Effects Of Title IX On Athletics
Chris Jenkins
Dr. Beichler
Writing 104
18 November 2014
Title IX’s Effects on Athletics For thousands of years human societies have functioned with various forms of social injustice and oppression. But the largest and most long lasting system of oppression is the patriarchal system. In which, women are not afforded the same economic, social, and educational opportunities as men. For example, in America today full time female workers still only make seventy-eight cents for over dollar their male coworkers make (Hill 1). However the tireless work of women’s rights advocated like Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Alice Paul has led to landmark equality legislation and real measurable strides towards greater gender equality. Because …show more content…
of their efforts along with many others the Nineteenth Amendment, which gave women the right to vote, was ratified in 1920. And the Education Amendment of 1972, which guaranteed that no one would be discriminated against based on his or her gender in any federally funded program, was passed. Title IX a section of the Education Amendment mentioned above is the most notable and most controversial part of the law. Since Title IX’s inception many scholars have praised the law for its effective promotion of female athletics and physical wellbeing. Barbara Winslow, a Women’s Studies professor at Brooklyn College, wrote an essay entitled, “The Impact of Title IX”. In her essay Winslow states that Title IX was, “…One of the great achievements of the women’s movement (Winslow 1)” as well as noting that research conducted by the New York Times showed that women who participated in athletics because of Title IX had lower obesity rates than their pre-Title IX counterparts. Not everyone agrees though with the conclusions of Winslow and people like her that Title IX has been a successful piece of legislation. George Will the widely read and popular American columnist writer for Newsweek, Fox News, and the Washington Post has been a rather outspoken opponent of Title IX. In Will’s article entitled, “A Train Wreck Called Title IX” Will describes how strange and illogical he thinks Title IX’s current implementation is as well as writing off many modern supporters of Title IX as “radical feminists”. Through my research and experience as both a high school and collegiate athlete I believe that despite Title IX’s success at bringing greater gender equality to public programs specifically interscholastic sports, Title IX has failed to remove and in some instances has actually created a large amount of inequality in the arena of intercollegiate athletics.
Before I go about showing how certain parts of Title IX and its implementation have not eliminated and/or created inequality I will first show some of the facts that supporters of Title IX’s like Barbara Winslow point to when they argue for the effectiveness and positive changes that Title IX has brought about. In a research study conducted by Dr. Robert Kaestner and Dr. Xin Xu (both university professors who study public policy and its effects on the populace) it was found that the number of high school girls who participated in sports rose six-hundred percent from 1971 (the last year before Title IX’s passing) to 1978 (the first mandated compliance year of the law), a truly remarkable increase especially in light of the change happening over the course of less than a decade. Further in Kaestner’s and Xu’s study the two found through studying the physical fitness and activity levels of a group of these women who participated in high school sports during the implementation of Title IX that the women’s physical activity levels were higher and Body Mass Index (a tool used to determines ones physical health) scores lower than women who did not participate in high school sports before the implementation of Title IX (Kaestner & Xu 53). These changes are no doubt indisputably positive ones and should be noted by both sides of the Title IX debate. The rapid and large increase of women’s interscholastic athletic participation did not end though with the implementation of Title IX in the 1970’s. A research project led by two University of Maryland Economics Professors (Kathleen Carroll and Brad Humphreys) showed that over the course of their sample years of study (1990-1996) female athletic participation in one hundred and seventy three NCAA Division I athletic programs grew (Carroll & Humphreys 375). With the results of these two studies in hand it is easy to see Title IX has been effective at increasing women’s participation in athletics and even has the supplementary bonus according to Kaestner and Xu of increasing women’s long term health as well. However, these successes and benefits did not come about without a cost.
