Title IX is arguably one of the most important pieces of legislature passed in the 20th century. Now, women and girls can also enjoy the benefits of sport at nearly the same level as men. Read on to find out more about the extent of Title IX's impact.
Published: June 10, 2002
Benefits of Title IX Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in educational programs and activities at educational institutions that receive federal funds. It is an omnibus education law affecting all curricular and extracurricular offerings, from medicine, law and science to drama, dance and athletics.
No law has meant more to women in sport than Title IX. With regard to collegiate educational opportunities for females, leveling the playing field has meant $372 million a year in college athletic scholarship funding and varsity sport opportunities for over 150,000 women. At the high school level, Title IX has provided the chance to play varsity sports for millions of high school girls. One of every 2.5 high school girls now participate in high school varsity sports (compared to 1 in 27 in 1972). This law has had a profound impact.
Even more important than college athletic scholarships and varsity athletic participation, which affect a relatively small number of talented female athletes, are the health benefits of physical education. Title IX applies to general physical education as well as intramural and recreational sports activities. These physical activity programs motivate even more girls and women to lead active lifestyles that produce significant health benefits:
80% of all people with osteoporosis (brittle bones) are female and one of every two women over the age of 60 has osteoporosis. Adequate calcium intake and weight-bearing exercise, especially in a female's high school and college years, is crucial in the prevention of osteoporosis, a $15 billion/year health problem (Teegarden, Proulx, et al., 1996, Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, 1996; vol. 28, pp. 105-113).
Girls who participate in as little as four hours of exercise per week may reduce their lifelong risk of breast cancer (a disease that will affect one out of every eight women) by up to 60% (Journal of the National Cancer Institute, 1994).
Girls and women who participate in sports have higher levels of confidence, stronger self-images and lower levels of depression. Sports is an investment in the psychological health of women (Miller Lite Report, 1985; Melpomene Institute, 1995); Colton & Gore, Risk, Resiliency, and Resistance: Current Research on Adolescent Girls, Ms. Foundation, 1991).
High school girls who participate in sport are less likely to experience an unintended pregnancy, more likely to graduate from high school and get better grades and less like to engage in an array of health-risk behaviors (The Women's Sports Foundation Report: Sport and Teen Pregnancy, May 1998; Women's Sports Foundation, 1989, The Women's Sports Foundation Report: Health Behavior and the Teen Athlete, 2000).
Few Schools in Compliance
Title IX supporters will continue to ask for more aggressive enforcement because an estimated 80% of all schools and colleges are still not close to being in compliance with Title IX after 30 years.
While over 50% of our college populations are female, female athletes still receive approximately 36% of all sports operating expenditures, 42% of all college athletic scholarship money, 42% of all athletic participation opportunities, and 32% of all college athlete recruitment spending (1999-00 NCAA Gender-Equity Report and NCAA Participation Statistics, 2002).
While more female athletes are getting a college education because of the award of $372,476,500 in athletic scholarships each year, male athletes receive 36 percent ($133 million) more than that amount (1999-00 NCAA Gender-Equity Report, Women's Sports Foundation calculation).
Since Title IX was adopted 30 years ago, the Office For Civil Rights (OCR) has not found one educational institution out of compliance with the athletics regulations and not initiated proceedings to remove federal funds at one school or college. Instead, the OCR negotiates settlements which are often less than the law requires and further extends the time institutions are given to comply with federal law.
Cedric Dempsey, the Executive Director of the National Collegiate Athletic Association, assessed the status of gender equity in college sports in October 1999 as follows: “Improvements are being made, but being made much too slowly … we must continue to add programs for women and dedicate more resources to women's programs on our campuses at a faster rate.”
Public Support of Title IX
The public understands the important women's health and wellness issues represented by Title IX. We also know that the public fully supports Title IX and opposes unnecessary efforts to protect men's sports as evidenced by a 2000 Wall Street Journal/NBC News Poll:
"Title IX is a federal law that prohibits high schools and colleges that receive federal funds from discriminating on the basis of gender. Title IX is most commonly invoked to ensure equal opportunities for girls and women in high school and college athletics. Do you approve or disapprove of Title IX as it is described here?"
Yes, approve of Title IX: 79%
No, do not approve of Title IX: 14%
Do not know enough about it: 4%
Not sure: 3%
"To comply with Title IX, many schools and universities have had to cut back on resources for men's athletic programs and invest more in women's athletic programs to make the programs more equal. Do you approve or disapprove of cutting back on men's athletics to ensure equivalent athletic opportunities for women?"
