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2: A Victory for Women's Sports
Signed
into law by President Nixon in 1972, as the women’s rights
movement gained momentum, Title IX prohibited sex discrimination
in all educational institutions receiving any federal financial
assistance. By and large, then, Title IX affects all two-
and four-year colleges, since virtually all post-secondary
schools have students who receive federal student loans
or other federally funded financial assistance. It also
applies to high schools and grade schools.
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Title
IX was "not nirvana, but it certainly was a milestone."
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The
bulk of the legislation targeted sex discrimination in university
admissions, but its application to intercollegiate athletics
is the aspect of Title IX that gets the most attention today.
"The most important impact has been opening the doors of
admission offices to girls and women," said Mary Turco,
a Dartmouth
College professor specializing in Title IX.
Dr. Shirley McCune, one of Title IX's original drafters,
added,
"Athletics is only a part of the whole issue of equity.
It’s an important part, but it’s only one part." Title IX
was "not nirvana," she said, "but it certainly was a milestone."
But while athletics is just one part of Title IX, it is
the part
that university administrators have still not mastered in
the last 30 years.
While admissions and financial aid standards have largely
erased sexism – women now make up a majority of college
undergraduates – intercollegiate athletics are not yet on
a level playing field.
To understand why, Title IX’s history is important to recount.
On May 27, 1975, three years after passage of the legislation,
the final regulations for Title IX were signed, giving colleges
three years, until 1978, to comply with its guidelines in
one of three ways.
The first – and most controversial – is "substantial proportionality,"
when sports participation rates among both men and women at
a given college mirror enrollment statistics. That is to say,
if 45 percent of students at a college are women, then 45
percent of the athletes should be as well.
The second, known as "history and continuing practice", is
satisfied when a university has a history and continuing practice
of expanding athletic programs in line with the interests
and abilities
of the underrepresented sex.
And the third, "effectively accommodating interests and abilities,"
is satisfied when a college makes solid attempts to meet the
interests and abilities of females even when there is a disproportionately
smaller number of them participating in sports when compared
to males at the school. Colleges only need to meet one of
these three "prongs" in order to be in compliance with Title
IX.
"We took the language from Title VII, which dealt with race,
and changed it for sex," McCune explained. "Then we had our
real problem, because no one knew what it meant."
In order to deal with this ignorance, McCune said five procedural
requirements were put in place to help colleges to understand
the scope of the law. Universities evaluated themselves on
the issue of gender inequities. Administrators drafted new
policies, instituted grievance procedures, and notified parents
of the college’s non-discrimination stance. And efforts were
made to train faculty in the law’s provisions and effects.
"It wasn’t until Title IX that women’s sports were even considered
legitimate," McCune said. "There’s no question that we’ve
moved tremendously in terms of improving the total life value
of women. Women can do things now that they never could have
before."
And whether or not compliance with Title IX is responsible,
an analysis of NCAA data seems to suggest McCune is right
– women have come a long way in the last three decades.
Between 1981, the first year the NCAA started recording participation
statistics, and 1999, the number of women athletes on college
campuses increased by over 126 percent. In the same period,
men’s participation in sports grew by about 24 percent, the
data shows. Today, about 5.5 percent of full-time undergraduate
women participate in intercollegiate athletics, compared with
about 1.7 percent in 1972. The number of men has fallen from
about 10.4 percent at Title IX’s passage to about 9.5 percent
today.
NEXT:
CHANGING SOCIETY'S GAME FACE >>
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