Point-Counterpoint -- Title IX

New Approaches to Economic Realities and Enforcement of Title IX

By B. David Ridpath, Ed.D.

There are several arguments on the positive and negative impacts of Title IX. While the arguments on both sides have merit, it must be made clear that the positive impact of Title IX on intercollegiate and interscholastic athletics has been overwhelmingly positive. Clearly, females have benefited from the increased access to playing sports that once were restricted to males. More than ever, females, like males, are gaining the intrinsic values of sport participation by being part of a team, acquiring leadership skills, getting along with people of different backgrounds, and solving problems. According to the National Federation of State High School Associations, last year was the 18th consecutive year the number of female participants in high school athletics increased.

Yet, under the guise of Title IX, many males, and even some females, are increasingly prevented from getting access to those benefits. For instance, at the intercollegiate level:

- Ohio University -- recently dropped three sports, including women's lacrosse in 2007
- James Madison University -- Dropped 10 sports, men's and women's in 2007
The common denominator is not Title IX, but economics and choices that schools and universities are making, and the choice is not true equality – it is continuing to feed the monsters of football and men's basketball to the detriment of other sports.

Some salient examples are:
- Increased capital expenditures in Division 1-A athletic departments and male teams are still being dropped. Amazingly, only 10 to 15 percent of the departments operate in the black (www.knightcommission.org).

- According to a 2002 report issued by the National Coalition for Women and Girls in Education, in 2001 Iowa State University dropped two male sports (baseball and men's swimming) after reporting a $1.4 million deficit. Subsequently, the university gave the men's basketball coach and head football coach raises totaling $1.6 million, despite both coaches already being on contract.

In my time affiliated with intercollegiate athletics, I have witnessed things like hotel room nights and expenses before home football and basketball games. A high six-figure expense for institutions with no empirical evidence of it whatsoever benefiting a team competitively, along with grotesque escalation in salaries, facilities, scholarship costs and rosters (some football teams pushing 130 to 150 players).

Sadly, the same trends have trickled down to the high school level. Intercollegiate and interscholastic athletics are not supposed to be professional and for only the privileged few. They are intended to augment the educational growth and maturation of the student through broad-based participation, but the current climate is far from that and it is a win-at-all-costs culture.

So, I do not argue that Title IX is the problem. It is the application of Title IX within the misplaced priorities of an economic system that benefits only the few and perceived moneymaking sports in what has become a quasi-professional farm system at the expense of other sports and lost opportunities for males, and yes – even females. Proportionality is not the enemy, nor is any other prong of the three-part test set by the Office of Civil Rights (OCR).

Clearly, we love the sports of football and men's basketball in America. They are part of the culture, but as a society we cannot continue to place escalating importance on these two sports in an educational setting. Economically, we cannot sustain it at the interscholastic level or the intercollegiate level.

As stated in many scholarly reports, we cannot continue to perpetuate a myth that successful winning programs in the sports of football and men's basketball have any long-term beneficial impact to an institution such as increased exposure, better academic outcomes and increased fund-raising outside of athletics.

Hence, we are taking away funding and support from other teams and individuals who consequently are losing out on the benefits of sport participation. This "arms race" shows no sign of abating as schools and institutions nationwide are battling each other for the elusive Holy Grail of which only a few will ever achieve.

Title IX itself should not be changed, but the application of it must be changed to save opportunities for all and not just for a privileged few. Gender equity can be enforced and opportunities can be maintained, but critical and courageous decisions must be made. While it appears that female enrollment at public institutions will exceed male enrollment for the foreseeable future at public institutions, it is clear that the arms race cannot continue to go unabated or even female Olympic sports will begin to find themselves eliminated in the name of "competitive equity" of the two most popular sports. Football and men's basketball can succeed at the same level with fewer resources; we just have to have the courage to make the tough decisions to benefit all who desire, and benefit from, sport participation.

