Title IX Case Study

In 1974, Senator Tower proposed the “Tower Amendment”, which proposed that sports that received donations or produced gross revenue from Title IX compliances determinations should be exempted. This Amendment was denied in May 20 and in July of that same year Senator Jacob Javits submitted a new amendment making (HEW) issue regulations that provide for "reasonable provisions considering the nature of particular sports.” With that being said, the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW) was given the task of implementing Title IX. Approximately three years after Title IX was passed, regulations were passed and became effective (Thornton, 2011, p. 509).
In 1979 the Department of Civil Rights established a three-prong test for compliance
The Court stated that Title IX was “program-specific” meaning that the law would only be applied to the programs that actually received federal funds but not necessarily to the entire university or college. Most of the athletic programs are not direct recipients of federal funds because most of those funds go to other departments of the university, usually used as research grants. Grove City College v. Bell has major important in shaping the Title IX. In 1976 Grove City College received an assurance of compliance of Title IX, of course forbidding schools that receive federal funds to do not discriminate in the bases of gender, which it was understood that Grove City College was not doing so. The College was from the beginning a coeducational institution and many women were part of the staff and student body. The problem with the assurance is that it required the College to abide by every rule and the College felt as the government was asking for way too
In the lawsuit “Cohen v. Brown University,” the president and athletic director of Brown University were being charged due to discrimination against women in the grounds of intercollegiate athletics program. For many schools, men’s football program far exceeds the budget and receives many more sources than any other men’s program in most universities. The law came to existence in response to Brown University cutting off the women’s gymnastics and volleyball teams from university-funded varsity status to donor-funded varsity status, in May 1991. Simultaneously, men’s water polo and golf teams were also cut off and in consequence, their lost not only the university’s funds but all other privileges and benefits from Brown’s. “After hearing fourteen days of testimony, the district court granted plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction ordering that the women’s gymnastics and volleyball teams be reinstated to university-funded varsity status, and prohibiting Brown from eliminating or reducing the status or funding of any existing women’s intercollegiate varsity team until the case was resolved on the merits” (Thornton, 2011, p.512). Brown had initially 120 days to submit a plan to comply with Title IX, but failed in doing so and the district court modified the order to 60