Unwinding Madness by Gurney Gerald; Lopiano Donna A.; Zimbalist Andrew

Author:Gurney, Gerald; Lopiano, Donna A.; Zimbalist, Andrew
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Brookings Institution Press

It is because of this three-part test that an observer cannot look at an athletic program’s simple count of male and female participants and determine whether the Title IX standard has been met. While the first option, commonly referred to as the Prong One proportionality standard, is the safest harbor, too many schools have not embraced this standard. Few schools are able to rely on option two because it is very difficult to show a history of “continuing expansion” of opportunities for the underrepresented sex over the forty-plus years since Title IX passed without reaching the proportionality safe harbor. Option three is a different story because “fully and effectively accommodating” the interests and abilities of the underrepresented sex has several loopholes. In making this determination, the OCR, according to a policy guidance letter from the Department of Education, “will consider whether there is (a) unmet interest in a particular sport; (b) sufficient ability to sustain a team in the sport; and (c) a reasonable expectation of competition for the team.”10 If all three conditions are present, the OCR will find that an institution has not fully and effectively accommodated the interests and abilities of the underrepresented sex.

More than 3.2 million girls participated in interscholastic athletics at the high school level in 2014–15. While this is a large number, it is smaller than the 3.6 million male high school athletes in 1972. In 2014–15, there were 4.5 million male high school athletes.11 While girls constitute 49 percent of all high school students, they receive only 42 percent of all participation opportunities, a 1.1 million participation gap under the proportionality provision of Title IX. High schools are simply not adding new girls’ sports or expanding opportunities by adding junior varsity and freshman opportunities for existing sports. This is a function of administrative choice and a lack of financial resources, neither of which is an acceptable excuse under Title IX. It is not because of a lack of interest: hundreds of thousands of additional females are competing in open amateur and Olympic sports that are not yet commonly offered at the high school or college level, such as wrestling, rugby, synchronized swimming, bowling, and water polo. The number of girls in the prospective athlete population is more than sufficient to fill the small number of intercollegiate athletic opportunities offered at the college level—212,000 NCAA athletes in 2014–1512 and approximately 40,000–50,000 sponsored by the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA), the National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA), and several other small collegiate sports organizations. The authors, who have been heavily involved in collegiate sports for the last forty-five years, are not aware of a college or university that has added a new women’s sport, hired a coach, and given the coach a recruiting budget, only to have that coach return his or her salary with the explanation of not being able to find a sufficient number of interested girls with the ability to play. The suggestion that there is a deficiency of sport interest or ability among females is a myth.

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