Sporting Equality by Rita J. Simon

Author:Rita J. Simon [Simon, Rita J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Women's Studies, Political Science, Public Policy, General, Discrimination & Race Relations, Gender Studies, Sports & Recreation
ISBN: 9781412834995
Google: oTrlJlPIvogC
Publisher: Transaction Publishers
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

8

A Comment on the Report of the Commission to Review Title IX Enforcement in Athletics

Earl C. Dudley Jr. and George Rutherglen

The report of the Commission appointed by the Secretary of Education to study the future of Title IX tries, quite understandably, to walk a middle path. It recognizes the enormous contribution that Title IX—and Title IX enforcement modes—have made to the growth of women’s sports and, hence, to the physical and psychological well-being of women in our society. It urges continued vigorous implementation of the statutory mandate of nondiscrimination. At the same time, it acknowledges that progress in women’s sports has, to some degree, come at the price of support for men’s “minor,” “non-revenue,” or—in the terminology in vogue today—”Olympic” sports. And it encourages regulators, educators, and athletics administrators to seek new ways to measure compliance with the legislative directive.

We have argued in another place that the exclusive emphasis of the Office for Civil Rights on parity between the ratio of men and women in a school’s population and the gender breakdown of participation opportunities in intercollegiate athletics is flawed.1 In our view, it fails to define the market properly because it takes no account of the relative athletic interests and strengths of the students in a given population, and it ignores the statute’s explicit ban on the use of exclusive statistical measures. So we find little that is in the report with which to disagree.

Where the report comes up short is in its failure to tackle head-on the basic resource allocation dilemma of college sports. Succinctly stated, the dilemma is that overall revenues for college athletics are leveling off, if not falling, while expenditures for existing programs are rising. It will not be possible—in the near term, at least—to continue to expand participation opportunities for women by adding new sports without corresponding cuts in men’s sports. There are only so many dollars to go around, and at many if not most schools today, every dollar added to women’s programs must come from a corresponding reduction in expenditures for existing men’s programs. The problem is most severe at state institutions, the majority of which operate under laws requiring that athletic programs be economically self-sustaining. Private colleges and universities, which are not so constrained, may choose to allocate as many resources to athletics as they deem advisable.

Today, most public Division I athletics programs are suffering significant economic strains. Television, the cash cow that has sustained major college athletics for decades, shows signs of weariness. The airwaves are simply clogged with football and basketball broadcasting, and there is little prospect that revenues will continue to grow at the spectacular rate that has marked the last several decades. Football, by far the largest revenue producer among college sports, is struggling to hold its own, yet it remains the centerpiece of funding for most athletic programs. Hence, it is not only untouchable in terms of emphasis and money, but its expenditure needs constantly expand through what the Commission rightly calls the “arms race” of ever spiffier facilities and ever higher coaches’ salaries.

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