Untilting the Playing Field
http://www.nationalreview.com
October 18, 2006
The tides may be turning when it comes to gender politics on campus. For the past 30 years, Title IX has reigned supreme, its quotas for athletic participation the norm for gender “equality.” But as hundreds of students protest the most recent Title IX cuts at James Madison University, and as major publications, from Sports Illustrated to the New York Times, harshly criticize the policy, it looks as if the end of Title IX may be near.
Times have changed since Title IX’s inception in 1972. The law aimed to prevent sex discrimination in education. It covered several areas of concern, not just athletics. At that time, women, especially athletes, faced many challenges. The law was created with seemingly the best of intentions to address a legitimate need for more opportunities for female students. The law is now outdated. Women make up a majority of the undergraduate student population nationwide (on some campuses accounting for more than 60 percent of the student body). This presents a unique challenge to Title IX compliance, which calls for proportionality: The ratio of male to female athletes must match the ratio of male to female students. As the number of female undergraduates continues to climb, schools unable to attract enough female athletes to fill the quota are forced to cut men’s teams to make the numbers work.
An outrageous and recent example of this took place at James Madison University, a school where 61 percent of the student body is female. On September 29, JMU announced the largest Title IX cuts to date: seven men’s teams (wrestling, swimming, cross-country, indoor and outdoor track, archery, and gymnastics) and three women’s teams (gymnastics, archery, and fencing) to be eliminated effective July 2007. The cuts will affect 11 coaches and 144 student athletes.
The purpose of Title IX was to promote equality between the sexes. If JMU was discriminating against female athletes, perhaps the cuts would have been justified. They were not. Sports Illustrated reports that before the cuts, JMU fielded 15 women’s sports to only 13 men’s sports and a majority of its student-athletes (50.7 percent) were female. Female athletes were hardly being denied opportunities. Perhaps most shocking of all, the massive cuts were strictly voluntary and came without any pressure — not as a result of a lawsuit or even complaint. Title IX supporters have speculated that budget concerns were the real culprit and Title IX is being used as a scapegoat by partisans. But JMU Spokesman Andy Perrine confirmed in an interview with Jessica Gavora of the College Sports Council that the cuts were due to Title IX compliance (in a clear nod to proportionality, the cuts increase the proportion of female athletes to 61 percent — an exact match of the female undergraduate enrollment at the school). Meanwhile JMU athletic director Jeff Bourne told the New York Times that money was not a factor on the decision. In fact, the ten sports programs in question make up a measly $550,000 in an athletic budget of $21 million.
Students at JMU are not giving up without a fight. Students have already staged a protest with over 400 attendees and have many more activities planned in the coming months to raise awareness about their situation. Male and female athletes, adults, coaches, students, and a host of others are coming together to fight to reinstate the cut sports. Their message is clear: Enough is enough — we need Title IX reform now. The challenges facing JMU are not local to Harrisonburg, Virginia. The same issues, from increased female enrollment to the constant threat of litigation from radical women’s groups like the Women’s Sports Foundation, are relevant across the country. As the New York Times reports, most schools struggle even to meet the 50-50 split in male and female athletic participation rates that James Madison had before the cuts, let alone the 61-39 legal proportionality it reached after the cuts.
How will schools react to these challenges? If they take the lead of James Madison, Rutgers, or a long list of other schools, they will cut men’s teams. But hopefully the students of these schools will take the lead of the student activists at JMU and shout with all their might: “Save our sports!”
— Allison Kasic is director of campus programs at the Independent Women's Forum.
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