordinator." This person is responsible for
overseeing compliance, including taking Title IX complaints and
publicizing the grievance/complaint procedures these schools must
have. Students are supposed to be notified about the name, office and
phone number of the Title IX coordinator -- but rarely are. The law
applies to girls and boys, women and men, ensuring that no person is
deprived of the benefits of educational opportunities because of
their sex.
Eliminating Title IX Opportunities at
Howard University
In a statement to the press, Howard's athletic director, Sondra Norrell-Thomas, said the decision was "very difficult, but necessary," claiming: "At this time, we lack the facilities to support baseball and wrestling." But few are buying that excuse.
As Mike Moyer, executive director of the National Wrestling Coaches Association, says, "It is hard to believe that lack of practice/competition space can be the culprit, due to the fact that wrestling requires so little space to begin with. I have to believe that Howard University has a space on its campus that can accommodate a 42 x 42 foot wrestling mat."
Howard's own wrestling coach doesn't agree the school is being honest about his team's elimination, either. Wade Hughes. He told the Washington Post Thursday morning, "Howard University would like to look at this as a non-Title IX issue, but from my perspective, it is a Title IX issue in gender equality."
Coach Hughes continues: "We've had a wrestling room for years and years and years, and I don't know what [Norrell-Thomas] means. All we need is a practice facility because we've had only one home match since I've been the head coach."
The pro-quota Washington Post notes that as of last year, women composed more than 60 percent of Howard's undergraduate student body but only 30 percent of its athletes. That's not a comfortable place for a school to be these days.
Still, Howard denies the accusation that they are playing gender/number games. Lawanza Spears, a spokeswoman for Howard University told NRO Wednesday night, "The decision was based solely on the lack of facilities needed to support the baseball and wrestling programs."
The timing of Howard's decision was significant: June marks the thirtieth anniversary of the passing of Title IX, and no school wants to be cast as the enemy when the full-blast celebrating and finger-pointing commences.
And Howard knows the pain of Title IX grief. In 1993, its head women's basketball coach sued the school for sex discrimination, because she was being paid less than then the men's coach. A subsequent $2.4 million jury award for damages was the first of its kind, hailed by feminists. (A judge later reduced the damages to $ 250,000.)
Of this week's Howard cuts, Mike Moyer says, "This appears to be further evidence of the carnage that has resulted from the application of gender quotas in intercollegiate sports." Moyer is getting a tad used to it, with more than 170 wrestling programs eliminated in recent years due to the Title IX number's game.
In her recent book, Tilting the Playing Field, author Jessica Gavora quotes Leo Kocher, University of Chicgo wrestling coach, explaining how the game works
Say there's a school that has equal numbers of boys and girls and it decides to offer 200 athletic opportunities. If they have 100 girls who want to play sports and they have 1,000 boys who want to play sports, the law says you must give 100 opportunities to those 100 girls and you must give 100 opportunities to those 1,000 boys. In the end, 100 percent of the girls are fully accommodated but only 10 percent of the boys are taken care of.
Still, you would think liberals would do a double take when they see what is happening. Howard is 86 percent black and prides itself on its focus on black students. But, as is now happening there, it is often black males, often on the lower end of the family-income scale, who are getting the shaft because of their schools' compliance with Title IX. (This happened at Bowling Green State University this semester.) As Mike Moyer points out, "The elimination of the traditional Olympic sports across the nation is having a devastating effect on the availability of college-scholarship opportunities for minorities."
Source: Kathryn Jean Lopez, National News Online,
http://www.nationalreview.com/lopez/lopez052302.asp
Passed 30 years ago, the law bans sexual discrimination in education. The problem is how that ban has been construed as applied to athletics.
It is a myth that Title IX produced the dramatic increase in women's participation in athletics. Actually, cultural changes produced most dramatic increases before Title IX was even applied to athletics.
What Title IX has produced is the elimination of more than 400 men's teams because the bureaucrats who wrote the Title IX regulations required a perverse kind of proportionality: The number of roster spots on women's teams must be the same proportion of women's total enrollment in the school as the number of men's roster spots is of men's enrollment.
But more young men than young women care about playing sports. And one men's sport, football, requires a lot of roster spots. So if the school has equal numbers of men and women and has, say, 400 athletic roster spots, then 200 must be for men and 200 for women, even if this means that all women wishing to participate can but half the men wishing to participate can't.
