Title IX still successful law

Last week, I outlined Nevada's senators' opinions on many issues critical to our state and nation.

Since I strongly believe in one of those issues, Title IX, I decided to dedicate this week's column to further exploration of the law.

Many people -- myself included until recently -- do not fully understand Title IX. For starters, Title IX was established in 1972 to ensure "No person in the United States on the basis of sex, can be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance."

This most commonly refers to the gender equality of college athletics, although it applies to all levels of federally funded sports. It is further interpreted as college-sponsored sports being "substantially proportionate" to each gender's enrollment.

This is where many Title IX opponents get bogged down. The common argument is that since many less-popular men's sports, such as wrestling and gymnastics, are being cut, Title IX is an unfair law based on quotas.

But what most people don't realize is that:

--This argument has nothing to do with Title IX.

-- The law provides schools two additional ways to comply.

The school can prove either that it is taking measures to expand opportunities to the underrepresented gender, or that it already accommodates the existing athletic interests and abilities of the other gender.

It turns out that it is relatively easy for a college to prove it is complying with Title IX. Between 1994 and 1998, 74 cases were reviewed by the Department of Education. Only 21 of these schools were actually complying under the so-called "substantially proportionate quota" option. The remaining 53 schools complied in the other two ways, confirming that Title IX is not only a quota system.

Nonetheless, the Bush administration feels it necessary to possibly revise or eliminate this crucial law.

Following a lawsuit filed by Michael Moyer, executive director of the National Wrestling Coaches Association in June, the current administration formed the 15-member Commission of Opportunity in Athletics.

Since this law is 30 years old, it is important to reexamine it and make necessary changes. But with this case, there aren't many changes that need to be made.

It has been and still is a successful law. Just take this statistic for example: the number of women participating in high school sports has risen from 1 in 27 in 1972 to 1 in 2.5 today.

Recently, good news came for Title IX supporters.

Education Secretary Rod Paige said his department would only make changes with a unanimous vote from the commission. Since it is nearly impossible for the divided commission to come up with a revision that all agree upon, it looks like Title IX is here to stay for the time being.

But here's a little food for thought for Mr. Moyer and his fellow wrestling coaches. Julie Foudy, president of the Women's Sports Foundation and captain of the U.S. national women's soccer team, clearly explained the situation.

In her words, "People familiar with the law know that Title IX doesn't make athletic departments cut men's sports. It lets them allocate funds as they see fit. A lot of schools decide that it's easier to cut wrestling than to reexamine their budgets. That's not Title IX. That's an athletic department saying, Here are our priorities."

For a change, maybe it's time to point a finger away from the national government and place the blame instead on the schools that cut these programs in the first place.