The tradeoff to these increases in female athletic participation is a decrease in men’s intercollegiate athletic opportunities. The same study by Carroll and Humphreys that showed an increase in female athletic participation in a large number of NCAA schools also showed that during this same time period seventy three NCAA Division 1 schools decreased the number of male sports programs they offered (Carroll & Humphreys 368). While I intend to argue this reduction of men’s sports programs is not making collegiate sports more equal there are reasonable people who disagree with me. The ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union), a well respected widely recognized organization who works to protect Americans’ Constitutional and legal rights, points out that men still are offered fifty-seven thousand more athletic opportunities and one-hundred and thirty-three million dollars more of athletic scholarship money (ACLU 1). While these statistics are no doubt compelling and true I believe that closing the participation and funding gap by cutting men’s sports is contrary to the intentions of Title IX. Eric Terrazas a former intercollegiate wrestler at the University of Illinois and current wrestling coach at Wheaton College believes the way Title IX is implemented today has caused many colleges and universities to drop wrestling to meet gender “quotas” despite its popularity on campuses. Terrazzas believes wrestling’s weight class system gives people an opportunity to excel in a sport that are deemed to small for other sports. And thus eliminating a sport like wrestling in Terrazzas mind goes against the point of Title IX, which is to eliminate discrimination in sports. In order to gain a broader view than the opinions of one person and one study of why Title IX is causing this trend of less men’s programs and more women’s programs we can look to an article whose author has examined this phenomenon from a legal perspective. Victoria Langton an award winning legal writer and current attorney weighs in on this issue in a journal article in the Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment and Technology Law entitled, “Stop The Bleeding: Title IX And The Disappearance Of Men's Collegiate Athletic Teams.” In her article Langton examines the legal wording of how institutions must come into compliance with Title IX’s mandate of equal gender opportunity. She explains that there is a “three part test” established by the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW) in 1979, by which a school may see if it is in compliance with Title IX in regards to athletics. The test being as follows:
(1) Whether intercollegiate level participation opportunities for male and female students are provided in numbers substantially proportionate to their respective enrollments; or (2) Where the members of one sex have been and are underrepresented among intercollegiate athletes, whether the institution can show a history and continuing practice of program expansion which is demonstrably responsive to the developing interest and abilities of the members of that sex; or (3) Where the members of one sex are underrepresented among intercollegiate athletes, and the institution cannot show a continuing practice of program expansion such as that cited above, whether it can be demonstrated that the interests and abilities of the members of that sex have been fully and effectively accommodated by the present program (Langton191) As you can see besides part one, which allows a school to be in compliance if the proportionality of male to female athletes reflects the proportion of male to female undergraduate students, the three-part compliance test leaves the institutions with very vague and subjective means by which to assess if they are in compliance or not with Title IX. That is not to say that efforts have not been made to promote options two and three of the HEW’s test for compliance. Both the HEW and the NCAA have issued statements and offered resources attempting to encourage institutions to comply with Title IX. However, these attempts have largely been unsuccessful because of the inherent difficulties involved in trying to comply using such subjective means as measuring the interest and desire of the underrepresented gender on their campuses. Consequently, Langton argues rather than risk expensive and embarrassing Title IX lawsuits by trying to adhere to Title IX using parts two and three of the Department of HEW test of compliance a majority of institutions have decided that the more concrete proportionally test is the least risky and easiest way to comply with Title IX. The ramifications of this widespread decision to use part one of the test led to many institutions both private and public, large and small to cut men’s athletic programs in order to satisfy the proportionality test or operate in violation of the test and thus risk legal action and sanctions. With one concrete example being at Howard University, a private university in Washington D.C., where women makeup sixty-one percent of the student body but only forty-three percent of its athletes (Sommers 1). In order to meet the proportionality test Howard would have to do away with over half of its remaining male athletes. I say remaining because Howard in an attempt to come into compliance with Title IX had already cut its men’s wrestling and baseball teams (Sommers 1). I do not believe Title IX was passed into law in order to create this kind of gender inequality where men have their athletic opportunities reduced in the name of “proportionality”. Since schools appear to be reducing the number of men’s sports in order to comply with Title IX a logical question to ask is, why not instead of cutting men’s sports teams add women’s sports teams in order to meet the proportionality test? The answer I believe to the first question is that adding women’s programs instead of cutting men’s programs would increase the institutions athletic expenditures rather than decrease them. Especially at universities and colleges whose athletic programs do not generate the school revenue it makes more logical sense to reduce cost to come into compliance than it does to increase spending in order to do so. I believe this because of work done by experts like Adam Samson, a professor of Sports Management at Missouri State University, which shows that, “[of] the 225 public institutions that were included in USA TODAY’s college athletics finances database in 2012, there were only seven athletics departments that were not subsidized for the 2011 fiscal year (Samson 127)” Meaning according to Samson that over ninety-five percent of college athletic departments only break even by receiving subsidies from inside and outside their respectable colleges and/or universities. Samson shows how many schools meet upwards of seventy-five percent of their athletic departments budgets through “student fees”, essentially a sports tax on students (Samson 127). With this information in hand, and the fact that Samson’s research has found that many Division I institution’s athletic departments are running a budget deficit despite their football programs generating a profit (Samson 130), I can believe with confidence that the widespread utilization of the proportionality option of Title IX compliance is keeping schools from fulfilling Title IX’s goal of promoting greater equality in their sports programs.