Because Title IX has made a dogma of such proportionality, many schools have had to achieve equality partly by reducing the number of male athletes by killing men's wrestling, swimming, baseball, gymnastics and other teams. In a recent five-year period, more than three men's positions on college teams were eliminated for every woman's position created.
Some feminists for whom Title IX is a fetish oppose revising the
enforcement rules. But those rules mistakenly equate equal
participation rates with equal opportunity, and have turned Title IX
into a triumph of dogmatism over common sense.
Source: George Will,
abcnews.go.com/sections/ThisWeek/DailyNews/george_will_030105.html
Title IX Turns 30: Transcript: Donna
Lopiano, Women's Sports Foundation
The National Wrestling Coaches Association recently filed a lawsuit against the federal government on behalf of a coalition of men's sports that have suffered heavy losses. The group says a law intended to level the playing field for women has instead created widespread discrimination against men.
They point to numbers to make their case: More than 350 women's teams have been created since the law took effect. In the same period of time, more than 400 men's teams have been cut.
Advocates of Title IX say schools could provide opportunities for women without hurting men if they were willing to trim the lavish budgets of high-profile sports like football, basketball, and hockey.
"There is nothing to keep a university from saying, 'Well, I'll just give every sport a smaller piece of the pie,'" says Donna Lopiano, executive director of the Women's Sports Foundation. "But they are choosing not to do that."
Lopiano joined our online discussion on Title IX and women's athletics on Tuesday, June 25. The transcript follows.
Moderator
What is Title IX?
Donna Lopiano
Title IX is a federal law that prohibits sex discrimination in any educational program or activity that receives federal funds — from medical schools to junior high schools to math and science classes. You can't discriminate on the basis of sex.
Moderator
Are most schools and colleges in compliance with Title IX?
Donna Lopiano
Sadly, 30 years after the law passed, less than 20 percent are in compliance when it comes to athletics.
Male athletes still receive 1.1 million more participation opportunities at the high school level, 30 percent more opportunities at the college level and $133 million dollars more in college athletic scholarships.
Moderator
What is the penalty for noncompliance?
Donna Lopiano
Loss of federal funds. However, no school has ever lost federal funds for not being in compliance. The government tries to negotiate a settlement where the institution or school promises to comply within a certain time period.
Moderator
Is any sport excluded from Title IX?
Donna Lopiano
No. There have been four efforts to exclude men's football and basketball, but Congress wisely concluded that these participants are not a third sex. -:)
Moderator
How has Title IX changed women's sports in the past 30 years?
Donna Lopiano
Where there were only 300,000 participation opportunities for high school girls in 1972, there are now close to 2.8 million.
Where there were 30,000 college participation opportunities for women in 1972, there are now 150,000.
And boys' participation has not suffered. High school boys' participation has increased by 7 percent to 3.9 million, while NCAA college men's participation has increased by 23 percent to 208,000.
Moderator
Some male college athletes say Title IX has increased opportunities for women at their expense. How do you respond?
Donna Lopiano
It is true that schools have dropped 171 men's wrestling teams over the last 20 years. But 135 men's soccer and 86 men's baseball teams have been added to replace those participation opportunities — the result, when you consider all dropped and added sports puts men on the plus side of the ledger.
The same is true for women's teams. One hundred women's gymnastics programs have been dropped, but other sports have been added to make up for those losses.
If schools are facing budgetary shortfalls, they have several choices: They can not cut any sports for men or women and give each sport a smaller piece of the pie, or they can cut sports programs for the over-represented gender. The Women's Sports Foundation is in favor of the former solution.
Moderator
Do you think men and women are equally interested in participating in sports?
Donna Lopiano
Yes. People used to say that African Americans weren't interested in playing tennis, and women weren't interested in being doctors or lawyers. Now, 50 percent of our law school students are women, and 41 percent of our athletic programs are female participants.
Interest is a function of three things: one, adult leaders who encourage their children to participate in activities or school subjects that are beneficial for them; two, the availability of books, classes or sports teams so they have the chance to play or learn; and three, a fun and successful learning environment that encourages kids to keep participating.
When all three of these ingredients are present, girls are as interested as boys in participating in sports.
