Title IX

 
Most everyone has heard of Title IX (read: Title Nine) and could give a brief description of its purpose: to promote gender equality in the world of collegiate sports.  When a university cuts wrestling or another male varsity sport, Title IX often bears the blame.  In these next few paragraphs, we'll examine just what Title IX requires of universities and the various ways these schools comply with the federal law.



In 1972, Congress passed and President Nixon signed into law Title IX, which reads in part that "[n]o person . . . shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in . . . any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance."  Since virtually every university gets some federal funding, Title IX applies to virtually every college in America.

In 1979, the Carter Administration's Office of Civil Rights issued a Policy Interpretation that elaborated on the requirements of Title IX. The OCR created three ways for a university to conform with the law, which I will paraphrase:

1. The school must have equal athletic opportunities for men and women.
2. If the school doesn't have equal athletic opportunities, it must have a continuous record of expanding its programs to meet the needs of the underrepresented sex (women).
3. If the university can't meet #1 or #2, it must demonstrate that women's interests are fully accommodated by its current programs.

A quick example will clarify these regulations.  Let's say Northwestern has an enrollment of 3,000 men and 2,000 women.  Let's also say that 500 men are interested in collegiate athletics, and 250 women are interested in collegiate athletics.  Northwestern could comply with Title IX by doing any of the following:

• Provide varsity slots for men and women at a 3-to-2 ratio.  (For every 3 slots for men, there must be 2 for women.)  This would satisfy Requirement #1.
• Be able to show that it's continually adding women's sports to its offerings.  This would satisfy Requirement #2.
• Provide 250 slots for women.  This satisfies Requirement #3.  According to our example, 250 women want to play sports.  To fully accommodate women, NU must have 250 slots for women.

The following options would not be in compliance with Title IX:

• Provide varsity slots for men and women at a 2-to-1 ratio, which corresponds with the number of men and women interested in sports.  Courts think this is myopic; just because women aren't that interested in sports at the moment doesn't mean they won't become more interested in the future.
• Have an equal amount of men's and women's teams.  This might work, but it doesn't necessarily satisfy Title IX, which concerns itself with the number of roster slots.  A college football team has 110 or so slots, depending on the school, whereas a women's tennis team will have 15 or so.  You can see how an equal number of sports, by itself, doesn't suffice.  [Aside: this is partly why schools have such huge women's crew teams.  At least at NU, I believe every girl who tried out for varsity crew made the team--not that stopped those girls from acting cool for being a varsity "athlete."]
• Say to the court, "yeah, our women aren't fully represented, but so what?  Neither are our men.  500 want to play sports, and we only have room for 300.  It's a tough economic climate and we can't afford enough teams for everyone."  The courts don't care.  Title IX concerns itself with the underrepresented gender; how the men are doing is irrelevant (unless they're the ones who are underrepresented).

Hope this shed some light on a fairly well-known topic of law.  For further reading, here's an NYT article on the subject.  Btw, my sports law final is tomorrow, so if you're getting sick of these sports-law themed posts, you're in luck.