I Don’t Hate Women’s Sports, But . . .

by Neena Chaudhry, Senior Counsel 
National Women’s Law Center

Two recent pieces in school newspapers bemoaning Title IX caught my eye because of the hostility towards women and stereotypical views that they reflect. In “The Tyranny of Title IX,” Greg Yatarola states that boys and society at large are more interested in boys’ sports, and that athletic scholarships are justifiably awarded to football players because they come from families that might otherwise struggle to afford college (whereas female athletes never do). And in “Inequality Driven From Equality,” Alex Rubin generously concedes that women’s sports should exist in college but that they shouldn’t be treated equally to say, football, because they don’t generate as much money and are not as popular. With so many offensive statements to address, it’s hard to know where to begin. 

Let’s start with the authors’ ignorance of what Title IX actually requires, which is not statistical proportionality. Title IX gives schools three independent ways to show that they are providing equal participation opportunities to male and female students. Proportionality is one way and simply measures whether schools are allocating participation opportunities in a nondiscriminatory manner. The other two ways allow a school to be in compliance even if it is not providing female students with opportunities proportional to their enrollment. And evidence shows that less than one-third of schools choose to comply by meeting statistical proportionality.

As for the argument that boys are more interested in sports, that is exactly the kind of stereotype that Title IX was enacted to combat. If we bought into that notion, we wouldn’t have Title IX at all, which despite his protests, might suit Mr. Yatarola just fine. After all, he conveniently scapegoats society for his own biased views, stating that “In a perfect world, wrestlers would pay no attention to women’s tennis programs, like everyone else.” 

And then of course there’s the money defense. Even if it were true that football pays for all other sports, Title IX would still require equal treatment because it is a civil rights law that prohibits discrimination in federally funded education programs, which includes college sports programs. But the reality is that football and men’s basketball teams do not generate enough revenue to pay for themselves, let alone any other sports. A 2005 study shows that almost half of Division I-A and I-AA football programs reported annual deficits averaging about $1 million and $800,000 respectively. After excluding institutional support, the majority of Division I-A schools (60 percent) are operating in the red, with the average deficit at $4.4 million.

These authors’ main problem seems to be that they believe Title IX is forcing schools to cut men’s sports. Wrong again. Some schools have chosen to eliminate certain men’s sports, like gymnastics and wrestling, and even some women’s sports, rather than control bloated football and basketball budgets, which consume a whopping 74 percent of the average Division I-A school’s total men’s athletic operating budget. But there are other options: according to a 2001 government study, almost three-quarters of schools that added teams from 1992 to 2000 did so without discontinuing any teams.   

Not surprisingly, the authors don’t acknowledge the very real problem that Title IX’s promise for women has not yet been fulfilled. Women’s sports still lag behind men’s sports in every measurable way. For example, women in Division I colleges, while representing 53 percent of the student body, receive only 44 percent of the participation opportunities, 37 percent of the total money spent on athletics, 45 percent of the total athletic scholarship dollars, and 32 percent of recruiting dollars. Of course, these facts interfere with the authors’ goal of portraying Title IX as a zero-sum game and men as the victims. And picking on women is easier than tackling the real issues.