Moderator
Susan Davis writes: "Why is it necessary to give more slots to women when more men want to play? My son plays volleyball. There are only 22 Division I and 19 Division II programs in the entire country and they are only allowed 4.5 scholarships per team while the women have 299 Division I and 272 Division II programs and get 12 scholarships each. How is that fair and equitable?"
Donna Lopiano
The reason why men's sports scholarships are lower in the same sports as women is because men's football is taking more than its fair share.
So the gripe should not be with Title IX or women's sports; men's football should let more men's teams have scholarships.
In Division I football, schools can award 85 scholarships per year in a sport where every Saturday afternoon only 21 players play for more than five minutes in a game.
Something is wrong here, and it's not the idea of giving our daughters an equal opportunity to play; it's the idea that a football-playing son is more important than a volleyball-playing son.
Moderator
A comment from Big Milt: "It is no secret that men's programs generate more in revenue than women's. Schools use this revenue to run the programs and not tap student funds for the programs. By cutting some of the "high profile" sports, many schools run the risk of losing money for the entire athletic department. In trying to give everyone an "equal" piece of the pie, schools run the risk of having a smaller pie to give out. Does this seem right? Should you penalize and weaken the football team that makes enough money to support itself and 4 girls sports teams in order to get a 5th girls sports team to balance the numbers?"
Donna Lopiano
Eighty percent of all football teams lose money; they do not pay for themselves.
If you reduce the number of football scholarships in Division I, where most of the schools that make money are, to 60 scholarships per year, and you allow those scholarships to be split among 85 players, the quality of the football game will not change, the ability of football to make money will not change, and football as a business will have increased profits.
Making the money saved and not having to offer 25 more football scholarships, plus the increased profits, would fund gender equity for women, and enable schools to keep all men's teams.
Why isn't that a better alternative than to decry an equal opportunity law?
Moderator
As you know, the National Wrestling Coaches Association recently filed a lawsuit against the federal government. What do you think will happen to women's sports programs in high schools and colleges if this lawsuit is successful?
Donna Lopiano
If the lawsuit is successful, men's wrestling teams would not be put back in place and there would be no legal barrier to cutting women's teams next.
The issue that must be confronted is the elephant sitting in the middle of the room which is excessive expenditures on a few men's sports.
Brian asks:
Title IX IS discrimination based on sex. Why should there be separate but equal sports programs for men and women? All sports should include men and women and may the best woman or man play.
Donna Lopiano
This question is often asked by high school boys who would like me to tell them that male athletes are better because they're stronger, faster and can jump higher and therefore deserve the chance to play more than female athletes.
I ask them: Who is the better athlete, Muhammad Ali or Sugar Ray Leonard? They say: "That's not fair; they shouldn't compete against each other because they're in separate weight classes. They're both great athletes."
Why is it okay to have separate but equal in men's sports and not to have separate but equal in women's sports?
The male hormone androgen enables males to build up more muscle mass per unit volume of body weight than females. If you put a man and a woman of the same size and weight against each other, the male will still be stronger.
But that's not the point. If sport is good for the health and well-being of our children, it should be good for our sons and our daughters to have an equal chance to participate.
Moderator
Donna, thank you for joining us. Do you have any final comments before we sign off?
Donna Lopiano
Encourage your daughters and nieces to play.
Moderator
Thanks to all those who participated in our live chat.
Source: Moderated by ABCNEWS.com's Saira
Stewart, abcnews.go.com/sections/community/DailyNews/chat_titleIX020625.html
Leveled Playing Field? Title IX Opened Some Sports to Women,
Closed Others to Men
"We are in the gym everyday, six days a week up to four hours a day every day, blood sweat and tears," said Jeffrey Krok, a freshman gymnast at the University of Massachusetts.
Krok's gymnastics team — along with six other University of Massachusetts sports teams — are being eliminated because of budget cuts. Male athletes try not to point fingers in blame, but some attribute the loss of the teams on Title IX — the law designed to provide equal opportunities for athletes who are women.
Since becoming law in 1972, Title IX has led to the creation of more than 350 college teams for women's sports. During that same period, however, more than 400 men's teams have been eliminated.
The explosion of women's sports helped pave the way for professional leagues and a new generation of female superstars. "I look at my life and just how much sports has enhanced it and the opportunities I have been given because of Title IX," said women's soccer star Mia Hamm.
