Title IX unfair?

Title IX is misinterpreted or misapplied. However, if neither of the aforementioned apply, then those who drafted the legislation, those who have been responsible for its interpretation, and those who have applied and enforced it are misguided.

I firmly believe that everyone should be given equal access to an education. I draw a line, however, between education and athletics. And even though athletic scholarships no doubt make it easier for some people to go to certain schools, I do not loosely define "access" to include athletic scholarships. The slope gets too slippery and I can't stay on my feet when I proceed down that road.

Education and athletics are two different concepts and require different treatment. What may seem fair in the ordinary sense may be an anomaly when applied to another context. Everyone should have the opportunity to receive an education but not everyone should have the right to compete in athletics.

The reflection is bold; but only as bold as the truth and not bent like mirrors reflecting distorted reality.

When you say "not everyone should have the right to compete in athletics", who are you excluding?

try cutting football scholarships... title ix really isn\'t that unfair... football does not need all the money that it gets... look at all the programs that cut men\'s programs... i don\'t know but i\'m willing to bet that the football teams are taking too many scholarships from women that could use them

Flaw in my statement: I should have not chosen the use of the word "right". "Right" carries a strong meaning not applicable to athletics. No one has a "right" to compete in any athletic event. The point is that no college should be forced to provide sports for people undeserving of participation. "People undeserving of competition" includes men running 30 minutes for 5 miles and it includes Mary Jane who runs 24 minutes for 5k. It is for the college and the NCAA to decide who is deserving of participation in collegiate athletics (so long as their judgment is reasonable); the federal government has no place in this area.

What about men running 27 minutes for 5 miles, should they be excluded cause Title IX says there can't be any more space on the roster, even when the football program is I-AA?

The flaw of all of your arguments is you bitterly focus on one sport: Football. We should be talking about whether Congress has a role in dictating athletic participation and the provision of athletic opportunities by colleges.

A college may make whatever financial decision it wishes to make, regardless of whether it may be financially ill advised or not. Your bitterness should be directed at the board of trustees for your college and not in connection with this debate.

Title IX is an act passed by congress and signed by the President. The question is whether the federal government should be legislating collegiate athletics. The constitution doesn't affect our analysis.

Proceed or the truth shall be again unbending, as the silver backed glass barks in your face.

Football is very important in considering why Title IX is misapplied. First of all, football requires more scholarships than any other sport. There are far more players on a football team then, say, a cross country team; moreover, football actually earns some money (in some cases a lot) for their school. Why this is important is that there is no female equivalent for football. That means 85 or so men's scholarships, and 0 for women. Obviously, the balance is shifted substantially; this is why a lot of people say Title IX should exclude football.

Of course it would be great if a more libertarian government decided that the university, or the NCAA, has the right to administer its own program.

a woman wrote:

try cutting football scholarships... title ix really isn't that unfair... football does not need all the money that it gets... look at all the programs that cut men's programs... i don't know but i'm willing to bet that the football teams are taking too many scholarships from women that could use them

Gosh, where do I start?

First, no one NEEDS an athletic scholarship. The very concept of "athletic scholarship" is an oxymoron. Now with that being said, I will say that I had no problem accepting my athletic scholarship even though academically I didn't quite qualify for admission.

After four years, the men's and women's track program (XC, Indoor, & Outdoor)were eliminated and replaced by women's soccer.

The reality is that football is not "taking" scholarships from women. Each sport has a scholarship limit. Football for Division 1 is somewhere around 90 scholarships. Track/XC had a limit of 14 "back in the day." Many of those football scholarships are funded by donations that specifically support the football team. If there are no private sources of funding through the booster club, each team has to budget for the scholarships in their budget.

And where do you think that money comes from? Here's a hint - it's not from ticket sales to cross country meets or gymnastics.

There's a lot more to this story than meets the eye. Exempt football and men's basketball from Title IX (provided they can support themselves through ticket sales, booster club, etc) and you'll see a much more even playing field.

GO

i believe the issue is more participation rather than just scholarships. if my memory serves me, the athletic participation must be representative of the male/female ratio of the school. the problem is that colleges choose to have mammoth, mammoth squads, much bigger than NFL teams (almost 1.5 times as large) and there isn't a way to balance it -- the field hockey team just isn't that big. thus, sports head to the chopping block, starting with men's volleyball, wrestling, ice hockey (if there is no women's program), and track until the ratio is appropriate

And that's why Track/XC is targeted for Title IX more than other sports - its the only sport in major collegiate athletics that depends on walk-ons to field a "complete" team.

When my team was cut, it was a matter of equal distribution of revenue between the genders. The $244,000 that was saved from the gender-non-specific Track/XC budget was distributed to female sports, including the brand new women's soccer team.

GO

Bitterness kills me. The question is whether Congress has any business legislating financial decisions made by universities not whether Football is evil. Get a clue.The truth takes a beating, but is never distorted when the silver backed glass speaks.

BillCarr wrote:

i believe the issue is more participation rather than just scholarships. if my memory serves me, the athletic participation must be representative of the male/female ratio of the school. the problem is that colleges choose to have mammoth, mammoth squads, much bigger than NFL teams (almost 1.5 times as large) and there isn't a way to balance it -- the field hockey team just isn't that big. thus, sports head to the chopping block, starting with men's volleyball, wrestling, ice hockey (if there is no women's program), and track until the ratio is appropriate

a woman RE:

i don't know but i'm willing to bet that the football teams are taking too many scholarships from women that could use them

umm i almost positive you have to have an equal amout of scholarships for women as you do men. This means theya re taking away from the other mens sports not the womens.

example: BC gives a lot of its mens scholarship money to the football program, which is decent. In turn there pack all the womens scholarship money into cross country/Track, and they have a really good program. But if you look at the mens prgram it kind of suffers and isnt very strong.

