Thirty-four years after its passage, many women still don’t know the basics about Title IX.
The consequences of Title IX have been nothing short of awesome. In 1971, the year before the law was passed, just 294,000 girls played high school sports. Today that number is almost 3 million. And female college students now receive roughly 45 percent of the $1 billion in athletic scholarships awarded every year, which were virtually nonexistent for women before Title IX.
But for all its benefits, Title IX has never really gotten the appreciation it deserves. When we polled 600 WH readers in their 20s and 30s, 80 percent said team sports had helped them develop as a person — but nearly 40 percent were unfamiliar with the policy that made it possible. Well, get with the program, girls. Because despite all the positive changes it’s sparked over the past 34 years, Title IX has been under fire throughout its history from people who say that making room for girls has squeezed boys out of the picture.
Of course, these people are generally wrong. (Disclosure: I wrote this many years ago, when I was but a lowly college kid and Women’s eNews intern).
Proponents of men’s sports often argue in good faith that Title IX has led to schools cutting men’s wrestling and gymnastics teams – and that seems logical, given that resources are limited, and now that those resources have to be divided semi-equitably between men and women’s sports, men are losing out because things being made equal automatically means that they will have less than they did before.
Unfortunately, this leaves out a few important points: First, no school has ever been punished for not complying with Title IX, despite the fact that many don’t. Second, blaming the problem on women’s teams conveniently ignores the fact that at sports-centered schools, the big men’s teams eat up the majority of the athletics budget.
Smith College professor Andrew Zimbalist told the commission that the greatest decline in the number of men’s wrestling teams happened between 1982 and 1992, when there was little enforcement of Title IX. Men’s gymnastics teams also experienced large drops during this period. Zimbalist claims that football also takes more than its fair share of the athletic budget, leaving insufficient funding for other sports.
“Football does not need 85 scholarships,” Zimbalist told the commission. “Sixty would do fine.” He added the professional teams only have 45 members, plus 7 on reserve, and the average large university team has 32 “walk-ons” plus 85 scholarship players. If football scholarships were cut to 60, Zimbalist argued, the average college would save approximately $750,000 annually, enough to finance more than two wrestling teams, whose average cost is $330,000 per team.”
Zimbalist also says salaries for coaches at large universities are too high.
The National Collegiate Athletic Association “should seek a congressional antitrust exemption with regard to coaches’ salaries,” he said, adding “dozens” of men’s football and basketball coaches are paid $1 million or more. “Knock them down to $200,000 (which would put them above 99 percent of the faculty) and colleges would be able to add another three to six sports,” he told the commission.
But no one wants to ruin the boys’ fun.
And it’s important to keep in mind that Title IX isn’t just about athletics.
Even if you’re not an athlete, you can be sure that Title IX has had an impact on your life. During your school daze, it guaranteed you — and every other girl who was interested — a spot in math and science classes, even if the teacher felt you couldn’t possibly go far in the field. Title IX made it against the law for schools (elementary through graduate) to discriminate on the basis of sex under any circumstances. That meant guidance counselors couldn’t patronize you by suggesting you take home ec instead of shop, and creepy professors couldn’t get away with commenting on your nice legs.
How bad was it before Title IX? In 1971, New Haven judge John Clark Fitzgerald ruled that high school girls could not join the boys’ track team because, even though athletic competition builds character, in his opinion, “We do not need that kind of character in our girls, the women of tomorrow.” Good thing 16-year-old Michaela Hutchison didn’t meet up with this guy — she would have pinned him to the mat. This January she became the first girl to win the Alaska state wrestling championship — competing against boys. “Women have come up to me and said, ‘When I was in high school I really wanted to wrestle, but I couldn’t because I wasn’t allowed to,'” Hutchison says. “And that sucks!”
Not to mention the fact that exercise is great for you, and girls who grow up playing sports tend to be healthier, physically and mentally:
Research backs up what these women already know. Girls who shoot hoops or cartwheel their way through childhood reap lifelong benefits they’d never get from hanging out at the mall. Studies show that female athletes do better in school and are less likely to smoke cigarettes, use drugs, and get pregnant in their teens. They also have higher self-esteem and are less prone to depression, says research from the Ms. Foundation. “Sports shaped my life and helped me appreciate my body,” Emme says. “Today I have a 4-year-old daughter. She’s going to need those same sports opportunities I had to help build her self-esteem.” And aside from making a girl’s body stronger, faster, and more flexible, as little as 4 hours of weekly exercise reduces her lifetime breast cancer risk by 60 percent, according to the National Cancer Institute.
But Title IX seems to be forever in peril, especially with a government so regressive that it’s currently seeking to turn back the clock on the Voting Rights Act. And the cry, of course, is “What about the boys?”
All in all, Title IX seems pretty easy to love. A 2003 Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll found that 68 percent of the public supports it. So who doesn’t? Republican Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, for one. He, along with lobbying groups that include coaches of men’s wrestling and swimming teams (often the first sports to suffer when schools cut budgets), suggests that Title IX has made things worse for boys and men. Their main argument: Enforcing Title IX has caused schools to eliminate hundreds of boys’ teams to make room for girls, which can make school less fun for boys and lead to less interest in academics. “Sports could be an incentive for boys to stay in school and go to college,” says Eric Pearson, executive director of the College Sports Council, a national coalition of wrestling, gymnastics, golf, swimming, and track college-coaching associations.
Well, the boys – or at least more boys – would be better off if the alpha sports weren’t obsessed over. Now, don’t get me wrong: Football and basketball are great, and they bring in lots of money to the schools that focus on them. I have no problem with encouraging these programs. But if you’re going to focus 95% of your athletic resources on a single sport, don’t blame the women when you aren’t able to afford a wrestling team.
Some U.S. colleges have cut less lucrative teams (volleyball, wrestling, and the like) to spend more on football and basketball, which in turn bring in millions of dollars a year in ticket sales and broadcasting rights. In fact, “there are more athletic opportunities for boys today than when Title IX was adopted,” argues Donna Lopiano, former softball star and now CEO of the Women’s Sports Foundation. “Male athletes still get $137 million more in athletic scholarships each year and $1 billion more in sports operating budgets. Who’s losing? Not boys.”
I would say not.
Thanks to Catherine for the link.