Sometimes, people seem more eager to shout about Title IX than to understand what it is and how it operates. Strong misconceptions about college athletics have clouded understanding of what Title IX is and what it can actually do. So before one can begin a sensitive and well-informed discussion of Title IX’s policy implications, some basic facts need to be considered.
Fact Number One: Football does not “pay for” women’s sports at most of the institutions belonging to the NCAA. Most Division I-A football programs run substantial yearly deficits and cannot even pay for themselves, let alone fifty percent of a university’s athletic program.
Fact Number Two: In “Fact Number One” above, you can take out the word “Football” and insert the words “men’s basketball,” and the statement will still be true.
Fact Number Three: Nearly every college athletic program in this country is a subsidized program.
Fact Number Four: When a university cuts programs to balance its budget, athletic programs are usually among the last to be cut. The suspicion that administrators look for any excuse to cut athletic programs is without foundation. Most administrators see the energy and excitement sports programs bring to a campus as benefits too dear to lose.
It seems that not everyone is aware of these facts. Most of the popularly conceived “problems” that critics of Title IX find with the measure are based on outrageous (by which I do mean outrage-inducing) fantasy, while the more critical (and actual) problems that surround Title IX get overlooked – or do not even enter the imagination.
One of the first controversies over Title IX to emerge in higher-education circles had to do with the notion of institutional autonomy – for although schools might have agreed strongly with the policy of expanding opportunities for women in sports, many were concerned about judicial interference and felt that they alone should decide what their policies should be. Sometimes, they would discover that compliance with Title IX actually required less representation of the female population than their athletics program had already achieved and would wonder why they were not being allowed to regulate themselves.
In 1972, when Title IX was passed by Congress, opportunities for women to compete in college sports were woefully inadequate, and their programs were seriously and shamefully underfinanced in budgets weighted heavily toward men’s sports. Whether a school had long been coeducational or whether it had only recently admitted women did not make a difference. The world of college sports had to be altered dramatically to allow for women to participate on equal terms. However, when studying a policy – especially one as fraught as Title IX – one needs to look not just at the policy’s intent, but also at the means chosen to bring about the desired change. We can all accept the principles behind Title IX, but we must also examine the means that have developed in order to promote the policy.
By any measure, Title IX shifted the landscape of women’s sports in this country for the better. American women are now a dominant force in international competition. NCAA championship teams in women’s basketball and soccer now fill the headlines in sports pages and draw the crowds and revenues that follow popularity. Nearly every athletic director in the country mentions the success of women’s teams as much as men’s. Title IX was largely responsible for this shift in the culture.