Maintaining a Balance
Under current government regulations, the best way schools can comply with Title IX and avoid costly lawsuits is to make sure the percentage of male and female athletes is roughly equal to the percentage of male and female students on campus.
"We kept Title IX in mind all along because we had to make sure our numbers were absolutely correct," said Bill Strickland, interim athletic director for U-Mass. "We had a Title IX consultant come in and make sure that we were OK."
But maintaining that balance is difficult, because no matter how many women's programs are added, young men still go out for sports in larger numbers. So, schools often find that the easiest way to achieve gender balance is to cut men's programs — usually low-profile sports such as wrestling, track or gymnastics. Twenty years ago, for example, 130 men's gymnastics programs existed on college campuses. Today, there are fewer than 35.
"It seems kind of trivial that they would just cut us based on numbers," said Krok.
Advocates of Title IX say school could provide opportunities for women without hurting men — if they were willing to trim the lavish budgets in high-profile sports. But U-Mass' Strickland said that schools are generally reluctant to scale back spending on sports that generate revenue and prestige.
"It's part of the 'keeping up with the Jones' mentality," Strickland said. "I don't think that anybody wants to be the first one to say 'well, I am going to hold the line here' when you know that your competition is not holding the line. It's very important to the universities. It is very important to the alumni that these high profile, very visible sports remain competitive."
Roy Johnson, coach of the U-Mass men's gymnastics team, said schools have created a two-tiered system that pits high-profile sports teams such as basketball, football and hockey against everybody else. Johnson, whose job was eliminated along with his team, said the annual budget for his nationally ranked team is $140,000.
Meanwhile, high-profile sports on campus are posting large deficits. Men's football ran a deficit of more than $2 million, men's ice hockey, $993,662 and men's basketball, $490,513, according to a report in the Boston Herald.
"It's really a battle of participation versus the arms race," Johnson said. "Do you need to continue to build facilities compared to making sure that there is plenty of opportunities for people in any sport."
Schools Spending Money Generously?
And to make sure high-profile sports like football, basketball and hockey remain competitive, schools spend generously on coaches salaries, training budgets and travel. There are many cases where colleges pay for an entire football team — players, coaches and trainers — to stay overnight in a local hotel before a home game.
Donna Lopiano, executive director of the Women's Sports Foundation, said that kind of free spending undercuts funding for all other sports.
"There is nothing to keep a university from saying 'well, I'll just give every sport a smaller piece of the pie,' but they are choosing not to do that," said Lopiano. "They are choosing to treat a few men like King, and a few women's teams, too."
U-Mass senior Ben Jacobs, a standout on the parallel bars, missed making the All-American Collegiate Team this year by mere hundredths of a point. Jacobs said he does not want special treatment; he just wants one more shot at a title.
"I would have liked to have been All-American. I was really close this year and I think that I could do it if I had one more year," said Jacobs.
Will There Be Changes?
The National Wrestling Coaches association filed a lawsuit against the federal government on behalf of a coalition of men's sports. The group says the law intended to level the playing field for women has instead created widespread discrimination against men.
The Bush administration filed a motion to dismiss the suit but there are indications that the government still may consider making changes in the law or amending the way the law is enforced.
Jessica Gavora, author of Tilting the Playing Field, a book that is highly critical of Title IX, is a close adviser to Attorney General John Ashcroft. Secretary of Education Rod Paige has publicly stated his concerns about Title IX as it is currently enforced.
President Bush — an avid sports fan — has expressed
strong support for Title IX. But during the 2000 campaign the
president also said he does not support a system of quotas that pits
one group against another.
Source: Michele Norris, abcnews.go.com/sections/wnt/DailyNews/titleIX_020624.html
Game Point for
Girls: Law That Leveled Playing Fields Turns 30
The legislation, which reaches its 30th anniversary today, made it suddenly illegal for any federally funded school to spend more on sports for boys than sports for girls.
"No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in any educational program or activity receiving federal financial assistance," the legislation said. Though its passage outlawed sex discrimination in education overall, it is mostly associated with athletics.
It was the first moment of a paradigm shift in sports, and it ended up being much more. Proponents of Title IX have called it is an empowering, positive step that gets young women in the game in high school and college athletics.
Critics have said the legislation hurts men's teams, arguing that the funding for what they believe is a "quota" of female athletes comes at the expense of male athletics.