B. David Ridpath, Ed.D., is an assistant professor of sport administration in the School of Recreation and Sport Sciences at Ohio University. Prior to arriving in Ohio in 2006, Ridpath spent two years running the graduate sports administration program at Mississippi State University. Before leaving for Mississippi State, Ridpath spent seven years at Marshall University in Huntington, West Virginia, where he served as an adjunct professor of sport management and marketing, Director of Judicial Programs and Assistant Athletic Director for Compliance and Student Services.

Title IX is a great law!

By Peg Pennepacker, CAA

Arguably, no single event has had greater impact on American women's sports than Title IX. According to the National Federation of State High School Associations, female participation has risen from fewer than 300,000 in 1972 to more than 3 million in 2006-07. During a span of three decades, this equates to approximately an 875-percent increase in the number of girls participating in high school sports.

The benefits of participation in sports have been well-documented for both sexes. Both males and females who participate in sports are less likely to use illicit drugs, to smoke, to contemplate suicide, and to drop out of school, and had better grades and fewer absences. In addition, those who participate in sports had better physical and mental health, were more socially involved in their school-community, more likely to go on to college, to stay physically active as adults, engage in contact with caring adults, and had an understanding of the life-lessons that participation in sports can teach.

How could you want to deny any child these benefits? Yet, there are those who continue to assume that girls and women are not as interested in sports, aren't as good at sports, and that ultimately, it's not important in our society to have women and girls play sports. Similar arguments have been used to preclude women from owning land, voting and attending college in the past.

This approach is disturbing that opponents of the law are using this same argument today. Fortunately, there are many in America who recognize the fallacy in these assumptions. Supporters of Title IX have seen, in the past 35 years, the power of sports to build confidence and achievement, not to mention fitness, better health and a strong sense of self.

The courts contend that Title IX was enacted in order to remedy discrimination that results from stereotyped notions of women's interests and abilities, which evolve as a function of opportunity and experience. We are living through an evolutionary process. Title IX does not hold schools responsible for society's shortcomings. Rather, Title IX requires school officials to be aggressive and proactive about ensuring that their actions have not limited participation on the basis of gender at their school.

Some may fear that if we allow girls to have equal access and opportunity to enter the male bastion of sport that there will be a huge power shift in society. Or perhaps some fear that opportunities will disappear for boys. At any rate, Title IX is an emotional law. It gnaws at the very core that men and women are different, and heaven forbid, something like Title IX could make us the same! However, that is not the point. Men and women are different, but we can all be doctors, nurses, pilots, teachers, presidents, athletes and soldiers. While I might be a lousy teacher, athlete or pilot, I sure would like the opportunity to find out!

Men and boys are not going to lose when women and girls are treated equally. Title IX is about educational leaders and decision-makers ensuring that boys and girls share the playing fields. College sports might be big business for those schools, but when it comes to interscholastic athletics and the students who participate, athletics is another part of the educational experience. Title IX's intent is to ensure that male and female athletes have equal access to all that athletics offers: competition, scholarships, coaching, fitness, health and even losing.

Gender discrimination in high school athletics should not be ignored by school districts. Implementing the programs fairly and equitably or in some cases, at all, is the challenge. School districts need first to concentrate on preparing students for the academic challenges that lay ahead, but they also must develop a long-range strategic plan to institute some of the parts of education that go beyond the textbooks.

In our country of great freedoms, it is somewhat sad that we need a law like Title IX in the first place. Young women are not asking for much, just the chance at life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Could we have seen the changes in opportunities for women and girls in athletics over the past 35 years without the passage of Title IX? Most likely not! The truth is that Title IX is not just a way to give women and girls an equal chance. It's the only way.

Peg Pennepacker, CAA, has been in public education for 25 years and a high school athletic director for 16 years. She is an advocate for Title IX at the high school level and serves as a Title IX consultant for the Pennsylvania State Athletic Directors Association as well as several school districts in southeastern Pennsylvania. She can be contacted at 570-385-4069 or ppackt9@yahoo.com.