If adding more women’s sports teams is not a realistic option because of the way Title IX is currently overwhelmingly being complied with, it would appear that parts two and three of the compliance test mentioned above should be rewritten and/or better clarified so that greater equality can be reached in intercollegiate sports.
The good news is numerous people are lobbying to have the law reformed to better promote actual gender equality in sports. In 2002 at the behest of lobbyists and interest groups the U.S. Department of Education established the Commission on Opportunity in Athletics in order to investigate whether or not Title IX’s wording and compliance rules should be reformed in order to better foster equality among the genders. The Commission hosted several town hall meetings in 2002 to gauge public opinion and hear the grievances of the advocates for the men’s programs that were being eliminated and the advocates for women’s programs who were not in their opinion receiving an equal share of opportunities for expansion. Unfortunately, these meetings did not lead to any tangible reforms of Title IX’s wording or implementation. The lack of action lead people like sociologist Michael A. Messner and attorney Nancy M. Solomon to team up to write a journal article entitled Social Justice and Men’s Interests: The Case of Title IX for the Journal of Sport and Social Issues, in which they examine the 2002 US Department of Education’s public town hall meetings about Title IX. In their article Messner and Solomon argue that the cutbacks of men’s programs and lack of substantial increase in women’s programs budgets and popularity is not because of lack of reform of Title IX but because the advocates for reforms ignore the fact that at many institutions of higher learning their men’s football programs particularly the Division 1 FBS (Football Bowl Subdivision) ones receives the lions share of scholarships (eighty five), athletic budget, and publicity while the other
sports programs operate on very tight budgets (Messner & Solomon 174). And often according to Messner and Solomon this extremely “football heavy” distribution of resources is the reason men’s programs must be cut and women’s programs cannot be expanded. For example, the San Diego State University football program spent $37,796 on hotel rooms and buses for nights before home games and $40,720 for shoes in one season while the men’s volleyball team who was cut due to budgetary reasons had a total yearly budget of only $150,000 (Messner and Solomon 168). These facts have led many to believe that Title IX’s current wording is not causing the continued inequality in sports but rather “big time” college football and its enormous costs (often exceeding five million dollars per year per school) are allowing gender participatory and budgetary inequality to still exist. While others argue that Messner, Solomon, and their supporters miss out on the fact that at many colleges and universities the football programs are utilized as more than just intercollegiate sports programs. Dr. Allen Meadors, the President of Central Arkansas University proclaimed, “If you think of a house, sports is kinda like the front porch… no one thinks of the front porch as the most important part of a house, obviously. The kitchen, the living quarters are the most important parts of a house. But when people drive by your house, they see your porch…(McCollum 1)” Meadors also notes that it has been football which has been a very large part of “the porch” at the universities he has been president at in the past. Meaning that large football programs serve as advertisements and outreach tools to potential students, donors (aka ticket & merchandise purchasing fans), and alumni. Meadors argument is a persuasive one and does a good job defending the large sums of money spent on college football. However, I think where Meador and people like him error is that they do not see the reality that as long as large football programs continue to receive majority shares of a school’s athletic budget their simply is not enough funds to adequately and equally provide a sufficient number of appropriately funded non-football men’s and women’s sports teams in order to achieve true gender equity in varsity athletics. The solution to this problem I believe is two fold. First I agree with the reform advocates on both sides of the Title IX issue that the way schools interpret and implement Title IX needs to be changed. However, I also agree with Messner and Solomon that schools need to adjust their athletic budgets so as to promote greater equality in athletic opportunities between men and women. I believe each schools athletic budget should be distributed in such a way that all men’s and women’s programs have sufficient funding to ensure every athlete has an opportunity to compete in a safe competitive environment. How these budgets would look would vary from school to school based on the interest of their students and level of emphasis each school chooses to place financially on athletics. But it would be a requirement for each school to show that their budgets and thus their athletic programs were actively promoting gender equality not just meeting some arbitrary and ineffective proportionality test.