Its the other mens programs that suffer from football getting a lot of scholorships

[quote]a woman wrote:

try cutting football scholarships... title ix really isn't that unfair... football does not need all the money that it gets... look at all the programs that cut men's programs... i don't know but i'm willing to bet that the football teams are taking too many scholarships from women that could use them

Wttbb wrote:

"People undeserving of competition" includes men running 30 minutes for 5 miles and it includes Mary Jane who runs 24 minutes for 5k.

There aren't many (any?) dumb fat ass football players who can run 24 minutes for 5k.

What's good for the goose is good for the gander.

That is totally incorrect.

Right.

That "budget" comes from tuition, University funding, and is taken AWAY from other programs, including women's and men's athletics. Look at almost any University football program and you can see all the money AND time that is donated to football from the schools. Booster clubs etc are just a backup to foster more bleeding of the University funds dry and making sure no one else and no other sport gets them.

Read up.

Try opening your eyes and it won't be that difficult.

Since football, and to a lesser extent basketball, are the primary CAUSES of the problem, giving them an exemption would not help. They already have carte blanch to do basically whatever they want.

The rear end of the Universities are wagging the rest of them.

Dunes Runner-

The one thing you said that I agree with is that the ass-end of the university is running the show. This is where the philosphical debate begins and ends. Are the schools in the business of educating students or entertaining alumni?

Do you believe that if there was no football program there would be 90 additional athletic scholarships for women?

And speaking of the tail wagging the dog, here's something from OSU that indicates that the tail not only wags the dog, but also helps feed the dog.

Quoted from osubeavers.com------------

Recent success on the football field has contributed to an increase in gifts and pledges to the OSU Foundation. Following OSU's appearance in the Fiesta Bowl, the OSU Foundation received a record $53.8 million in cash gifts and pledges.

According to Orcilia Zuniga-Forbes, vice president for University Advancement, money raised following the Fiesta Bowl wasn't directed just at athletics. She said the winning stimulated additional gifts to the university's academic pursuits and expanded the university's base of financial support. According to financial records at the OSU Foundation, in the six months following the Fiesta Bowl, the university raised twice as much money for academics as it did for athletics.

End Quoted Material-----------------

As a victim of Title IX, as well as a financial beneficiary of a strong football program as an adult, there IS a lot more than meets the eye. It just depends on where you look.

GO

beaver breath:

yes, there has been some empirical data that suggest teams that are traditional losers gain some additional donations when they win FOR A VERY SHORT TIME, then we go back to reality. This year OSU is what (0-45). Do you really think those donations will continue. Every time a university has proclaimed the football success translated into huge amounts of revenue, when a close examination takes place guess what they find. There still exists a deficit when all the factors are taken into place. How much money did OSU lose over the last decade? Think one year makes up for that expenditure?

Football IS the problem, and always will be. Over 80% of the Division I football programs LOSE money each year. And most of the people on this message board are to young to remember how Title IX and Gender Equity got started. If the athletic directors and college administrators had chosen to simply do what was ethical (rein in football) we would not have this problem now.

It is about football and always will be about football. That is why colleges are choosing to eliminate men's programs. And I happen to coach at a university that eliminated 4 men's programs.....and the bottom line was due to football and the 4 million dollar expenditure each year.

The public is sick and tired of people blaming women's sports instead of blaming the maker of the problem.

And the number of men's opportunities being lost now are just a drop in the bucket to all the women's opportunites lost from 1975 - 1999. Tell all those women who never even had a dam chance while the men had it all.

Take your unhappiness out on the football folks who run college sports.

i made a mistake in what i said. i realize that men's programs are hurt because of footballs budgets... on average it's something around 80 to 90 men on a college football team. NFL have around 60-65. this hurts other men's programs. because of title ix it seems that women are hurting men, when in fact it's the football team hurting the smaller men's programs.

Here's some interesting stats on sports at Duke.

"Men's teams accounted for 98 percent of total revenue and 43.9% of expense."

Basketball team made $9.3 million and spent $4.8 million.

Football team (yes, the 3-year losing streak football team) had $6.4 million in revenue and $6.3 million expenses. Now if Duke's horrible football team, which also has to spend much more in scholarship money than any other school (at $37,000 per scholarship, 85 scholarships), can make money, I would guess almost every Division 1 football team makes money.

Women's basketball - by far the top-grossing women's sport - made only $65 000 to compare with $3.1 million in expense. (Remember, this is the #1 ranked women's basketball team in the NCAA.)

Now let's compare men's non-football and basketball sports with women's sports.

Women's sports - basketball included - had a total revenue of $65 000, and a total expense of $8 million.

Other men's teams had a revenue of $321 000 and an expense of $1.6 million.

Now this is just pure empirical data. I'd like to hear what any of you guys will surmise from this regarding Title IX.

Typical left-wing college professor. I've had professors rant on about how evil we all are for eating meat, how evil I am for being "anti-choice" (pro-life), etc. The fact is women and men are not the same! Little boys like playing with toy trucks, little girls like playing with barbies. And a lot more men like playing sports. Just look at IMA sports numbers for proof. And it pisses me off to see men who eat, breathe and sleep their sport losing the opportunity to play it at the NCAA level, all so that some girls can play a sport that they kind of like. Oh and I would think a college prof would know how to spell damn.