Title IX Article in Wall Street Journal

I'd continue this conversation with you, but for whatever reason, today you woke up and decided to be a prick in your arguments towards me. I'm sure I could never hang with your superior intellect, but perhaps you should apply that intellect to reading comprehension as well. I've said repeatedly that my interest in this debate extends to soccer, and specifically Division 1 soccer, and how that is being affected by Title IX.

I've also said that I don't solely blame Title IX, but also the poor application of it by college admins. I think Title IX is dated legislation that needs to be changed, and I stand by that. I also think that College Football is killing Men's Soccer, and other less popular Men's Sports, as much as or more than Title IX and Athletic Directors combined. If that isn't openminded enough for you, deal with it.

In general, it would not bother me one bit if athletics were completely segmented from university life, as they are in much of the world. My attendance in a Spanish University was not one bit less of an experience because I didn't have a football team to cheer for on Saturday morning. That might be the best way yet to solve this never-ending debate.

 

Hmmmm, I didn't propose my solution to world hunger here, either. I was dealing with specifics, Andy.

And I have to laugh at your baseless assumption that girls only constitute 40% of high school athletes because they are being held back. Do you have anything that backs that assumption up? Or in your mind do you envision a bevy of unfortunate girls who want to play sports in high school but cannot because there are no programs available? Again, any research or analysis that you could provide to back this assumption up, especially as participation in girl's athletics in high school rose 40% in the 90's (SGMA), would be useful.

 

Then why are men scoring higher in the SATs than women??

And how exactly has the USMNT sufffered, by reaching the quarterfinals??

 

Fair enough.

But your argument separated out soccer only, as if there's a certain number of soccer (only) schollys out there, and men and women have to fight over them.

That is wrong.

There are a certain number of athletic schollys for ALL SPORTS, and everyone is fighting for them.

When you approach this problem correctly, you'll see that it's not the half dozen or dozen schollys that the women's soccer team gives out, but the 85 the football team gives out.

To re-use my election analogy...we all agree that it came down to Florida, right? I'd sound pretty stupid if I tried to argue that the Supreme Court erred because Gore won a particular Florida county.That's irrelevant. What matters is the Florida vote as a whole. That one county (just like the one sport, soccer) makes up a part of the whole picture. But in this instance, the one part of the picture has NO IMPORTANCE to settling the key question.

Who won the State of Florida? How are athletic scholarships divided among the student body? Pinellas County doesn't matter by itself, it only matters as it impacts the overall Florida vote. Soccer schollys don't matter by themselves, they only matter as they impact the overall count.

 

Your "support" of this totally contradicts everything you have said to this point.

And tying adult male illiteracy to the success of the MNT makes your claim that you had a better look at the handball on the line from the stands than anyone on the field did look like the Theory of Relativity.

 

Bingo.

The school decides how many schollys to give out and who gets them, not Tom's army of women. Blame the ADs and college presidents, guys, either as much or more than the Title IX supporters.

Welcome, Mr. Segroves.

 

What about fat people? We know that certain people, a large number, are genetically predisposed towards obesity. These individuals have few opportunities. It seems only fair to have a fat track team, a fat basketball team, and a fat swimming team.

Of course, we shouldn't forget the millions of women dying to play college rugby, football, and wrestling. I don't know if there are millions, but I'm sure AndyMead would consider it a fact.

 

Are you saying it was wrong to enfore the law??? Interesting view from a lawyer.

Thomas, why are you pitting men's and women's soccer against one another, when it's men's schollys and women's schollys that determine Title IX compliance?

 

Thanks for making yourself look stupid, I was tired of it:

Donna Lopiano
It is true that schools have dropped 171 men's wrestling teams over the last 20 years. But 135 men's soccer and 86 men's baseball teams have been added ...

 

Oh, good. We're at the point where Tom misrepresents links that he find. This is my turn to give the whole context of his inaccuracies. I LOVE this part.

Sports ranks high because it is so dominant an interest among men under forty. While more women do sports these days, it still does not show up in their attentiveness to sports news. In fact, women under thirty are not notably more interested in sports pages and sportscasts than women sixty and older -- a finding that may say more about the coverage than about their interest in sports.

 

Again you bring back the wrong info (well maybe a typo mistaking 3 for 2) but you also neglect to add his possible reason for this. Not lack on interest in sports but lack of interest in sports journalism possibly caused by poor journalism.

Sports ranks high because it is so dominant an interest among men under forty. While more women do sports these days, it still does not show up in their attentiveness to sports news. In fact, women under thirty are not notably more interested in sports pages and sportscasts than women sixty and older -- a finding that may say more about the coverage than about their interest in sports.

 

No we're talking sense! Let's just get rid of college sports all together.

We can keep the football and basketball teams as for-profit businesses. The players won't actually have to be college students, but they should attend a lecture on PE or basketweaving once a week.

 

Damn you typed faster than me!!!

 

Thanks for the lesson on Title IX, superdave. Jeez, and all this time I was so confused.

