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Jewish World Review July 23, 1999 / 10 Av, 5759

Cathy Young

Cathy Young
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Speaking too soon


http://www.jewishworldreview.com --
LAST WEEK, I wrote that the celebration of Women’s World Cup soccer was an affirmation of female excellence almost untainted by gender politics. It didn’t stay that way for long. No, this isn’t about Brandi Chastain’s sports bra but about the ongoing debate over Title IX of the 1972 Education Amendments, which prohibits sex discrimination in sports at scholastic institutions receiving federal funds. Is it a boon for equal opportunity, or social engineering run amok?

Some conservatives and libertarians are upset because for many commentators, Team USA’s victory became an occasion to hail Title IX for making the glorious moment possible. Yes, the Title IX cheerleading was overdone. But some of the criticism is misdirected as well.

In The Wall Street Journal, Jessica Gavora and Kimberly Schuld of the Independent Women’s Forum argue that Title IX had nothing to do with the World Cup win, since it does not apply to “professional sporting events.” On the Web site of the Ludwig von Mises Institute, William Anderson, a doctoral student in economics, mocks the “absurdity” of suggesting that fans thronged into stadiums across the United States “because the government had coerced them into doing so.”

What is absurd is to suggest that crediting Title IX for the incredible success of the World Cup means anything of the sort. Obviously, the law deserves much of the credit for the growth of the college-level women’s soccer programs that produced these players.

Certainly, as Anderson notes, women’s and girls’ scholastic sports existed before 1972. But girls made up about 5 percent of high school athletes then (compared with more than one-third today) and received an even smaller portion of the sports budget. True, there’s no reason to believe these numbers would have remained static without a federal law. Cultural change played a role too; but it got a big boost from legal change.

One example of this interaction is a 1978 Title IX case Anderson deplores as “bizarre”: a finding that the old version of girls basketball — in which each team had not five but six players on the court, three on each side — was discriminatory. The old rules were based on the truly bizarre notion that running the full length of the court was too strenuous for females. Once those rules became illegal, girls got a chance to prove what nonsense that was.

Is it the government’s job to overhaul cultural attitudes? Generally, no. But I would make an exception when its role is limited to ensuring equal access to opportunity — especially in the public sector.

The real problem is the way Title IX is being interpreted and enforced; here the critics are largely on target. To achieve more proportional representation in college varsity sports, even when fewer women want to participate, many colleges are slashing men’s programs, sometimes dismantling excellent teams. A male student interested in soccer or swimming now has fewer opportunities to play or get a scholarship than his female counterpart — which violates the equal-protection spirit of Title IX.

Yet Title IX critics rarely admit that one reason this is happening is that colleges are so reluctant to trim their bloated football programs with rosters of 80-plus players, compared with 55 in the National Football League.

And let’s not forget that in some areas of sports, it’s girls who still face inequities. One recent Title IX lawsuit in California challenged a seniority system that keeps girls’ softball teams off the best public playing fields because boys’ teams have been around longer.

As girls’ interest in athletic competition grows, some day equal opportunity may get them close to numerical parity with male athletes. Until that time, Title IX should require equal opportunity for individuals, not gender quotas that hurt men more than they help women. Since 1992, the number of male college athletes has dropped by 20,000, but only 6,000 new female college athletes have been added. This is the communist version of feminism: achieve equality by making everyone poor. enough.


JWR contributor Cathy Young is co-founder and vice-president of the Women’s Freedom Network and author of Ceasefire! Why Women and Men Must Join Forces to Achieve True Equality Send your comments to her by clicking here.

Up

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©1999, Cathy Young