Guest Viewpoint: Title IX Commission would reverse three decades of progress for women and girls
By Leslie T. Annexstein
2/18/03 -- Last June, Education Secretary Rod Paige established the Commission on Opportunity in Athletics to recommend potential changes to the longstanding Title IX athletics policies.
Although the commission held four public hearings around the country, it invited virtually no testimony from high school girls about the discrimination they have suffered and the opportunities they have lost as a result of inequitable treatment of female athletes.
Further, no representatives of high school athletics programs were asked to serve on the commission. The commission's final report is expected to be submitted to the education secretary on Feb. 28.
Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 prohibits federally funded education programs and activities from engaging in sex discrimination. It says simply: "No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, 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."
Department of Education regulations and policies provide detailed guidance to schools on how to comply with Title IX. Most notably, the department has established a three-part test for determining whether schools are complying with Title IX's mandate to provide equal participation opportunities in athletics. The test applies to all levels of education -- K-12 schools, as well as colleges and universities.
This three-part test has been in effect for more than two decades, through both Republican and Democratic administrations. It has been upheld by all of the eight federal appellate courts that have reviewed it.
This test provides three wholly independent ways that schools can show that students of both genders have equal opportunities to participate in sports. Schools can show that:
• the percentages of male and female athletes are about the same as the percentages of male and female students enrolled in the school, or
• the school has a history and a continuing practice of expanding opportunities for the underrepresented gender -- which, in most cases, is women, or
• the school is fully and effectively meeting its female students' interests and abilities to participate in sports.
If a school can meet any one of these tests, it will have satisfied Title IX's participation requirements. This test is extremely flexible and maximizes schools' discretion to structure their athletics programs.
Title IX has changed the playing field significantly. Before Title IX, fewer than 295,000 high school girls participated in varsity sports, accounting for just 7 percent of all high school varsity athletes.
By 2001, nearly 2.8 million girls participated in athletics, representing 41.5 percent of varsity athletes in U.S. high schools -- an increase of more than 847 percent.
However, high school girls still do not have equal opportunities in athletics. For example, high school girls receive 1.1 million fewer opportunities to play sports than their male peers. And they receive $133 million dollars less per year in athletic scholarships than male athletes when they get to college.
Despite these very real facts, and without considering any data on the impact of its proposals, the Title IX Commission approved radical recommendations to dismantle Title IX's athletics policies. These recommendations would relegate our daughters to second-class status on the nation's high school playing fields.
These proposals, which focus on changes to the three-part test, would result in the loss of hundreds of thousands of sports opportunities for high school girls nationwide.
For example, one proposal would provide female students with only 47 percent of the participation opportunities, even though they comprise 49.1 percent of high school students. This would result in an annual loss of 163,000 to 305,000 high school participation opportunities for girls.
Other proposals would allow schools to manipulate the way they count their male and female students and athletes in order to artificially deflate the number of male athletes and inflate the number of female athletes.
Still another would allow schools to use interest surveys to limit girls' opportunities by forcing them to prove they are interested in sports before giving them a chance to play.
The Bush Administration must reject the commission's proposals and should instead more strongly enforce existing Title IX policies.
A national public education campaign to save Title IX is under way, and the National Women's Law Center is helping to lead that campaign.
Mothers, daughters, fathers, and brothers across the county are mobilizing to urge the Bush Administration not to change Title IX policies. The National Women's Law Center invites school board members to join this campaign.
Leslie T. Annexstein is senior counsel for the National Women's Law Center.
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| Reproduced with permission from the Feb. 18, 2003, issue of School Board News. Copyright © 2003, National School Boards Association. Opinions expressed in this newspaper do not necessarily reflect positions of NSBA. This article may be printed out and photocopied for individual or educational use, provided this copyright notice appears on each copy. This article may not be otherwise transmitted or reproduced in print or electronic form without the consent of the Publisher. For more information, call (703) 838-6789. |