(Uwire) On June 23, 1972, Title IX of the Education Amendments was officially enacted as U.S. law. The primary author of the law, Patsy T. Mink, had the admirable goal of ending gender discrimination in high schools and colleges. Although the initiative has had many positive results, it has also unintentionally restricted many sports teams from competing at the varsity level and reaping the benefits and additional funding of varsity status.
Title IX states, “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.”
In theory, this law is both acceptable and commendable. Sexism is an ugly monster that should be quashed not only across the country, but around the world.
In practice, however, Title IX actually promotes the very discrimination it seeks to prevent. The lawmakers failed to take into account the sexes’ differing levels of interest in participating in athletics.
As a result, men, who have a higher amount of collegiate athletes than women, are the sex facing discrimination. This directly contradicts the primary goal of Title IX.
Several studies and statistics support this claim. According to “Intercollegiate Athletics: Four-Year Colleges’ Experiences Adding and Discontinuing Teams,” a study conducted by the U.S. Government Accountability Office, “the total number of male participants still significantly outnumbers the number of female participants; in 1998-99 there were 232,000 males participating in college athletics and 163,000 females.”
The disparity between male and female participants still exists today. And yet, although there are more male athletes than female athletes, there are now more teams available to women than to men. Something doesn’t add up.
Furthermore, Title IX has caused many large NCAA Division I schools such as UConn, to spend less money on non-revenue-generating men’s sports, such as wrestling, cross country, swimming and volleyball, and instead emphasize money-making sports like basketball and football.
Jung Park is the head coach of the men’s and women’s volleyball club teams here at UConn, and has been with the school for more than a decade.
“For the most part,” Park said, “UConn students and athletes have been lucky that [the UConn Division of Athletics has] been adding more women’s programs instead of cutting men’s sports programs. That’s not the case in many schools around the country.”
Park added, “Unfortunately for men’s volleyball at UConn, it is unlikely that we will become a varsity sport anytime soon, partly due to Title IX, even though it would be one of the cheapest programs to add (and would become really competitive nationally).”
As a result of Title IX, club sports teams at UConn do not have an adequate facility for practice or home games. “The men’s volleyball club has not had a home match in the past 10-plus years I’ve been involved with the team,” Park said.
Title IX is not completely negative. It has resulted in increased activity in sports for females a 2008 study by the Women’s Sports Foundation found that Title IX increased female collegiate athletic participation by an astounding 456 percent since its inception. The UConn Division of Athletics is not to blame either - they are one of the leading institutions for equality, having added three women’s varsity teams in the past five years without cutting men’s teams.
Title IX needs to be altered in a way that allows anyone who is capable of and interested in playing a varsity sport that opportunity male or female.
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