by Alejandra Molina
Staff Writer
The president of the National Collegiate Athletic Association, Myles Brand, recently announced the implementation of Title IX, the 30-year-old federal law that prohibits discrimination against girls and women in education and has particularly strong implications for female athletes.
Brand’s announcement this summer followed a heated year-long debate, which started with a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Education and ended with recommendations to weaken enforcement of the law, particularly its requirement known as proportionality, or requiring athletic opportunities to female and male athletes to equally reflect the number of opportunities.
The lawsuit, brought on by a group of college wrestling coaches, claimed that the Department of Education’s enforcement of the law led to the cutting of wrestling teams and minor men’s sports. That suit was also thrown out this summer.
And while supporters of Title IX are relieved that the law’s enforcement will not be weakened, some athletes and coaches both locally and nationwide still debate the relative merits of the law’s so-called proportionality requirement.
For schools to comply with Title IX, they must apply a three-part test, adopted by the Department of Education in 1979, which requires proportionality, a history and continuing practice of expanding opportunities for the under-represented gender, and/or demonstration that it is meeting its female students’ interest and ability to participate in sports.
That law has dramatically improved the playing field for female athletes; however, some male athletes on college campuses feel they are being short-changed: If a college has too many male athletes, it can either add more women’s teams or cut back on the number of men’s teams.
“Can’t they add more women teams and keep the men’s?” asked Josh Turner, a sophomore who played football his first year at La Verne.
Colleges can do that if they have the funding and interest among women athletes.
“I’m torn (about) the way Title IX works,” Turner said. “I would like to see more female sports and athletes, but at the same time, when you have to take away from men sports, it’s discrimination towards us.”
Turner is among the many male athletes worried about losing athletic opportunities with the way Title IX operates.
In fact Brand emphasized that cutting men’s sports to meet the proportionality prong is an unfavored practice.
He stated that there would be consistent enforcement by the Office of Civil Rights (OCR) across regions. OCR will enhance its education and assistance to institutions in helping them reach Title IX compliance, he stated in a News Release.
Because ULV is a Division III school, athletic scholarships are not as big an issue here as they are at some schools.
Still according to Wendy Zwissler, associate professor of movement and sports science and head women’s soccer coach, there are improvements to be made at ULV.
“We are not in total proportion,” Zwissler said.
Women at ULV only accounted for 36 percent of the competitive athletes, while they represent more than half of the student body, according to the University’s 2002 Gender Equity Survey.
Zwissler believes adding more club sports could help close the gender gap.
“We don’t have a very good recreational program,” she said. “We could add lacrosse or a women’s golf team.”
The University does participate in all the sports the conference sponsors for men and women, so how will the school comply with the proportionality requirement?
Some argue that women are just not interested in athletics.
“I don’t think it is a valid argument at all,” said Gabe Duran, head men’s basketball coach and associate professor of movement and sports science.
“What it comes down to is the recruitment of these student athletes,” Duran said.
The vast majority of male athletes are recruited; very few of them are walk-ons, said Duran.
“We find ways to make contacts with high school coaches and recruit that way,” he said. “It takes time and effort and making the proper contacts.”
To Zwissler, finding out the interests of women is the way to go.
“We have to find out what women want to do,” she said. “We can’t make them play.”
