Title Ix

As part of the Education Amendments of 1972, Title lX states that, “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.” This act has been one the most controversial and most scrutinized amendments to be passed in years and it has never been re-evaluated. It has done a lot during its years by increasing womens sports at all levels and even decreasing mens sports at mainly the collegiate level. In this paper I will discuss the ways that it has a positive and negative effects as well as how it should be re-evaluated and how social levels and demographics effect the way the cause works.

It is based upon a 3 prong system of compliance. The first prong is to make sure that the school is providing athletic opportunities that are substantially proportionate to the student enrollment. Prong two states the school must demonstrate a continual expansion of athletic opportunities for the underrepresented gender. The final prong of the test of compliance says the school must have full and effective accommodation of the interest and ability of the underrepresented gender. This test is a great way to make sure that women are getting the same amount of federal financing than the men. This test will also help to make sure the demographics and size of the school are taken into complete consideration.

The 3rd prong of the compliance test is very sketchy. The idea of being able to take a solid poll of the interest for certain sports and to be bale to have the full amount of women and men able to take part is hard to judge. I know that the school can look at the demographic area

of where most of the student hail from and use that as a judge. Certain areas of the country are drawn much more to certain sports which require funding. If say you have a division 3 school, with 5500 students, 3000 men and 2500 women. The idea that the school is going to be able to have at least 75% of those students show or give interest towards a certain sport or a certain inter mural game, is very hard to actually accomplish. The idea that also, the underrepresented gender must have the ability to play the game is also very difficult to judge. I guess if a team can not win a game all season but has double the amount of interest than spots available on the team, maybe that would or would not require equal funding. I think this prong test of compliance needs to be re-evaluated.

Another issue that I think needs to be taken into effect is football. There is no sport or club, male or female, that can equal the same amount of funding needed for a football team and even created by a football team. Some smaller division 2 and 3 schools will even have a JV and Freshman football team along with their traveling varsity program. The amount of money that division 1 football programs bring in for the school is amazing. Just the amount of men that it takes to fill up a football roster will keep prong 2 alive. As long as there is a big football program, women will need to have continual expansion of sports, or the teams already in place, which will in turn, have the loss of smaller, not as popular, men's sports being dropped. There has been over 300 men's collegiate wrestling programs dropped in the past 12 years due to Title lX and that is a lot of scholarships and educational opportunities taken away. This is all at the collegiate level, but at the high school level it is different and there are a lot more opportunities for different sports to be played and a lot less of a student body to represent.

Since its conception, Title lX has made women's sports grow 400% all around at the collegiate level. At the high school level, women's sports have grown a total of 800%, which is a monster increase and shows how much interest there is now for women's sports such as field hockey, basketball, lacrosse, and softball. These number are indicators that this