Dropping the Ball on Title IX

I'm sure most people have heard of Title IX. It's the part of the 1972 Educational Amendment that states that schools may not deny any student participation in any activity or program on the basis of sex. The 1987 Civil Rights Restoration Act further expanded Title IX to include all the operations of an educational institution that receives federal funds – so not only does Title IX protect women's athletics, but it also prevents a University from discriminating against women in housing, admissions, financial aid or health services. This article is going to focus solely on athletics, and why I'm concerned about Title IX's future given the current political climate in the Bush White House.

Why is it so important for girls to play sports? The US Institute of Medicine compiled a series of public health reports during the 1990s and released the following findings:

1. Female athletes are less likely to smoke or use illicit drugs than their peers.

2. Female athletes are less likely to be sexually active, get STDs or become pregnant than their peers.

3. Women & girls who exercise regularly are less likely to suffer from depression and more likely to have a positive self-image than their peers.

4. Women & girls who exercise regularly are less likely to suffer from lifestyle diseases like obesity, breast cancer or osteoporosis.

Let's talk facts for a minute. Since 1972, women's participation in collegiate athletics has gone up 400 percent, and participation in high school athletics has gone up 900 percent. Prior to Title IX, only 1 in 29 high school girls participated in sports. Today, 1 out of every 2.5 high school girls participates in sports, and that number is growing every year. Before Title IX, there were virtually no college-level athletic scholarships for women. In 2000, I received an athletic scholarship from Duke University to row for their Women's Varsity Crew Team. On the surface, it looks as though we're making real progress. Alas, dear reader, trouble is brewing.

Certain underrepresented male sports – wrestling, for example – have accused Title IX of forcing schools to cut male sports in favor of female ones. Title IX doesn't force a school to do anything, it just states that athletic money must be spent equitably. If a school chooses to cut men's gymnastics because they don't want to cut into their football budget, so be it. Football and basketball spending has gotten out of control. The average Division I school spends 72% of its men's athletic budget on these two sports alone. Before you argue that football and basketball bring in the money that provides the budget for the rest of the sports at a university, think again. A 1999 study showed that 58% of Division I football programs don't bring in enough money to pay for themselves, let alone any other sport. (*coughcoughDukecoughcough*) Most athletic programs that year in Division I were running at a 3.2 million dollar deficit – because of spending excesses for basketball and football players, along the lines of getting them hotel rooms the night before home games, chartering them privates jets, and outrageous recruiting practices that already have several programs under NCAA scrutiny (University of Colorado, anyone?).

So despite accusations of foul play from "minor" men's sports, women's athletics still lag behind men's at the collegiate level. 53% of students at Division I schools are female, but women's sports only receive 43% of total scholarship dollars, 36% of athletic operating budgets, and 32% of recruiting dollars. That's not exactly equitable, is it? I'm not saying Women's Crew needs the same budget as the Men's Football team, but let me give you an example from my history. While I was at Duke, the school completed construction on a brand new 80-million-dollar football building for a team that hadn't won a single game in two years – the longest losing streak in Division I history. You could've bought 10 new top-of-the-line rowing shells for the crew team, built them a decent boathouse with indoor plumbing, replaced all the wooden oars with spiffy carbon fiber ones and gotten Dolce and Gabbana to redesign the unisuits for way less than half that amount – and the Women's Crew Team had a winning record. And Duke is a school known for its support of women's athletics. Imagine what it's like at a school that isn't.

So why am I worried?

Schools show compliance with Title IX in one of three ways: 1) They show that the percentages of male and female athletes are proportional to the percentages of males and females enrolled, 2) They show a history and continuing trend of expansion of athletic opportunities for the underrepresented sex (in this case, girls), or 3) They show that their athletics programs fully accommodates the interests of the underrepresented sex (again, for the sake of argument, girls).

This last provision is the focus of a new Department of Education memo that allows schools more freedom in determining the level of interest in women's athletics. Previously, the hoops a school had to jump through were pretty intensive – they had to get recommendations from coaches and administrators, survey high school athletics participation and participation in intramural sports for their feeder schools, and use a variety of methods to gauge interest on campus. Now, the Department of Education has come up with an Internet survey that schools can distribute to students via email that will replace all previous requirements for compliance.

Let's think about that one for a minute. What do YOU do when a random survey (a random EIGHT PAGE survey) shows up in your inbox? If you're like me, you never see it because your spam folder automatically filters that sort of thing. Surveys have a notoriously low return rate, and are relatively crude – I remember, I took Stats in college. I quote my professor, "Surveys are a poor statistical tool," end-quote. So when girls in college don't return these surveys, that's going to be seen by the university as a lack of interest and be used as justification to cut women's sports programs.

Look, 18 year olds are idiots and oftentimes don't know what their interests are, except maybe beer and other 18 year olds, usually but not limited to the opposite sex. How are girls going to know they're interested in sports if they've never been exposed to them before? Interest follows opportunity. If someone asked me when I was 18 if I was a fan of paleo-pathology, I would've looked at them blankly and probably shrugged. Funnily enough, that's what I would major in two years later – after being EXPOSED to the topic and given a chance to develop an interest. Half of the girls on the crew team were walk-ons, girls who'd played other sports in high school or girls who'd never played sports at all but were willing to give it a try – girls whose interest in crew was prompted by an opportunity to join the team. Are we really prepared to take that opportunity away?

College is a business. Schools are in it to make money, and honestly I can't really blame them. Football and basketball generate a lot of publicity for the school, and publicity ups donations, makes the Trustees happy, and ensures athletic supremacy in their conference for ever after. If given the choice between playing fair and making money, schools are going to choose making money every time. This is why we have provisions like Title IX that force Athletic Directors to play fair even when that isn't their inclination. If you weaken Title IX, you make it easy for schools to start cutting women's athletics and non-revenue sports to divert even more money to already bloated football and basketball program budgets.

All I'm saying is, if a guy can use athletic ability to pay for college, a girl should have every opportunity to do the same. Female athletes should have the same access to decent equipment, away games, facilities and amenities that male athletes have. It's only fair, and after all, isn't that what sports is about? We demand it from our athletes, let's start demanding it from our Universities and above all, the current Administration – when it comes to women's athletics, everyone needs to start playing fair.

Sources:

Christine Brennan, "Keeping Score", USA Today
Sally Jenkins, "Not for Lack of Interest", Washington Post
Women's Sports Foundation, "Her Life Depends on It"