A group that advocates for changes to the gender-equity law known as Title IX announced Thursday that it was suing the Department of Education, arguing that the department is violating the Constitution by forcing high schools to use what it claims is a quota system to afford greater opportunities for female athletes.Where is the quota? There are 3 options. Only one looks like a quota. Is the Department of Education to blame if schools pick the first option and not one of the others? Maybe it is. If you say there are 3 ways to avoid a legal problem, you are encouraging the one that is a quota, even if the schools could have picked one of the other routes. You're legitimating the quota approach.
At issue in the lawsuit, sent Thursday to Federal District Court in Washington, is a 1979 test that is used to measure compliance with Title IX, which bans sex discrimination in education.
The test gives schools three options for showing they are meeting the needs of female athletes. They can demonstrate that they are offering athletic opportunities that are proportionate to overall enrollment; that they have a history of expanding sports for women; or that they are meeting the athletic interests and abilities of their female student body.
July 22, 2011
"Suit Filed Arguing Title IX Uses Quotas."
The NYT reports:
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61 comments:
HA! They had volleyball back in the dark ages, when I went to high school.
And, Wendi Deng Murdoch just showed ya, if you learn to play bolleyball properly ... (Which I used to think meant you kept your tits inside your bikini top) ... She showed ya what a good sports education is all about.
And, there's no reason to leave women out of the equation, either.
Besides, if you didn't have sports in high schools, you probably would lose the bands, as well.
As band membership is a bonus like nobody's business.
Needing a football helmet, however, shouldn't be a necessity.
MORE WOMEN'S VOLLEYBALL!
Is funding required to be equitable? Choice times/days for events?
There would be a quotus for male athletes.
From a school's perspective the only way they know they are in compliance is if they use the quota because it provides actual numbers they can meet. The other methods have other issues as well that make them difficult to prove compliance or easy to abuse.
I like women sports, I think it is great that my nieces got to play sports. I like to watch Ladies golf as do a lot of men, in fact more men watch women sports than women but it is a shame that men sports are being dropped to maintain a quota and it does happen because I've read about it for years.
Why not just force people to sports they don't want to?
Isn't it easy for a school to prove they are doing Option 2, yet many schools seem to be in trouble because they dont meet some quota that is in a Fed's head.
Option 3 doesnt work either, because it is impossible to meet all the needs of every person, be they male or female. some female's sport of choice wont be funded.... fail.
so, given that neither option 2 or 3 works, schools go the safe route.
With gay marriage, polygamy, etc, why do we even recognize two different sexes anymore?
And if you bring up the physical differences between men and women, one could then argue we should offer men's basketball teams for non-black players only.
Title IX is horrible for men's non revenue sports. College baseball gets 11.5 scholarships but women's volleyball is fully funded. It's a joke.
What the law fails to take into account is the possibility that men might be more interested in sports than women, on average.
If this was the case, it would be very difficult to meet the demands of title XI. Say for instance that 20% of the women would like to participate in sports and 40% of men would like to as well. Since you can't force students to do sports, what schools do is simply make sure that there are only slots for 20% of the male student body available on the various teams. The end result is injustice since 100% of the women interested in sports get to do sports and only 50% of similarly interested men get to participate.
The only equality we KNOW we're going to be able to afford going foreward is no sports for either gender. This may not be so bad. Kids can get jobs now being done by Mexicans. Instead of developing a sense of entitlement they can learn responsibility and how to work at an early age.
Win-Win or Win-Win-Win?
vw=spare As in "spare the rod and spoil the child"?
Our school system cured the title IX blues. No funding for school sports period. You want a sport (and they have them all), you fund it through players fees and fundraising.
This is why we can't have anything nice.
WV: oviac:
The new, automated egg generator.
College student bodies are increasingly female, so they are taking on an greater burden of student loans. When the bubble does finally burst, don't expect the students footing bills for atheletic scholarships to have much sympathy. There may well be more upset female bagholders then men if trends continue.
Just a thought.
GET RID OF IT! this should free up some $$$.
It's probably better that we get used to having straight out quotas to apportion government goodies. As we become steadily more "diverse" and our liberal democracy based on law becomes more of a racial, ethnic, and sexual spoils system based on clout. I for one think it's better to just drop all the pretense and BS and just give stuff out based on open and known criteria. Who knows maybe we won't get to the point of killing each other over stuff like the Tutsis and Hutus, Serbs and Croats, Sunni and Shia, etc.
Wait, my college plan for my girls was to get them really fired up on competitive rowing. Full scholarship on Title 9! I am hooking the TV up to the rowing machine so they practice all the time. This could mess up my plans!
Maybe I wasn't writing clearly (that wouldn't be abnormal for me), but, folks, title IX applies to all public school systems from k-12-U. The real pain is felt in the 7-12 year brackets. School systems are giving up, or better yet, finding excuses to divert money from expected extracurricular activity funding, to special interest funding.
