Title Ix from an Economic Standpoint

On June 23, 1972, the United States Congress passed a law labeled ‘Title IX’ that states, “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.” There is no question that Title IX served justice for female athletes playing varsity level sports in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). In fact, there has been a nearly five times increase from 31, 852 intercollegiate women varsity athletes in 1971 (the year before Title IX was passed) to roughly 166, 800 in 2007. Title IX was a much needed social change for true gender equality in college sports and it is questionable why this law took such a significant amount of time to be passed, given that women were given the right to vote in 1920. It can be argued that without Title IX today, that women’s college sports could have been completely ignored all together. As college sports have become just as, if not more, popular than their corresponding professional sport counterpart, several colleges and universities nationwide find themselves making millions of dollars of revenue annually. In NCAA Division I sports, football and men’s basketball are usually the two main areas where an athletics program generate their revenue and for the most part, how athletics programs are able to break even during a year of athletics. Generally, in these Division I schools, females predominantly outnumber males in enrollment. However, per Title IX regulations, the ratio of male to female athletes must correspond to the ratio of male to female students, causing revenue generated by mostly by men’s sports to be redistributed to women’s athletics. This specific part of the law creates two effects that raise controversy to many and begs the question; does Title IX actually create gender equity in its rules on how to distribute money? Although