Title IX Discriminates
We were shocked to read a November report from the U.S. Army that 75 percent of America’s 17- to 24-year-olds are not eligible for military service, largely because they are poorly educated, involved in crime or ae physically unfit. According to this report titled “Ready, Willing and Unable to Serve,” 27 percent of young Americans can’t join the military because they are too fat and out of shape, can’t do push-ups or pull-ups, and can’t run.
The Obama administration claims that the solution for this dilemma is to spend lots of money on pre-K schooling, but that doesn’t pass the laugh test. A better remedy would be to terminate “Title-Nining,” the malicious anti-masculine weapon used by feminists to eliminate men’s sports in college and high school
While I have the utmost respect for Schafly, I disagree that Title IX is the reason why only 27% of young men are eligible to join the armed services. As a society, we are fatter and more out of shape than previous generations. That’s a family-level problem and not one that can legislated. Furthermore, collegiate sports typically require elite skills, and the majority of male and female undergraduates lack those abilities.
Title IX is just one more example of the federal government trying to create utopian policies that don’t work in real life. It has support from both sides of the aisle, and Sarah Palin frequently praises it in her book. It’s one of those policies that has a good intention but is difficult to administer. How do you ensure equality in programs for men and women? A straight numbers game ends up hurting one sex over the other.
Currently if 50% of women are enrolled in college, 50% of the sports must be female. It doesn’t matter if there is demand for one sport over another or if men are more interested in sports than women. You can’t have more male teams over female. Surprisingly, this hurts more men at major “powerhouse” universities where one or two sports take a majority of the funding and resources.
As I frequently mention, I attended the University of Tennessee from 2000-2004 and had a friend on the men’s rowing team. One day during my sophomore year, I saw him on the UC Plaza participating in a fundraiser for his team. I was taken aback. Why did a UT athletic team have to fundraise? The UT athletics department is one of the wealthiest in the country with major endorsements from Adidas and Verizon.
It turns out that the men’s rowing team at UT was categorized as a “club” sport, and didn’t receive much funding. Thanks to Title IX, a few men’s varsity sports were re-categorized as club sports while their female counterparts were elevated to varsity. Because UT has a powerful football program for men and a nearly powerful basketball team for women, it throws the dynamics off for all sports. While the women’s rowing team is a varsity team, the men’s side was only marginally higher than an intermural sport. Even though the men competed against varsity teams at other colleges, the UT system didn’t support them. Is this right?
On the other hand, Title IX had an unintended effect at UT. For generations, the state of Tennessee did not allow sororities to have houses on campus. A nineteenth century law mandated that any house with more than 13 women was considered a brothel. (Go ahead and laugh.) After years of complaints and watching fraternities build nicer and nicer houses on campus (and subsequently trash them. I’ve been inside those houses. Yuck!), it was finally decided that universities were discriminating against women by providing fraternity housing for men but not allowing sorority housing to be built.
Thus, Title IX both helps and harms students. As a former sorority member, I’m glad that women finally have equal access to housing on campus. Had Title IX not been around, the state legislature would have never struck down the brothel law. However, Title IX does discriminate and men are frequently the victims.
Feminists won a mighty battle with Title IX and have used it to demand that equal numbers of male and female professors per department or assistantships be evenly split. They also demand more scholarships go to women to decrease gender gaps, particularly in science, technology, engineering and math. At graduation in 2004, I remember a female African-American student, who was sitting behind me, bragging about her full ride to medical school despite her C average. She was well aware that her scholarship was awarded because of programs like affirmative action and Title IX and quite happy about it. I just hope that I’m never one of her patients.
Call me crazy, but I never took a class because the professor was a man or a woman. I did take classes because a professor was the best in the field. I didn’t care what gender they were. I wanted quality and knowledge. The same goes for TAs. I would rather have a knowledgeable male TA than a female, who helped the department meet quotas but was otherwise unqualified.
Ultimately Title IX hurts students and the quality of their education. While it has good intentions, we all know where those lead, and I doubt that feminists in the 70s meant for this policy to help sorority women. Programs like Title IX should not exist. It should be up to the individual school or body governing that school to decide how resources are used. Title IX takes power away from the students, faculty and administrators and gives it to bureaucrats.
Tags: affirmitative action, basketball, descrimination, feminists, football, fraternities, housing, rowing, sororities, STEM, Title IX, University of Tennessee, UT athletics, Volunteers
December 9th, 2009 at 4:34 pm
You’re right. Title IX has had unintended consequences. But it has also done it’s job for the most part. At schools smaller than UT, athletic departments might have only consisted of a football team, or a basketball team. If you look back to when the law was passed, you’d notice that there has been an incredible increase in women’s sports at the university level.
In the same conference, my school had a lot of difficulty awarding athletic scholarships fairly. Strong in athletics, but lacking in national rankings in the two major sports – basketball and football – we didn’t have major endorsements that paid everyone’s way. Title IX made it possible for our women’s soccer team (who finished in the top 5 this year, and may be the best ranked of all our sports this fall) to grant scholarships to their players, even though they don’t really bring in revenue the same way our football team does.
Title IX helped pay for scholarships for our women’s basketball team the year they were ranked (and bunches of other years too), even though it was the men’s teams that sold out the arena (which is sad really, considering they were terrible).
I know it isn’t always fair, and maybe there should be revisions made now that the field has been leveled a bit. But, Title IX has empowered hundreds of women to pursue sports in college and beyond and helped pay for their education along the way. Let’s try to give credit where credit is due.
December 9th, 2009 at 5:16 pm
Heather, sure Title IX has helped in some cases, but a law that only works some of the time isn’t a good law.
I’m philosophically opposed to the federal government getting involved on education issues, and Title IX is another example of how feminists have used Big Government to force their changes rather than influence society.
I firmly believe that states should be the ultimate voice in education policy. Policies such as Title IX neuter state legislatures and college governing bodies from deciding what is best for their students.
Men and women should have equal access to athletics and programs, but students should advocate for them, not the federal government.
December 10th, 2009 at 9:44 am
I’m with you to a point. How do you convince school administrations dealing with budget cuts to help pay for a women’s team, knowing full well it won’t bring in money? I’m pretty sure even you can see how unsuccessful those attempts would be.
Moreover, states being responsible for education policy is not a good plan. The reason we need national educational plans are for students, like me, who don’t live in the same state their whole lives. When I moved from Florida to Virginia, my grades wouldn’t transfer, and I lost what otherwise would have been a chance at academic honors (including subsequent scholarships). Moreover, the year after I moved, I had to take 3 electives instead of more “core” courses because my new school system didn’t offer the next level of classes for me as a sophomore.
That was WITH some semblance of national policy, and I only moved once. Some families move mid-school year or once every couple of years. No national policy means huge headaches and inconsistent education of our young people.
National policies and laws aren’t going to be perfect. When they stop serving their initial purpose, they should be re-evaluated. But no policy or law is going to work well for everyone. Doesn’t mean we don’t need national policies and laws.