WV: taterchi:
you find it when the pommes are frite properly.
The problem isn't Title IX; it is football and its enormous teams.
According to the report, there are 1.3 million more boys than girls participating in athletic programs.
I read a piece, don't remember where, that made the argument lefties are using Title IX to crush the American athletic program.
Not sure I buy it just yet, but seems possible that they want us spoiled capitalists to kick soccer balls around on dirt lots like the rest of the 3rd world.
Is title 9 the reason why some baseball analysts call the ballgirl ballperson?
Shes the girl that retrieves the foul balls.
Lisa said:
"The problem isn't Title IX; it is football and its enormous teams."
I agree, if they would mandated that those teams only acquire normal statured men, I could have received a D1 scholarship to play ball. Those enormous team requirements are probably killing the spirit of the game.
WV: cormaks:
irrelevant since 1996
Van.. I meant in number of players. Football teams are three times as many players as most other sports.
Lisa,
I know what you meant. It's Friday after the the demanding project week, so I've cracked a bottle of St. Remy. I'm not only witty now, I'm growing more handsome by the minute.
In regards to the 85 college scholarships for football; they also generate many times more money than other sports. Football is the goose that lays the golden egg. Kill it for dinner if you'd like.
WV: dessaro:
declaring my vows again
The other issue is if people actually can satisfy the burden of proving the non-quota methods. If it's a theoretical option but has an impossible standard to meet, it's not much of an option and you have to look at the others. "Increasing opportunities" really isn't a way of satisfying the law - it's a safe harbor for trying hard to meet the quota but not quite being there yet.
That leaves the quota.
So how'd the UW-Madison baseball teamw do this year? Oh, that's right, you don't have one. Well, Minnesota and Iowa do. We can go there to see some decent college ball.
AJ Lynch, good point. The football and hockey teams should claim to actually be women trapped in mens bodies, and that would take care of the entire issue.
Personally, I think think they should get rid of athletic scholarships (isn't that an oxymoron?) and let students form self-funded sports clubs if they want to. Why should the general student body have to fund the goddamn water polo team? No one on campus cares about these minor sports except for the athlete's family and friends. T he whole college sports racket is ridiculous.
Lisa said...
Van.. I meant in number of players. Football teams are three times as many players as most other sports.
Um, huh?
So all teams should have an "equal" number of players?
Or should some Federal Department of Education Bureaucrat decide it?
Football teams are three times as many players as most other sports.
Oh, wait, I get it.
The number of players is fixed and part of a big pie that good liberals like you want to see divided up "fairly"
Never mind.
Jay, so that is the problem. Football, a HUGE money maker for big division 1 teams has what...70 players? You have to have a lot of womens Lacroose teams to equal out that number number.
Between title X and the NCAA being made up of douchebags, college sports is so typical of a gov't program.
If a school follows a quota, they don't have to prove they aren't discriminating. If a school follows one of the other two choices, they are vulnerable to a lawsuit that says they aren't doing enough to meet Title IX.
This is how the system's been since the Clinton administration.
Only one looks like a quota.
The problem is that it's the easiest one to prove. Why bother risking a lawsuit and losing if you can't prove one of the other two when you can just cut wrestling or baseball?
Title IX is the biggest bunch of bullshit ever invented. Girls don't want to play sports as much as boys do on the whole. Boys are suffering as a result of a poorly written, poorly conceived law that, however useful it may have fleetingly been, has long outlived its rationale.
It ought to be rescinded.
I thought Title IX only applied to college sports?
I am pretty sure that Title IX covers high schools and is, in fact, doing most of its damage there.
Further, I agree that a football exception would alleviate 98.37 percent of the problems Title IX has.
Our local university got rid of several men's sports to meet Title IX requirements. We used to have wrestling and hockey among others that were eliminated. The problem is football. To get the number of male and female athletes to be equal you have to make up 85 athletes somewhere because women don't play football. And you can't get rid of football because it funds all of the other sports at most universities.
So what happened was the male soccer team, wrestling team etc... were all canceled and women's crew was added because it was relatively cheap and apparently the athlete count is fairly high.
This is how Title IX works in the real world. No one gives a damn if the guys are screwed out of the things they love. It is all about the numbers. Somehow I doubt there was a large untapped reserve of desire amongst females to row boats.
We have the best women's basketball program in the country and it existed before T9. It is my biggest passion after college football but what was done to men's athletics was a travesty and there was no excuse for it.
Jay,
Don't blame the girls if football players hog most of the scholarship money for the boys.
Frankly, as far as I am concerned, sports have nothing at all to do with school and I see no reason why ANY athlete should get scholarship or admitted with lesser qualifications.
Well, Lisa, that opinion and $2.25 will get you a ride on the CTA here in Chicago.
Lisa, basically big mens sports are there for TV and radio revenue, and for alumni dollars. They probably make money for most D1 schools, which is more then you can say for women's lacrosse or queer studies departments.