In conclusion, Title IX is no doubt a landmark and historic piece of legislation that opened the doors for millions of young women to participate in athletics that had never had the opportunity to do so before its ratification. And Title IX to this day ensures the right of men and women to have equal access to any and all programs receiving federal funding. Whether or not Title IX does the above in actual practice was the issue at hand in this paper. I believe from what I have read and studied in my research that at this moment in time Title IX is not doing all that it was intended to do for equality in intercollegiate sports. In fact I believe the data and evidence suggests that in some cases Title IX’s current wording and compliance laws create a situation where in order to achieve proportional “gender equality” institutions are forced whether at their fault or nor to create an unjust environment when it comes to athletic participation. Hopefully, soon in the near future the methods of compliance reforms I have suggested will in some shape or form by implemented. Their implementation will change how gender equality is measured in college sports so that real equality can be reached not just the easily manipulated and often unjust current system of proportionality.
Dr. Beichler
Writing 104
18 November 2014
Title IX’s Effects on Athletics For thousands of years human societies have functioned with various forms of social injustice and oppression. But the largest and most long lasting system of oppression is the patriarchal system. In which, women are not afforded the same economic, social, and educational opportunities as men. For example, in America today full time female workers still only make seventy-eight cents for over dollar their male coworkers make (Hill 1). However the tireless work of women’s rights advocated like Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Alice Paul has led to landmark equality legislation and real measurable strides towards greater gender equality. Because …show more content…
of their efforts along with many others the Nineteenth Amendment, which gave women the right to vote, was ratified in 1920. And the Education Amendment of 1972, which guaranteed that no one would be discriminated against based on his or her gender in any federally funded program, was passed. Title IX a section of the Education Amendment mentioned above is the most notable and most controversial part of the law. Since Title IX’s inception many scholars have praised the law for its effective promotion of female athletics and physical wellbeing. Barbara Winslow, a Women’s Studies professor at Brooklyn College, wrote an essay entitled, “The Impact of Title IX”. In her essay Winslow states that Title IX was, “…One of the great achievements of the women’s movement (Winslow 1)” as well as noting that research conducted by the New York Times showed that women who participated in athletics because of Title IX had lower obesity rates than their pre-Title IX counterparts. Not everyone agrees though with the conclusions of Winslow and people like her that Title IX has been a successful piece of legislation. George Will the widely read and popular American columnist writer for Newsweek, Fox News, and the Washington Post has been a rather outspoken opponent of Title IX. In Will’s article entitled, “A Train Wreck Called Title IX” Will describes how strange and illogical he thinks Title IX’s current implementation is as well as writing off many modern supporters of Title IX as “radical feminists”. Through my research and experience as both a high school and collegiate athlete I believe that despite Title IX’s success at bringing greater gender equality to public programs specifically interscholastic sports, Title IX has failed to remove and in some instances has actually created a large amount of inequality in the arena of intercollegiate athletics.
