The Dilemma of Title IX

Title IX is a law signed by President Nixon in 1972 that prohibits gender discrimination in educational institutions that receive financial support by the government. The law was created to help to increase women’s participation in athletics, but it has also been creating conflicts between male athletes, the institutions, and the government because the number of male sports teams have been decreasing and even disappearing over the years, and people blame the Title IX proportionality criteria for this terrible consequence. On the other hand, there are people who believe that these unwanted results are happening because the educational institutions are not being well managing their financial resources or not choosing the right criteria to be in compliance with the law which could also be having a history of “ongoing improvement” related to the female students involved in sports or proving that they have been accommodating the underrepresented gender’s abilities and interests in an effectively way. But whose fault it is? If there is someone to blame for it.

           Doing a research paper about Title IX, I found interesting opinions about the law and its effects. Some people like Christina Sommers believe the law is responsible for the consequences and should be revised to improve its system. She wrote an article entitled “Title IX: How a Good Law Went Terribly Wrong” that was published in Time Magazine where she supports her view by mentioning a study that after analyzing boys and girl, concluded that men are naturally more interested in athletics than women are. Moreover, she argues that is not necessary to have the proportional number of sports teams if women do not demonstrate to be as much interested in sports as men are. Earl C. Dudley Jr and George Rutherglen have a similar opinion to Sommer’s. In their article entitled “A Comment on the Report of the Commission to Review Title IX Enforcement in Athletics”, they argue that the law is flawed because it does not consider the student’s strengths and interests in athletics, but is only based on a proportional number of students from both genders engaged in college athletics. They also argue that the scholarships are not well distributed by mentioning the fact the even if male sports team receive scholarship from someone besides the government, the educational institution still have to divide them between male and female teams. By using this fact, Dudley and Rutherglen show that the law is an unfair system. Why should the scholarships be dived if they do not come from the government?

            On the other hand, some people like Andrew Zimbalist defends the law and argues that the education institutions are the ones responsible for having to cut men’s sport teams for not being able to manage their budge properly. He points out really interesting facts about the school expenses which most of the time are unnecessary. Things like the coaches’ salaries that go over 1 million, and hotel reservations for the football or basketball teams even when they are having home games. He also suggests if schools cut the number of scholarships for football (85) to 60, the schools would save money, and consequently they would be able to maintain more men’s teams like wrestling which have been disappearing.
           All the authors have strong arguments and good evidences about Title IX and its consequences. But we cannot deny that the consequences are unfortunate. Whose fault it is can be a very debatable subject. Finding ways to resolve the problems and improve the system in what should be done to deal with it instead of pushing the responsibility to each other. This way we can have a fair system and a happy society.