Title IX – Part III How Many Casualties Has Title IX Caused?

So how many programs have been cut “because of Title IX?”

"No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance..."

—United States Code Section 20, 

There isn’t hardly a year go by that one university or another is announcing that they are cutting some men’s sports programs because of Title IX regulations.  So while Title IX has clearly been a Godsend for women’s sports, has it done more damage by causing the elimination of men’s sports programs?  It seems that would depend upon your perspective of the situation. 

The “pro” Title IX advocates will say that no programs have been cut because of Title IX since Title IX does not require that men’s programs be cut.  They claim that it’s poor budgeting on the part of the university and that athletic directors are simply using Title IX as an excuse to keep them from looking bad.  I believe that is possible in many cases but I would suspect that is not true in every case.  While Title IX may not “require” schools to cut programs, that doesn’t necessarily mean that the threat of a Title IX lawsuit was not partially to blame.

As I mentioned in my previous blog, at a number of schools where there is a disproportionate number of female enrollment, it may be unrealistic to meet the proportionality requirements of Title IX.  No matter what part of society you choose to look at, whenever quotas are established there is often a “cookie cutter” approach that says one percentage should equal another.  That is just not the best way to do things.  It may be the best we’ve come up with but that doesn’t mean there couldn’t be a better way to get the job done.

What would you think if we lined up all the students as they register and just say “OK, there’s a 50-50 split of male/female enrollment.  Therefore our athletic numbers should also be 50-50.  So we’ll just assign every other male student and every other female student to be an athlete.”

That sounds ridiculous doesn’t it?  You can’t just say that your athletic numbers are always going to be what your overall enrollment numbers are.  There are too many other variables.  There are those still saying that the girls don't have the opportunities they should have in athletics.  I disagree.  I am sure there are individual cases that still need improvement.  But I believe in most cases that the gals have the opportunities available to them.

Let’s consider some statements made on the web site www.TitleIX.info. 

• In 2006 -2007  there were 3 million girls participating in high school athletics. They made up 41% of high school athletes, even though they represent more than 49% of the high school student population.
• In 2005-2006 there were 171,000 women participating in college athletics. Women represent only 42% of college athletes, even though they represent over 50% of the college student population nationwide.

These two statements here are exactly what I’m talking about.  Just because you have a certain percentage of females enrolled in a school doesn’t mean that you are going to have the same percentage of female athletes.  Even though we don’t have a specific law, let’s assume, all embarrassment aside, that some men complained that even though men represented 48 percent enrollment at a given school, only one percent of the men wore dresses.  (I know, this sounds really stupid but it clearly shows the point I’m trying to make.)  Of course you are not going to get 48 percent of the males to wear dresses.

• Each year male athletes receive over $136  million more than female athletes in college athletic scholarships at NCAA member institutions.
• Women in Division I colleges are over 50% of the student body, but receive only 32% of athletic recruiting dollars and 37% of the total money spent on athletics.

One word covers these two statements:  FOOTBALL!  As I pointed out in my last blog, one thing that made compliance difficult is that there really isn’t a female sport that cancels out football.  Football has larger rosters, is a more popular sport in most cases, and it is going to cost more money just by its nature.  But it also brings in more money for a lot, not all, but a lot of programs, especially if you qualify for a bowl game.

• In 2008, only 43% of coaches of women's teams were women. In 1972, the number was over 90 percent.

I’m sorry, but when I read this statement I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.  This is a perfect example of getting numbers to “lie” for you to prove a point.  In 1972 I’m quite sure that women coached a higher percentage of women’s teams for two reasons primarily:  1) they may have been the force promoting the existence of the team and 2) More men were probably not interested in coaching women’s sports. 

It was a different time back then.  Dad’s bought their son’s a baseball glove or a football and bought their daughter’s Barbie dolls.  And that’s probably what most of the kids asked for, in general.  Female athletes primarily played softball, gymnastics, ran track, or participated in sports like figure skating or swimming and diving.  Oh yes, and roller derby…man I used to love watching that on TV.  Girls didn’t go out to play football, basketball, or baseball.  

It is just as biased, discriminatory, and offensive for people to say that just because a woman wants to coach a woman’s team she will be a good coach and men should not have that opportunity.  There are many men who encourage their female athletes to consider coaching.  There are some good women’s coaches out there.  But there are also some very bad female coaches.  

I believe Title IX has done its job.  I believe we should keep it around but I would like to see it modified.  As I heard one person say a few weeks ago, why can’t we simply say that if there are enough female athletes at a school to form a team for a given sport: that the opportunity is made available to them to get there?  And while there are a lot of well meaning people trying to have an impact on society, please tell the extreme activists that we don’t need to push every envelope every time you think you can get away with it.  We don’t need women in men’s locker rooms nor do we need men in women’s locker rooms.  Have a media area where both men and women reporters can have access to the athletes.  We don’t need, nor will we probably ever have exactly the same percentage of female athletes as we do male athletes.  The same goes for coaches.  

So in conclusion, here are a few facts:

There has been a reduction in men’s teams as the number of women’s teams have increased.  I do not believe that all or perhaps even the majority was directly because of Title IX but I do believe that Title IX has led to the reduction of a number of men’s programs.  I also believe, based on the information provided on Athletic Scholarships.net that the total number of men’s teams eliminated is less than what we usually here due to some teams that have been added.

As of 2001, (sorry, the most recent info found) 72% of schools added women’s programs without cutting men’s teams.  We know it can be done.

In 2010, Cal Berkeley announced it was cutting 5 teams including Men’s baseball.  This is shocking for such an elite program as a Pac-10 school.  But no mention of Title IX as a reason for these cuts was announced.  It is just a budget deal.  To put it bluntly, the economy sucks and it’s going to affect many areas of our lives, including our sports.

In 2011 there are many schools from middle school up that are cutting out sports programs as well as arts programs such as band and the like.  Our children need to have the opportunities to explore all of these areas.  So instead of looking for high profile battles that draw the media attention the best, let’s fix our whole economy, let’s balance out our budget priorities, which means we all have to be willing to compromise, and let’s provide as many opportunities as possible for all of our students. 

And let’s step back and realize that equal opportunity doesn’t always mean that numbers will be exactly equal.

Works Cited

Blosser, Shannon. Accuracy in Academia - Wrestling with Title IX. 2nd February 2005. 24th August 2011 .

Lancaster, Michael. Athletic Scholarships.net. 2001-2011. 24th August 2011 .

Let's Run.com. Lets Run. Unknown. 24th August 2011 .

TitleIX.info. Title IX Info. unknown. 24th August 2011 .