I’ve said it a million times in a million different ways: sport is not just about sport, it’s about learning the intangibles that will benefit its participants for the rest of their lives. Title IX allowed a whole new segment of our society to experience the joy of athletics… check out this post to learn more about the intent of Title IX and whether it accomplished its mission.
The history. I was at a conference a few years ago and learned that Title IX isn’t just a sports amendment…everything I’d heard about it was in regards to gender equity for college athletes. In fact, the law prohibits discrimination on the basis of gender in any educational institution that receives federal money…from kindergarten through college. Apparently, in the past, schools have favored men in admissions policies, recruitment strategies, and financial aid packages. That would clearly limit women’s access to education. Title IX arose in 1972 to alleviate this problem. As it turns out, fairness in athletics was a happy byproduct of a much broader law.
The myth. There are a lot of them, so I won’t talk about all of them, but I wanted to touch on a couple of them. The first is “we don’t need Title IX anymore, everything is fine.” While things are certainly better than they were before the amendment, we still have a long way to go. In terms of athletics, women get less scholarship money and fewer opportunities to compete…so we still need people to have a mandate toward equity. Second, a prevailing myth is that “women’s sports are causing men’s sports to be cut.” Schools aren’t cutting men’s sports because of girls’ athletics…they’re cutting them because that’s the choice they’ve made. Participation in men’s sports is growing. Administrators have decided to remove some sports (particularly wrestling and men’s track) to bolster financial support for the most popular sports.
Reality. Check out these numbers from the Women’s Sports Foundation and Center for Equity Research:
- Male athletes still receive 55% of college athletic scholarship dollars;
- Women’s teams receive only 38% of varsity sports operating dollars and 33% of varsity athletic team recruiting expenses.
All is not lost! Check out some of the great things that have happened since Title IX was enacted:
- In 1995, women made up 37 percent of college athletes, up from 15 percent in 1972;
- In 1996, girls made up 39 percent of high school athletes, compared to 7.5 percent in 1971;
- In 1994, women received 38 percent of medical degrees, compared with 9 percent in 1972; 43 percent of law degrees, compared with 7 percent in 1972; and 44 percent of all doctoral degrees, up from 25 percent in 1977.
I believe that athletics has made me a better person and I cannot imagine my life without sports. Title IX is important to me because I believe in the benefits of sports…and I want to make sure everyone has as level a playing field as possible to experience those intangibles.