Yes, approve of cuts: 76%
No, do not approve of cuts: 19%
Not sure: 5%
(2000 Wall Street Journal/NBC poll of 2,000 adults; margin of error of 2.2 percentage points; on the second question, 79% of women, 73% of men, 70% of Republicans, and 79% of Democrats all stated, categorically, that they approved of cutting resources for men's sports to finance women's.)
Men's Sports Do Not Need Protection
During his election campaign, President Bush indicated he would support amending Title IX to change the law's proportionality provision. A public information campaign has erroneously communicated that this provision is hurting men's sports opportunities. In fact, Title IX reform was a plank on Republican presidential election platform.
The facts simply do not support the contention that Title IX's proportionality provision is responsible for the elimination of men's sports. Men's sports participation and funding has continued to grow. Men's sports participation is at the highest level ever. If some sports have been dropped, other more popular sports have been added. Decisions to drop men's non-revenue sports are institutional decisions related to choosing to place more resources into revenue-producing men's sports rather than women's sports. That same institution could chose to keep all men's sports by lowering expenditures on the men's sports with the largest operating budgets. But institutions are not doing this.
The Facts
In the past four years, for every new dollar going into athletics at the Division I and Division II level, male sports receive 58 cents while female sports receive 42 cents (1999-00 NCAA Gender-Equity Report).
NCAA participation opportunities for male and female athletes have grown to record levels. Between 1981-82 and 2000-01, NCAA female sports participation has increased from 74,239 to 150,916 and NCAA male sports participation has increased from 169,800 to 208,966 (NCAA Participation Statistics, 2002).
More and more male and female athletes are getting a college education because of athletic scholarships with more than $372,000,000 in athletic scholarships being awarded to female athletes each year while male athletes receive 36 percent ($133 million) more than that amount (1999-00 NCAA Gender-Equity Report, Women's Sports Foundation calculation).
There will never be enough participation opportunities at the high school or college level to fully meet the interests of all boys or girls. These opportunities are limited by what schools can afford. For example, there are approximately 209,000 men and 151,000 women participating on college varsity teams in the NCAA. These opportunities will never fully accommodate the needs of over 5 million boys and girls participating in high school athletics. The fairest way to parcel out limited resources and participation opportunities is to have athletic opportunities match up to general student enrollment.
The data shows that lost opportunities for some men whose sports have been dropped have resulted in new opportunities for men in other sports. For instance, between 1981-82 and 1998-99, 1,022 men's gymnastics, 2,648 men's wrestling, 683 women's gymnastics and 229 women's field hockey participation opportunities were lost. During that same period, men's football, soccer and lacrosse opportunities increased by 7,199, 1,932 and 2,000, respectively as did numerous women's sports (GAO Report, Intercollegiate Athletics, 2001). There are natural shifts of funding and interest in men's and women's sports that occur and sports participation is affected by changes in NCAA institutional membership. It is inaccurate to blame these shifts on Title IX. Similarly, a 1997 study of individual institutions revealed that programs commonly added and dropped men's and women's sports between 1978 and 1996 with men's and women's sports programs showing a net gain (Women's Sports Foundation, 1997).
NCAA average squad size data for male athletes in 1981-82 and 2000-01 has remained constant (within one participant) and more sports show an increase in average squad size than show decreases (NCAA Participation Statistics, 2002).
Dollars in men's sports do not have to be reallocated to further support football in order to "maintain revenue production." It's a myth that football makes the money that funds other sports. Football brings in more money than other sports but spends more than it makes. Approximately 65 football programs of the 1,200 universities in this country make more than they spend.
Conferences, leagues and the NCAA have not been willing to legislate expenditure limitations, lower scholarship limits, or even require fewer games if that's what it takes to have sufficient resources to make sure that male non-revenue producing sport participants as well as females get the chance to play.
Women's Sports Foundation Position
The Women's Sports Foundation does not support reducing opportunities for male or female athletes to play sports. The purpose of laws prohibiting discrimination is to bring the disadvantaged population up to the level of the advantaged population, not to treat male athletes in minor sports like female athletes who weren't given a chance to play.
The key to affording current men's sport opportunities while expanding opportunities for female athletes is to stop the men's revenue sports arms race. Schools should not be cutting men's non-revenue producing teams like swimming, wrestling and gymnastics when they are spending money on putting football teams in hotels the night before home football games and spending excessively on similar items in one or two sports.
College presidents must take the responsibility to reduce athletic program spending and stop the arms race. In addition, athletic conferences, leagues and governance organizations like the NCAA have not been willing to legislate expenditure limitations, lower scholarship limits, even require fewer games if that's what it takes to make sure that male non-revenue producing sport participants as well as females get the chance to play.
The financial solution to affording Title IX compliance without cutting men's sports opportunities is for every sport to receive a smaller portion of the athletic budget, each sport tightening its belt so that everyone can continue to play.