http://www.thedailycamera.com/bdc/other_sports/article/0,1713,BDC_2416_2118688,00.html
By Erik Heinonen, For the Camera July 18, 2003 Goodbye intercollegiate wrestling. So long, men's tennis. Men's track and field, gymnastics, swimming — nice knowing you. Last Friday, the U.S. Department of Education issued its final decision regarding the future of Title IX, and all but sealed the fate of hundreds of non-revenue men's intercollegiate teams across the country. Title IX and its three-prong compliance test will remain the law of the land when it comes to gender equity in athletics, wrote assistant secretary for civil rights Gerald Reynolds, in a letter to the nation's colleges and high schools. While Reynolds' policy clarification emphasizes that there are three avenues of compliance for an institution to choose from, it does nothing to resolve the problems inherent in each. It states only that "the elimination of teams is a disfavored practice" and that the "Office for Civil Rights will undertake an educational campaign to help educational institutions appreciate the flexibility of the law." A 1996 policy clarification produced by the OCR made similar claims, and nothing came of them. Thus, it seems likely that the nation's schools will continue to struggle with the same set of gender-equity challenges. To satisfy the first prong of the law's compliance test, an institution's ratio of male-to-female athletes must be "substantially proportionate" to its student body ratio. At present, women constitute 56 percent of the nation's undergraduates but only 42 percent of intercollegiate athletic participants. Schools with headcount inequities are left with two options: fund new programs for women or reduce opportunities for men. One problem. Of the entire NCAA membership, Andrew Zimbalist, professor of economics at Ricks College and the author of Unpaid Professionals, estimates that only 60 athletic departments turn a net profit large enough to add women's programs. "With sound management, most of the 50 to 60 schools that have made the big-time commercial scene have sufficient resources to push forward with Title IX compliance," writes Zimbalist. "The problem is that the other 900 schools cannot internally generate the same level of resources to develop women's programs, and this implies either that the institution (or the state government behind the institution) will have to allocate more resources to athletics or cuts will have to be made to men's programs." With budget issues making compliance with the first prong's standard of proportionality unfeasible from a financial standpoint, schools must take their chances with the second or third prong of the test — no simple proposition. The latter two prongs are both vaguely worded and poorly defined in regards to the extent that a school must go to show compliance. The second prong, which requires an institution to demonstrate a "history and continuing practice of program expansion" for the underrepresented sex, does not specify an endpoint, seemingly requiring that a school continue adding more opportunities for women until achieving proportionality. The third prong, which deems an institution to be in compliance if it can prove "that the interest and abilities of the underrepresented sex have been fully and effectively accommodated" is even more vague and, as per the landmark Cohen vs. Brown University ruling, all but impossible to satisfy. In attempting to show compliance with the third prong, Brown University presented several studies of its student body, as well as surveys of prospective students. All showed levels of interest in varsity sport participation to be roughly equivalent to the school's actual participation rates. Yet, the U.S. First District Court ruled that Brown's offerings for women "did not fully accommodate" the interests of its female students. "Even it can be empirically demonstrated that, at a particular time, women have less interest in sports than do men, such evidence standing alone, cannot justify providing fewer athletic opportunities for women than men," the district court concluded. Not surprisingly, eliminating men's programs to reach proportionality has become the most expedient and financially sound choice for the majority of schools as they strive to reach Title IX compliance. A recent General Accounting Office survey found that between 1985-86 and 1996-97, more than 20,000 men's competitive opportunities were eliminated at the nation's four-year institutions. Within the last two years alone, the number of male participants at NCAA-member schools has declined by 4,000. And it will only get worse with the Department of Education's decision to leave Title IX and the three-prong test untouched. As Jessica Gavora, a senior policy advisor for the Department of Justice, pointed out in her 2002 book, "Tilting the Playing Field": "To achieve across-the-board proportionality at the nation's schools would require the addition of 59,000 more female participants, or, conversely, the elimination of 59,000 male participants." The latter, she wrote, would necessitate "cutting more than the total number of men who play basketball, wrestle, run track, play tennis, swim, do gymnastics and play water polo combined" or "eliminating every football program in the nation." Football, with its 85 scholarships and huge budgets, is, of course, the fat man sinking the boat of intercollegiate athletics at most schools. But, as long as it's the fat man who has the strength to do the paddling, the lightweights will continue to be the first ones tossed overboard. =========== "I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past." Patrick Henry _____________________________________________________________ Sign up for a 6mb FREE email from http://www.spl.at Join the buzz, chat with us! http://chat.spl.at _____________________________________________________________ Select your own custom email address for FREE! Get [EMAIL PROTECTED], No Ads, 6MB, IMAP, POP, SMTP & more! http://www.everyone.net/selectmail?campaign=tag