Before I go about showing how certain parts of Title IX and its implementation have not eliminated and/or created inequality I will first show some of the facts that supporters of Title IX’s like Barbara Winslow point to when they argue for the effectiveness and positive changes that Title IX has brought about. In a research study conducted by Dr. Robert Kaestner and Dr. Xin Xu (both university professors who study public policy and its effects on the populace) it was found that the number of high school girls who participated in sports rose six-hundred percent from 1971 (the last year before Title IX’s passing) to 1978 (the first mandated compliance year of the law), a truly remarkable increase especially in light of the change happening over the course of less than a decade. Further in Kaestner’s and Xu’s study the two found through studying the physical fitness and activity levels of a group of these women who participated in high school sports during the implementation of Title IX that the women’s physical activity levels were higher and Body Mass Index (a tool used to determines ones physical health) scores lower than women who did not participate in high school sports before the implementation of Title IX (Kaestner & Xu 53). These changes are no doubt indisputably positive ones and should be noted by both sides of the Title IX debate. The rapid and large increase of women’s interscholastic athletic participation did not end though with the implementation of Title IX in the 1970’s. A research project led by two University of Maryland Economics Professors (Kathleen Carroll and Brad Humphreys) showed that over the course of their sample years of study (1990-1996) female athletic participation in one hundred and seventy three NCAA Division I athletic programs grew (Carroll & Humphreys 375). With the results of these two studies in hand it is easy to see Title IX has been effective at increasing women’s participation in athletics and even has the supplementary bonus according to Kaestner and Xu of increasing women’s long term health as well. However, these successes and benefits did not come about without a cost.
The tradeoff to these increases in female athletic participation is a decrease in men’s intercollegiate athletic opportunities. The same study by Carroll and Humphreys that showed an increase in female athletic participation in a large number of NCAA schools also showed that during this same time period seventy three NCAA Division 1 schools decreased the number of male sports programs they offered (Carroll & Humphreys 368). While I intend to argue this reduction of men’s sports programs is not making collegiate sports more equal there are reasonable people who disagree with me. The ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union), a well respected widely recognized organization who works to protect Americans’ Constitutional and legal rights, points out that men still are offered fifty-seven thousand more athletic opportunities and one-hundred and thirty-three million dollars more of athletic scholarship money (ACLU 1). While these statistics are no doubt compelling and true I believe that closing the participation and funding gap by cutting men’s sports is contrary to the intentions of Title IX. Eric Terrazas a former intercollegiate wrestler at the University of Illinois and current wrestling coach at Wheaton College believes the way Title IX is implemented today has caused many colleges and universities to drop wrestling to meet gender “quotas” despite its popularity on campuses. Terrazzas believes wrestling’s weight class system gives people an opportunity to excel in a sport that are deemed to small for other sports. And thus eliminating a sport like wrestling in Terrazzas mind goes against the point of Title IX, which is to eliminate discrimination in sports. In order to gain a broader view than the opinions of one person and one study of why Title IX is causing this trend of less men’s programs and more women’s programs we can look to an article whose author has examined this phenomenon from a legal perspective. Victoria Langton an award winning legal writer and current attorney weighs in on this issue in a journal article in the Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment and Technology Law entitled, “Stop The Bleeding: Title IX And The Disappearance Of Men's Collegiate Athletic Teams.” In her article Langton examines the legal wording of how institutions must come into compliance with Title IX’s mandate of equal gender opportunity. She explains that there is a “three part test” established by the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW) in 1979, by which a school may see if it is in compliance with Title IX in regards to athletics. The test being as follows:
