by Thomas Fischer
College football has long been a cherished tradition in the United States dating back to the 19th century. Presidents Ronald Reagan, Gerald Ford and Richard Nixon all played college football. Some may say that college football has over taken baseball as the national pastime because of the popularity and heritage the sport engenders. From the perspective of male college athletes Title IX is not necessarily a good thing. Many colleges in the United States since the introduction of Title IX have responded to the law and have created greater opportunity for female athletes but in many instances these changes have come at great expense to individual schools athletic programs and especially to men’s athletic programs.
Title IX is a federal law established in 1972 that prohibits sex discrimination in athletic programs participating in the NCAA, or receiving federal funds. Aside from requiring that participation of men and women be proportional to the student body, Title IX also states that scholarships, coaches and playing conditions must be comparable with each other. The basic standard for compliance arises from a three prong test performed by the Office of Civil Rights. First of all it looks for whether the ratio of female to male student-athletes match the ratio of female to male undergraduates. Secondly it determines whether or not opportunities for the underrepresented sex are continually expanding. Last of all it ascertains whether it can be demonstrated that the interests and abilities of the members of that underrepresented sex have been fully and effectively accommodated by the present program. A school does not need to meet all of these tests in order to comply with Title IX; yet with a few exceptions gender equity eludes college and university athletics.
Schools are required to offer more opportunities to female student athletes and programs such as men’s baseball and wrestling have been cut to make room in their school’s budget for women’s sports. It is not right for this to happen and there must be other ways to deal with this problem. Title IX requires that institutions of higher education provide the same athletic opportunities to female students as to male students. This is sometimes not as easy as it sounds because of a lack of interest in playing sports. In 2000 after a nine year study on college athletic programs it was found that the number of women’s crew programs increased from 12 to 129. (Reed, 2002). This shows a large increase in participation in that particular sport and there were other athletic programs that increased in numbers as well.
Over the past thirty years, more than 400 men’s athletic programs have been cut from colleges and universities across the country. There have even been schools that have cut football from their athletic programs because they did not have the financial ability to provide the funding for the sport because of having to comply with Title IX. This is not the equal treatment that was intended at the inception of Title IX. The idea was to force the schools to provide more opportunities for female students and not to limit or cut men’s programs. If men’s football were to be given an exemption from Title IX, it would go a long way to creating more equality for the student athletes across the country.
Since college football generates more money than all other college athletics combined, it is not fair to hold football to the same standards as other men’s sports and it should be treated as a separate entity when talking about gender equity in college athletics. If men’s football was not included in the rules then the remaining athletics programs could be more evenly divided. No other sport requires as many participants as football and thus to compete well football programs must be funded well. This means more scholarships for football than any other program, it also means more money is needed to run competitive football programs. Since football provides most of the operating budgets for athletic departments, why should football be held against the same standards as other programs that do not even come close to generating as much revenue?
Some advocates for Title IX promote the idea that endowments should be created for programs that are in danger of being eliminated. If a program is endowed it is funded from a source outside of the athletic department and cannot be touched by Title IX. This would be the best way to prevent the loss of smaller programs such as baseball and wrestling. There would be no loss in programs if this idea were promoted more and initiated more.
There are some critics of Title IX that even say there is a trend of schools creating athletic programs for the single purpose of complying with the law. There are instances where there is no real interest in the student population for creating programs such as women’s crew or women’s golf. Why should the athletic departments at such schools cut men’s baseball or wrestling to create sports like women’s golf and crew? Because they are being forced to comply with a law that doesn’t make sense when placing football in the equation. If football were not part of the equation then there would be no conflict about the division of sports between male and female student athletes.
The National Collegiate Athletic Association has a long tradition of being demanding of the schools within its organization and it penalizes schools for not complying with its rules and regulations. Nevertheless, when it comes to gender equity in college athletics the NCAA does not do enough to regulate the rules or enough to prevent the elimination of popular programs with a rich histories like wrestling. The NCAA would do better to assist colleges in complying with Title IX than to ignore the problems that are embedded within the collegiate athletic programs in this country. Cardiss Collins, a congresswoman from the state of Illinois said it best when she said, “It is odd that the NCAA would place a school on probation for driving an athlete to class, or providing a loan, but would have no penalty for a school that violates Title IX, a federal law.” (Chronicle, 1993)
It is possible in the future, that legislation will be passed to reflect this point of view, however in the mean time the athletic departments at colleges and universities must do a better job at budgeting their resources to create opportunities for female athletes as well as male athletes and comply with Title IX. After all it is the law and no matter what the critics or advocates say about it, it must in the final analysis be obeyed. Schools can comply with the law by cutting the fat from their programs and using their resources wisely. It will take a lot of discipline but it must be achieved because schools need to create this equality among men and women in college athletics.
Works Cited
Reed, Tom. (2002, July 5). Impact of Title IX hits home. The Beacon Journal. Retrieved on July 25, 2004 from http://www.ohio.com.
Collins, Cardiss. (1993, May 26). The Columbia World of Quotations. As quoted from the Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved on August 1, 2004 from http://www.bartleby.com.