Your arrogance in this argument is almost unbearable. When I approach this problem "correctly?" How about I continue to approach this problem from a different point of view than your own, talk about the issue without levying personal insults, learn more about what other people think on the topic of Title IX while I focus on the part of the discussion that interests me, and enjoy my time on Big Soccer?

Thanks for the invitation to see everything as you do, but I'd rather not.

 

Nutmeg,
You raise good points. Below is a quote from the 1st Circuit in the Brown Univ. case that represents the law as it relates to your question. Admittedly it is not a study. Essentially, the court is saying that Title IX's very existence is based on the premise you question-- that opportunities to date have been unequal.

"Thus, there exists the danger that, rather than providing a true measure of women's interest in sports, statistical evidence purporting to reflect women's interest instead provides only a measure of the very discrimination that is and has been the basis for women's lack of opportunity to participate in sports."

So, the appellat court's opinion is there for you to agree or disagree with, but in the eyes of the law, yes, there is a vision of a bevy of unfortunate girls unable to participate.

 

You're on your own now. Gotta go to a meeting.

 

Are fat people mentioned in Title IX?

If so, you have a point.

If not, you're a troll.

 

Actually, I partly agree with that court's findings. PARTLY. I think there are some girls who never played sports, or who do not play sports now, because opportunities didn't or don't exist.

I also happen to believe in supply and demand, and I believe that the supply of opportunities for women and girls to participate in sports has increased concurrently with the demand.

Is it perfect? No. Will government legislation make it perfect? Hell no.

And will quotas make everything in life fair and balanced for everybody?

Take a frickin' look around.

 

I attended the Title IX hearings in Atlanta Tuesday and Wednesday and there were plenty of emotional, almost tearful pleas on both sides. The federal commission appointed by the department of education is going to have a mighty tough job sorting through the possibilities.

I was talking to someone with knowledge of LSU's compliance plan for Title IX who said that school -- where Danielle Fotopoulos' husband is the women's soccer coach -- could easily start a men's team. They won a national club title a few years ago, have always been one of the best in the country, and had 75 guys show up to play last year.

This person told me that a men's team could go varsity and not get LSU out of compliance, but it won't be done because it would make the numbers go bad.

This is a person who testified before the commission that the 3-prong test should stand as is, but is bothered that the only information on Title IX compliance that is released publicly by the federal government is entirely numbers-related. The Equity in Athletics Disclosure Act is all about numbers, and that's all anybody in the general public has to go on to see how schools are complying. There's no correlated information on whether schools meet one of the other two tests, which LSU apparently has. And so do many other schools, I would imagine, but their ADs and presidents are terrified of a lawsuit so they push on for the sake of the numbers.

There's clearly a demonstrated interest on the part of male soccer players at LSU -- and I understand at a number of other SEC schools -- to go varsity. But the bad P.R. that would be generated because it would throw the numbers out of proportion makes it highly unlikely that will happen. Thus, male opportunities are being denied. They just happen to be the overrrepresented sex, in the parlance of Title IX wonks.

I don't think the addition of a lot of men's soccer programs at the D I college level would make U.S. men's soccer exponentially better. The choices made by Donovan, Beasley, et al, to turn pro out of high school and into a professional environment have been the best options for rapid development. The fiscal constraints on MLS to field reserve and youth teams is a big drawback, but not as much as the limited college schedules and practice time, per NCAA mandates.

That's where Thomas Flannigan is wrong, in my opinion. Frankly, I think the importance of Title IX in regards to the U.S. women's team was overblown. The reason Mia Hamm, Kristine Lilly and Julie Foudy made the squad as teenagers -- before they played high school and college soccer -- was because of outstanding elite youth programs that have nothing to do with that law. They could travel and practice with few limits, and played only against the best competition, not kids just looking for a recreational outlet.

As a woman too old to benefit from the enforcement of Title IX, I'm encouraged by what girls and young women now have at their disposal. But it is also very clear that some of their male counterparts are being squeezed out in the process.

I wouldn't be surprised if the commission did make some significant recommendations -- retracting the 1996 declaration of proportionality as a "safe harbor" and coming up with a new definition of substantianate proportionalty not tied to enrollment figures. And perhaps a more objective way to measure interest, and how to use that data to fall into compliance.

 

Fair enough, but let me again refer to the Brown court to address this point. The First Circuit took notable offense at the university's effort to call Title IX a quota or affirmative action law.

"Brown's talismanic incantation of "affirmative action" has no legal application to this case and is not helpful to Brown's cause. While "affirmative action" may have different connotations as a matter of politics, as a matter of law, its meaning is more circumscribed. True affirmative action cases have historically involved a voluntary racial minority membership as a remedy to cease racially discriminatory admissions practices by means of specific group-based preferences or numerical goals, and a specific timetable for achieving those goals.

Title IX is not an affirmative action statute; it is an anti-discrimination statute, modeled explicitly after another anti-discrimination statute, Title VI. No aspect of the Title IX regime at issue in this case -- inclusive of the statute, the relevant regulation, and the pertinent agency documents -- mandates gender-based preferences or quotas, or specific timetables for implementing numerical goals."

Again, you're free to agree or disagree, but the First Circuit believed the law is clear that Title IX, and its supporting regulations, do not require quotas.