(1) Whether intercollegiate level participation opportunities for male and female students are provided in numbers substantially proportionate to their respective enrollments; or (2) Where the members of one sex have been and are underrepresented among intercollegiate athletes, whether the institution can show a history and continuing practice of program expansion which is demonstrably responsive to the developing interest and abilities of the members of that sex; or (3) Where the members of one sex are underrepresented among intercollegiate athletes, and the institution cannot show a continuing practice of program expansion such as that cited above, whether it can be demonstrated that the interests and abilities of the members of that sex have been fully and effectively accommodated by the present program (Langton191) As you can see besides part one, which allows a school to be in compliance if the proportionality of male to female athletes reflects the proportion of male to female undergraduate students, the three-part compliance test leaves the institutions with very vague and subjective means by which to assess if they are in compliance or not with Title IX. That is not to say that efforts have not been made to promote options two and three of the HEW’s test for compliance. Both the HEW and the NCAA have issued statements and offered resources attempting to encourage institutions to comply with Title IX. However, these attempts have largely been unsuccessful because of the inherent difficulties involved in trying to comply using such subjective means as measuring the interest and desire of the underrepresented gender on their campuses. Consequently, Langton argues rather than risk expensive and embarrassing Title IX lawsuits by trying to adhere to Title IX using parts two and three of the Department of HEW test of compliance a majority of institutions have decided that the more concrete proportionally test is the least risky and easiest way to comply with Title IX. The ramifications of this widespread decision to use part one of the test led to many institutions both private and public, large and small to cut men’s athletic programs in order to satisfy the proportionality test or operate in violation of the test and thus risk legal action and sanctions. With one concrete example being at Howard University, a private university in Washington D.C., where women makeup sixty-one percent of the student body but only forty-three percent of its athletes (Sommers 1). In order to meet the proportionality test Howard would have to do away with over half of its remaining male athletes. I say remaining because Howard in an attempt to come into compliance with Title IX had already cut its men’s wrestling and baseball teams (Sommers 1). I do not believe Title IX was passed into law in order to create this kind of gender inequality where men have their athletic opportunities reduced in the name of “proportionality”. Since schools appear to be reducing the number of men’s sports in order to comply with Title IX a logical question to ask is, why not instead of cutting men’s sports teams add women’s sports teams in order to meet the proportionality test? The answer I believe to the first question is that adding women’s programs instead of cutting men’s programs would increase the institutions athletic expenditures rather than decrease them. Especially at universities and colleges whose athletic programs do not generate the school revenue it makes more logical sense to reduce cost to come into compliance than it does to increase spending in order to do so. I believe this because of work done by experts like Adam Samson, a professor of Sports Management at Missouri State University, which shows that, “[of] the 225 public institutions that were included in USA TODAY’s college athletics finances database in 2012, there were only seven athletics departments that were not subsidized for the 2011 fiscal year (Samson 127)” Meaning according to Samson that over ninety-five percent of college athletic departments only break even by receiving subsidies from inside and outside their respectable colleges and/or universities. Samson shows how many schools meet upwards of seventy-five percent of their athletic departments budgets through “student fees”, essentially a sports tax on students (Samson 127). With this information in hand, and the fact that Samson’s research has found that many Division I institution’s athletic departments are running a budget deficit despite their football programs generating a profit (Samson 130), I can believe with confidence that the widespread utilization of the proportionality option of Title IX compliance is keeping schools from fulfilling Title IX’s goal of promoting greater equality in their sports programs.
If adding more women’s sports teams is not a realistic option because of the way Title IX is currently overwhelmingly being complied with, it would appear that parts two and three of the compliance test mentioned above should be rewritten and/or better clarified so that greater equality can be reached in intercollegiate sports.
