President George W. Bush’s 15-member Commission on Opportunity in Athletics is meeting this week to consider nearly two dozen recommendations on the implementations of Title IX.
It appears less and less likely that the commission will vote to maintain the status quo for the federal law. The commission also voted that it would not include minority views, which are those that encourage the status quo. Commissioner Donna de Varona believes that the commission was stacked in favor of Division I institutions that wish to relax Title IX.
The entire point of Title IX was to include and work for minority views and interests. Now, as the law’s fate is at a crossroads that will substantially affect college athletics and college life overall, the commission entrusted to maintain equity and opportunity has lost sight of the heart and reason for the law.
The commission’s main argument for the need to change is that the law’s premise of proportionality is unfair, especially to male athletes. Numerous men’s programs, some nationally ranked and championship-winning, have been cut by athletic departments in order to gain compliance.
But that is not the intent of the law. The law does not say that men’s programs must be cut to help create opportunities for females. If an athletic department chooses that as an option, it’s a terrible solution. It’s not creative, it’s not in the spirit or intent of the law–it’s just easy. When trying to solve problems that affect hard-working, dedicated college athletes, it’s ironic that laziness seems to rule in some athletic departments.
This is one area the commission needs to focus on. Why not eliminate elimination as an option to gain compliance? Force athletic departments to think and endure some of the struggles that their alumnae had to face before and even after the law was passed.
The commission should also examine what needs to be done to change noncompliant institutions. There are still universities that have not complied with the law that was passed in 1972. Before the law is changed, shouldn’t the commission see what would happen if it were actually enforced across the board at universities?
Instead of focusing on the negative side of Title IX, the commission should also look at the positives that have grown out of a much-needed law. Women’s participation in college athletics has grown exponentially. Women’s soccer has exploded in the past decade.
While the commission isn’t focusing on these issues, it is trying to loosen the interpretation of the proportionality requirement, which states that the percentage of a school’s female athletes should reflect the percentage of women in the student body. One solution is to have a 50-50 split of male and female athletes with a leeway of five to seven percent.
“That scares me,” said Commission member Julie Foudy. “The reality is that the universities are going to go down the path of least resistance, which would be 43 percent.” Critics of Title IX may see this as a paranoid statement, but when the statement comes from experience, there’s validity.
In Sports Illustrated, legendary UCLA coach John Wooden said that the only problem with Title IX is that it didn’t happen sooner. It’s hard to legislate equality. The crime is that it even had to be legislated.
