At 08:09 PM 2/22/2002 -0800, t-and-f-digest wrote.. >"Clinton era official"? Who was that, Ed?
Well maybe Ed hasn't followed this closely enough to identify the officials, but I will point out that the US Dept of Education, headed by a presidential appointment, and the US Dept of Justice, headed by the AG, have been both plaintiffs and filed friends of the court briefs in support of enforcing the Title IX provisions in this manner. DoE also has threatened to withhold funding to universities that don't comply in this manner. >As written, Title IX offered 3 methods for schools to show compliance: > >**First, they can show "proportionality" in the number of male and female >athletes. In other words, if the school had 55 percent female and 45 >percent male students, the number of athletes on all the college's teams >would have to reflect those percentages. > >**Second, the school can demonstrate it has a history of expansion designed >to accommodate women. > >**Finally, it can claim that numbers aside, the interests of its women >athletes are being met. > >Now, don't go blaiming the Clinton administration for schools picking #1. >In fact, under the Clinton Office of Civil Rights, clarifications were >offered to try to encourage more universities to take advantages of the >second and third provisions above - since in the face of lawsuits, most >institutions have simply chosen to document #1, which is the easiest, >cheapest, and most bulletproof (and counterproductive) methodology. This reflects a sloppily written law, which in turn has been interpreted by the Dept of Education with flawed regulations. Test 1 comes from the regulations, not Title IX itself, which is more vague. A more representative interpretation would be to require universities to offer opportunities in proportion to the high school athletic participation proportions so as to reflect the way that actual athletic careers occur. I personally believe that the minor men's sports should sue the universities for failing to offer performing arts scholarships in proportion to gender enrollment at the schools. My impression is that the performing arts, in particular dance, are female dominated. But under Title IX, those women should not be receiving scholarships, and the programs should in fact restrict entry to the programs to insure equal access. The performing arts are no different than athletics in their demand on intellectual and physical prowess, so they should be treated similarly by universities. Another avenue to pursue is discrimination on the physical attributes. The sports being dropped such as wrestling and track typically served a wide variety of physical sizes. A small individual can compete just as well as a large one. However, that is not true of the sports being retained, specifically football and basketball. Thus, the universities are discriminating against men of smaller size to benefit men of larger size on no other basis than the latter generate more revenues. I know there have been successful suits on job discrimination due to obesity, and the same principle could be applied here. BTW, I agree the problem is the disproportionate impact from football, with its 85 scholarships, on men's programs. But the courts and government need to be realistic about the difference in commercial appeal of football vs. any other sport. I have forwarded in a separate email an email I received a month ago from the National Wrestling Coaches Assoc executive director. Richard McCann