Yes, basically it has little to do with education and more to do with running a minor league sports franchise. But do you think the people flocking to Camp Randall or TCF Bank stadium are thinking "I hope our running back does well with his communications major".
The problem isn't Title IX; it is football and its enormous teams.
Guess what sport makes enough money at most universities to support the other sports? Football. Football and men's basketball are typically the only sports that self-support and support other sports. There are a few exceptions, such at women's basketball at Tennessee, but not many.
The problem isn't Title IX, it's idiots who think they know everything when they know nothing.
Lisa is a sad know-nothing.
Forget this idea of "money-making." Forget Ohio State an Wisconsin.
Here's the facts:
1. Most universities and colleges are minor backwaters of the NCAA Div. III and NAIA varieties. They have no athletic scholarships. The Ivy League, by the way, also has none.
2. When these schools bring in athletes, they bring in paying customers. Oh yeah, Logan and Brittany. You can absolutely play football and run cross country here. Just borrow the money to pay the tuition at the bursar's office.
Creating athletic prowess is a tried-and-true way for college presidents to revive moribund schools, or keep them on life support.
@AJ Lynch:
I thought Title IX only applied to college sports?
Why?
(note that my asking a question regarding application doesn't mean I'm advocating any particular application)
(Also, I suggest reading Title IX's "text." Perhaps, given all the time that's passed, "text" might surprise, all around.)
A couple of commenters lightly touched on the real issue: it's not the law per se, it's the way the government enforces it and the way that courts reguarly decide cases against schools who aren't using quotas.
The only surefire defense that schools have it to enforce quotas in order to defend themselves against overzealous government officials and spurious lawsuits from women who think it's grossly unfair that the school won't fund their hockey-on-stilts womyn-only sports team because only 10 people in the whole country play and 20 other people want to watch it.
Title IX applies to any school receiving federal dollars.
Their intent is now clear, and it had nothing to do with womyns athletics.
WV: parth:
What parth do we take from here?
One objective test, two subjective tests.
It's not hard to figure out which one they must choose to protect themselves from litigation.
Does anyone use the subjective tests?
Having thought about this for a time, I propose the following. Since some of the most important lessons to be learned in school are only on the playing field:
Jigger the educational standards and curriculum, so that each student is required to complete two years of Team, to graduate.
The requirements are:
a) inter-school competitions with winners and losers
b) eligible activities shall have both personal effort and skills, and team spirit component.
c) individual efforts shall in some quantifiable way contribute to team success.
Field and gym sports obviously qualify. So do Debate, Robotics competitions, Cheer, Band, etc. The important point is to have a coach and team-mates who will kick your *** if you start dogging it, and you understand the dynamics of team spirit, leaders and followers, giving 110%, you play like you practice, graciousness in victory and not losing hope in defeat, tough but fair play, and making friends with your erstwhile opponents.
This way, no more d*** quotas. Everybody plays! Everybody learns the same thing. No one is disadvantaged. Everybody gets yelled at by the coach, everybody gets to cry, to cheer, to strive, to succeed, to fail and try again. Welcome to life, kids!
Andinista -- Your way has a quota.
The point is liberty. You are missing it.
I just had a flashback to middle school and how stuff worked then.
Looking at that in later, and successive, contexts, I was lucky.
Seven Machos: if your way American History and Mathematics are optional. The lessons to be learned on the field of competition are no less important and no less valuable for every student. Are there any educational standards and mandatory courses in your liberty?
"What the law fails to take into account is the possibility that men might be more interested in sports than women, on average."
===
Go look at the intramural sports teams at any university. There's your answer. Participants are overwhelmingly male.
The rationale for Title IX was it denied to women the possibility of athletic scholarships. Today, woman are receiving the majority of college degrees. Mission accomplished. Time to end it.
There's no LPGA seniors tour.
Jay,
Don't blame the girls if football players hog most of the scholarship money for the boys.
The number of players is fixed and part of a big pie that good liberals like you want to see divided up "fairly"
Reader:
I just thought Title IX was an effort to broaden [heh] sports opportuniies in colleges. I did not know it applied to k-12.
Since college is about a 60/40 split in favor of women, could the men -- & I know it would be costly --- sue each school where women r the majority to get rid of Title IX?
How can 1 b the majority & still need a program for equal access?
If the ladies want the sport program, it'll survive.
& didn't Instapundit link to an article that once a school becomes known as a women's college, it'l like a death knell for that college?
Avoiding capitalism sure is hard and messy - an endless series of battles over expensive stuff of poor quality that other people pay for. That's the problem, and the food fight won't end... ever.
bagoh20 scores a direct hit! The bottom-line in a nutshell..
I say instead of eliminating male sports to have sufficient funding for the women, eliminate professors and all departments that end in "studies".
Has any school tried to report to the DoE that they were meeting their Title IX requirements by "meeting the athletic interests and abilities of their female student body"?
If so, how did the DoE respond, and what kind of evidence did they require?
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