[ Golden Gater Online - October 23, 1997 ]
Daniel Roberts
Montana Kaimin (U. Montana)
(U-WIRE) MISSOULA, Mont. -- In 1972, a federal law aiming to give women the same chances as men at competing in college athletics went into effect.
A quarter of a century later the law's standards are, by and large, still not being met. At colleges and universities across the country, men continue to dominate the numbers of collegiate athletics. And although women are gaining ground, watchdogs of the situation say there is still a long way to go before equality is reached.
The 1972 law, called Title IX, declared that at colleges and universities across the country, the number of men and women participating in varsity sports must be proportional to academic enrollment. In other words, if a university had a 50 percent female population, half of its athletes must also be women.
The law does make exceptions for schools that have shown historical expansion or accommodate the interests and abilities of the underrepresented sex. Because of these allowances, schools can "meet" the requirements of the law without actually attaining proportional participation, as the law originally stated.
To monitor these efforts, the Office for Civil Rights conducts regular checkups of schools across the country. But Janet Justus, Director of Education Outreach for the NCAA, said that while the OCR tends to be fairly lenient, the court system has been less sympathetic, as shown in a recent case.
Brown University Case
On April 21, the Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal of Brown University, which had been sued by a group of women students contending Brown had violated Title IX. At the time, many thought the university exemplified one of the better male-female balances in the college system.
Then athletic budget cuts forced the elimination of two men's sports and two women's sports at Brown in 1991. The university had previously sponsored 16 varsity men's sports and 16 women's sports. However, by cutting the women's sports, the suit charged that Brown was breaking the law because, even though the cuts affected 37 men and 23 women, the school was not meeting the interests of the under-represented women.
In March of 1995, a U.S. district court ruled that Brown was not in compliance with any of the OCR's three-part equality test. Eight months later, that decision was upheld by the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. While Brown lost the suit, it was not required to reinstate the sports that had been eliminated. But the case opened eyes to the fact that schools can be sued for violating Title IX.
The affects of Title IX are not limited to Ivy League schools 3,000 miles away.
One needs look no further than UM to see the changes the regulation has had. In 1993 and '94, Title IX aided the addition of two new women's sports, golf and soccer, to UM's varsity athletic program.
The additions helped boost UM's female athletic population to 42 percent in the 1995-'96 school year, compared to just 33 percent in the 1992-'93 year.
Yet despite the progress Title IX has prompted, a number of questions about its implementation have also been raised.
As the last 25 years have shown, compliance with Title IX can be a sticky issue.
In according themselves with Title IX, schools are often faced with two choices: adding women's opportunities or cutting men's. As most schools are finding out, abiding by Title IX often means both.
While the number of women participating in intercollegiate athletics increased in every NCAA Division from 1991 to 1997, the number of athletic opportunities for men has consistently fallen.
Title IX also strides toward equality in such things as recruiting budgets and program expenditures, which can make it difficult for schools with smaller athletic budgets to maintain Title IX requirements without cutting into nonrevenue men's programs, like wrestling.
Lack of enforcement has kept Title IX from making the steps its creators envisioned. Instead of making an instant impact on schools, the law has only recently begun to be applied on a large scale.
"If you have a law, get off your duff and stick with it," UM head volleyball coach Dick Scott said. "I think that the emphasis of Title IX should have been mandated (immediately). They should have put it on the books and said, 'do it, or we're cutting money now.'"
But in the end, compliance may not be just an issue of sexual politics or administrative foot dragging. Rather, many say it simply comes down to a question of money.
"I think if there weren't financial problems, everyone would comply," said Robin Selvig, UM women's basketball coach. "But just because there's a financial problem doesn't mean you shouldn't have to find a way to do what's right."
[ Golden Gater - October 23, 1997 ]