Title IX Babies in Spotlight
Still, there is no disputing that the legislation has led to a surge in female athletics. When Title IX was born, fewer than 300,000 girls participated in high school sports. Now, 2.7 million high school girls lace up their sneakers for a variety of organized sports.
The number of female varsity athletes has shot up some 41 percent since then, with soccer seeing the biggest increase for both sexes.
Nothing epitomizes the arrival of Title IX's victory more than the 1999 Women's World Cup final, the year a women's sports championship galvanized the nation. The winning American team was composed entirely of Title IX babies, including soccer star Mia Hamm.
But professional sports are not the only playing field that Title IX has altered.
From Fields to Boardrooms
Ruth Ann Marshall, now the president of MasterCard for North America remembers pre-Title IX days at her high school, when she was sidelined simply for being a girl.
"I would practice with the boys' tennis team, but when it came to a playing a match I had to sit on the sidelines even though I was a capable player," Marshall said. "But when I got to college, I was able to play competitively on the tennis team and on the basketball team because of Title IX."
According to recent surveys, 81 percent of female executives played organized sports, compared to 61 percent of women in the general population.
"In every game there is a way to win. There is a way to score. In everything you do through out that sport is to get you to the end goal to win," Marshall said. "And in business, it's the same way."
Donna Lopiano, executive director of the Women's Sports Foundation, said the law has helped teach girls lessons that are particular to good sportsmanship.
"Sports, especially team sports, have taught many lessons to young boys for many years, and now girls are learning them too," Lopiano said. "If you lose it's OK, because you can play the next time around, and in the process, winning or losing, it teaches you to separate your performance from your self-worth."
Zigging and Zagging Through Life
Another successful female business leader agreed.
"In my first race I fell down. You get up and you do it again," said Betsy Bernard, president and CEO of AT&T Consumer. "And that has propelled me through a ski career as well as a corporate career. In corporate life now, we refer to that as zigging and zagging."
The lessons of Title IX have reached beyond sports, into boardrooms, even onto Wall Street.
It seems women, once content in low-risk savings accounts, have learned to take bigger risks. Women and Co., a financial services provider, says that investment clubs for women have increased by an astounding 500 percent since 1960.
Title IX gave girls a chance to play, and the girls took it from there. Now, girls feel entitled to it, and entitled to the right to compete and take risks.
They swing. They hit or they miss. They win or they lose. But no
matter what, since 1972, girls have learned to stay in the
game.
Source: Robin Roberts, abcnews.go.com/sections/GMA/GoodMorningAmerica/GMA020621Title_nine_roberts.html
GOOD NEWS: Since Title IX passed 30 years ago, female high
school athletic participation has increased 847%.
BAD NEWS: Male athletes still receive 1.1 million more
participation opportunities.
GOOD NEWS: 54% of our college students are female.
BAD NEWS: Female college athletes receive: 36% sports
operating dollars, 42% college athletic scholarship dollars, 32%
athletic team recruitment spending
Male athletes receive $133 million more athletic scholarship dollars
than female athletes each year!
79% of the American public supports Title IX, the law that prohibits
schools and colleges from discriminating on the basis of sex. (2000
Wall Street Journal/NBC News Poll)
Only 3 of 51 heads of state high school athletic associations are
female.
Title IX Fact:
1972 – only 1 in 27 high school girls played varsity sports
2001 – 1 in 2.5 high school girls play varsity sports
While more girls are participating in college sports than ever before, women are not sharing sports related careers;
College Athletics Jobs % female
Athletic director 16.9%
Sports information director 12.3%
Athletic trainers 27.8%
Head coach of women’s sport team 44%
Head coach of men’s sport team 2%
Title IX passed in 1972 and both men’s and women's sports participation in both high school and college has increased since then:
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Title IX is not responsible for the elimination of men’s sports. Note: Men’s sports participation has increased since Title IX passed. Sports programs are eliminated for many reasons. 2/3 of the schools who have added women’s sports to comply with Title IX did not eliminate any men’s sports. In some cases, when sports are eliminated, they are simply replaced other more popular sports. Also, the statement implies that women’s sports program have not been eliminated. Between the period 1981-1982 and 1998-1999 there were numerous such “adds and drops” of sports teams. For example:
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Source: Women's Sports Foundation,
www.dadsanddaughters.org/TitleIX%20Info.htm
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