The good news is numerous people are lobbying to have the law reformed to better promote actual gender equality in sports. In 2002 at the behest of lobbyists and interest groups the U.S. Department of Education established the Commission on Opportunity in Athletics in order to investigate whether or not Title IX’s wording and compliance rules should be reformed in order to better foster equality among the genders. The Commission hosted several town hall meetings in 2002 to gauge public opinion and hear the grievances of the advocates for the men’s programs that were being eliminated and the advocates for women’s programs who were not in their opinion receiving an equal share of opportunities for expansion. Unfortunately, these meetings did not lead to any tangible reforms of Title IX’s wording or implementation. The lack of action lead people like sociologist Michael A. Messner and attorney Nancy M. Solomon to team up to write a journal article entitled Social Justice and Men’s Interests: The Case of Title IX for the Journal of Sport and Social Issues, in which they examine the 2002 US Department of Education’s public town hall meetings about Title IX. In their article Messner and Solomon argue that the cutbacks of men’s programs and lack of substantial increase in women’s programs budgets and popularity is not because of lack of reform of Title IX but because the advocates for reforms ignore the fact that at many institutions of higher learning their men’s football programs particularly the Division 1 FBS (Football Bowl Subdivision) ones receives the lions share of scholarships (eighty five), athletic budget, and publicity while the other
sports programs operate on very tight budgets (Messner & Solomon 174). And often according to Messner and Solomon this extremely “football heavy” distribution of resources is the reason men’s programs must be cut and women’s programs cannot be expanded. For example, the San Diego State University football program spent $37,796 on hotel rooms and buses for nights before home games and $40,720 for shoes in one season while the men’s volleyball team who was cut due to budgetary reasons had a total yearly budget of only $150,000 (Messner and Solomon 168). These facts have led many to believe that Title IX’s current wording is not causing the continued inequality in sports but rather “big time” college football and its enormous costs (often exceeding five million dollars per year per school) are allowing gender participatory and budgetary inequality to still exist. While others argue that Messner, Solomon, and their supporters miss out on the fact that at many colleges and universities the football programs are utilized as more than just intercollegiate sports programs. Dr. Allen Meadors, the President of Central Arkansas University proclaimed, “If you think of a house, sports is kinda like the front porch… no one thinks of the front porch as the most important part of a house, obviously. The kitchen, the living quarters are the most important parts of a house. But when people drive by your house, they see your porch…(McCollum 1)” Meadors also notes that it has been football which has been a very large part of “the porch” at the universities he has been president at in the past. Meaning that large football programs serve as advertisements and outreach tools to potential students, donors (aka ticket & merchandise purchasing fans), and alumni. Meadors argument is a persuasive one and does a good job defending the large sums of money spent on college football. However, I think where Meador and people like him error is that they do not see the reality that as long as large football programs continue to receive majority shares of a school’s athletic budget their simply is not enough funds to adequately and equally provide a sufficient number of appropriately funded non-football men’s and women’s sports teams in order to achieve true gender equity in varsity athletics. The solution to this problem I believe is two fold. First I agree with the reform advocates on both sides of the Title IX issue that the way schools interpret and implement Title IX needs to be changed. However, I also agree with Messner and Solomon that schools need to adjust their athletic budgets so as to promote greater equality in athletic opportunities between men and women. I believe each schools athletic budget should be distributed in such a way that all men’s and women’s programs have sufficient funding to ensure every athlete has an opportunity to compete in a safe competitive environment. How these budgets would look would vary from school to school based on the interest of their students and level of emphasis each school chooses to place financially on athletics. But it would be a requirement for each school to show that their budgets and thus their athletic programs were actively promoting gender equality not just meeting some arbitrary and ineffective proportionality test.
In conclusion, Title IX is no doubt a landmark and historic piece of legislation that opened the doors for millions of young women to participate in athletics that had never had the opportunity to do so before its ratification. And Title IX to this day ensures the right of men and women to have equal access to any and all programs receiving federal funding. Whether or not Title IX does the above in actual practice was the issue at hand in this paper. I believe from what I have read and studied in my research that at this moment in time Title IX is not doing all that it was intended to do for equality in intercollegiate sports. In fact I believe the data and evidence suggests that in some cases Title IX’s current wording and compliance laws create a situation where in order to achieve proportional “gender equality” institutions are forced whether at their fault or nor to create an unjust environment when it comes to athletic participation. Hopefully, soon in the near future the methods of compliance reforms I have suggested will in some shape or form by implemented. Their implementation will change how gender equality is measured in college sports so that real equality can be reached not just the easily manipulated and often unjust current system of proportionality.