By Shannon Blosser
For more than 30 years, Title IX of the Education
Amendments has been heralded as the reason for the increase in the number of
women’s athletic programs across the country and providing opportunities for
women like Mia Hamm to compete on the college level.
While Title IX has provided more opportunities in
athletics for women, it has done the opposite for men. A federal guideline
intended to prevent discrimination among the sexes in education has done just
the opposite in college athletics. Title IX requirements have been used to cut
athletic opportunities for men, while at the same time increasing opportunities
for women.
It has all been done because of proportionality – one
aspect of a three-pronged test used by the Department of Education’s Office of
Civil Rights to determine if a school is in compliance with Title IX
regulations. The proportionality requirement states that a school’s ratio among
male and female athletes must be similar to the ratio of male and female
enrollment. For the other two prongs, a school may either demonstrate it has a
“history and continuing practice” of expanding athletic programs to women or
show that it has “fully and effectively” met the athletic interests and
abilities of women. A school only has to satisfy one of three prongs to be
considered in compliance.
The problem is, as Gerald Reynolds, assistant
secretary for civil rights, wrote in 2003 in a “Further Clarification” of the
OCR’s Title IX enforcement, the OCR let it be known it favored the “substantially
proportionate” test as the only “safe harbor” standard to meet to avoid further
OCR scrutiny.
Eric Pearson, executive director of the College Sports
Council and Mike Moyer, executive director of the National Wrestling Coaches
Association, have seen firsthand how college administrators used the
proportionality test to cut men’s teams, such as track and field and wrestling.
The College Sports Council recently filed suit against
the Government Accountability Office for what it believes were inaccuracies in
a 2001 GAO report on Title IX. The lawsuit alleges that the report did not
correctly account for decreases in men’s teams.
CAA statistics show that men’s cross country leads the
list of most dropped programs in the last 15 years at 183. Indoor track (180),
golf (178), tennis (171), rowing (132), outdoor track (126), swimming (125) and
wrestling (121) are other men’s programs that have been cut mainly because of
current Title IX enforcement, Pearson said.
“We do support Title IX,” Pearson said. “We think
there is good reason to keep Title IX. It can continue to protect women. We
want to change it so that it doesn’t harm men. Proportionality doesn’t help
women.”
Pearson said in some cases men and women athletes
train together. When a male sport is cut due to proportionality, the women’s
program that complements the cut program is left without the training
assistance.
“I’ve talked to women’s coaches and asked them what is
important to them,” Pearson said. “What they care about is fair access to
facilities and equivalent funding for their teams, travel budgets and
recruiting budgets. “… In general, especially the women’s sports that have a
male equivalent, they want to see some reasonable reform.”
Of the male sports that have been cut due to
proportionality, it is wrestling that has received the largest attention.
Pearson said that is because wrestlers and the wrestling community are the most
organized. The NWCA has sued the Department of Education over Title IX
enforcement, a case that is on appeal to the Supreme Court after lower courts
dismissed the case saying the NWCA does not have standing.
Moyer says he understands proportionality is not the
lone reason for the decline in wrestling program over the years, but it is a
large factor. Though 19 wrestling programs have been added in the past five
years, some schools will not add the sport because of large football rosters,
Moyer said.
“As long as this quota system is in place, it’s a tall
order,” Moyer said.
Marquette University, Moyer said, is the poster child
for what he believes is wrong with Title IX implementation. The wrestling
program was self-supporting for seven years, while the school would pay for
incidental costs. The program was cut because Marquette did not meet the
required quota.
“How did that decision benefit women?” Moyer asked.
“It does everything that Title IX is supposed to prevent.”
In his 2003 “Clarification,” Reynolds wrote, “OCR
hereby clarifies that nothing in Title IX requires the cutting or reduction of
teams in order to demonstrate compliance with Title IX, and that the
elimination of teams is a disfavored practice.”
For now, Pearson and Moyer said they will continue to
fight for Title IX reform, the end of the proportionality requirement, and
equal access for both genders.
“Our ultimate goal is to find a more faithful
interpretation that helps women without hurting men,” Moyer said.
Shannon Blosser is a staff writer for the John W. Pope
Center for Higher Education Policy in Chapel Hill.