Title IX is a law that requires, among other things, proportionally equal funding to men and women’s college sports. At face value, this law sounds like a great idea for women and for college sports. You’d think opposition to Title IX would be hard to find. When many college sports like football and basketball generate millions of dollars with players who use college as a springboard to get to the pros it would be hard to disagree with the concept of throwing a few bucks to the ladies. But it’s not.

For some, Title IX is at its best a dictation of resource spending to guarantee fair access to sports to half the population who tend to be denied athletic opportunities. Others says its an idiotic law that deprives deserving male athletes, specifically minorities. Or, is it a righteous civil liberty that should be honored at all costs? Well, which one is it? You know, I’m not sure.

Sports were integral to me growing up. Seeing Gloria Steinem speak when I was ten, in addition to a Nike poster that lingered in my bedroom for years about letting girls play sports, I can’t deny my leaning. A law that codifies the concept of fair and equal access to athletic opportunities seems pretty legit to me. Title IX of the Civil Rights Act’s contribution to women’s athletics in the last 30 plus years has been significant.

According to the Women’s Sports Foundation, females have 1.3 million fewer high school and 56,110 fewer college sports participation opportunities than males and receive $148 million less in athletic scholarship funds each year. Women’s sports accounts for only 8% of all print and television sports media coverage (just exceeding horses, dogs and fishing). Why? Well according the Yahoo Answers, it’s because women’s sports suck and the outfits aren’t sexy enough (except tennis and volleyball). I raise this stat because generally only popular sports get funding and support; hence the need for gender parity collegiate athletic spending.

But many opponents see Title IX as an affirmative action program that robs deserving male athletes. Somewhat ironically, the argument is that where affirmative action favors women, it hurts other minorities, like black male athletes, in greater proportions. The growing gender disparity between male and female enrollment in college, most prominent among the black population, could be remedied by offering more sports opportunities to men. An oft cited example of Title IX’s irrationality was Howard University’s, a Historically Black College, addition of women’s bowling at the expense of the men’s baseball and wrestling teams. As a former coach at Howard University put it, “The impact of Title IX’s proportionality standard has been disastrous because . . . far more males than females are seeking to take part in athletics.” When colleges need to arbitrarily create sports teams and cut more popular ones to avoid a lawsuit from rabid women’s groups, something is whack.

Still I can’t help but throw (and probably miss) something in that argument’s face. Far more males than females are interested in sports because they’ve had more opportunities and resources to be engaged in sports throughout their education. The older you get the fewer opportunities there are for girls to play sports, less women can participate in competitive athletics, making women’s professional sports a smaller industry than it could be. Coming full circle, there are fewer famous female athlete role models for young girls, who then decide to be stupid bimbos like Miley Cyrus. Basically, creating more opportunities for women in sports can only lead to more women participating in sports. Hopefully this doesn’t come at the cost of deserving men’s teams, because denying buff young athletes their skin tight baseball uniforms doesn’t just hurt them, its hurts all of us.

POSTED BY Bloggin' with Robin IN Athletics and Admissions, College Baseball, Gender and Sports, Race and Sports, Uncategorized

06.18.09

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