Newer Title IX ruling

[jesmu84]

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/commentary/news/story?page=easterbrook/100727

Thoughts on Title IX? Firsthand, I've seen it ruin several sports at my high school - back in the day.  In terms of collegiate athletics, I'm a little less familiar with the ramifications - especially in dealing with financial, medical support, etc.  I do agree that it needs to be looked at thoroughly and, most likely, amended to some degree.

[ChicosBailBonds]

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/commentary/news/story?page=easterbrook/100727

Thoughts on Title IX? Firsthand, I've seen it ruin several sports at my high school - back in the day.  In terms of collegiate athletics, I'm a little less familiar with the ramifications - especially in dealing with financial, medical support, etc.  I do agree that it needs to be looked at thoroughly and, most likely, amended to some degree.

All kinds of thoughts, for which I'll be called a neanderthal, etc, etc, so I'll just say nada. 

PS The last administration was seriously looking at challenging some of it, but didn't.  It's politically to hot.  So it's here to stay.  Like many things from our beloved leaders, always look at the laws of unintended consequences (in other words, the stuff they don't think about or ponder...long term). 

[Plaque Lives Matter!]

Unfortunately, it illustrates a double standard created with good intention. I have no doubt that at the time there was a lack of opportunity in womens athletics but the fact remains that it has now recently screwed over many prospective NCAA athletes. A personal acquaintance attended a state university in Iowa on a tennis scholarship, but due to title IX implementation, the mens team was discontinued suddenly, along with mens gymnastics and mens baseball. Why? Womens Rugby to equalize. I am all for equal rights but unfortunately equality goes both ways is what many fail to realize. To put it simply, Title IX is the impending death of minor men's collegiate sports. Along with the budget issues it creates, the minor sports are the first to go. Equality be darned eh?

[MUBurrow]

My biggest problem is the way that Title IX doesn't distinguish between revenue generating and non revenue generating athletics.  In high school, I think the fairness of opportunity is necessary to equalize between boys and girls sports.  A lot of high school districts just don't have the money for all the teams they would like, but at that age, I think that the equalizing requirement is necessary to ensure that the people deciding what to keep and what to lose do so fairly.

But when you get to the college level, I think that the economic self sufficiency of some sports and programs dictates that equalizing isn't always fair.  I always thought that a more appropriate ruling would be to force schools to equalize the amount of sports that aren't self sufficient.  Otherwise, in reality you might have the revenue from two men's sports paying for for 8 women's teams and 6 men's teams.  That doesn't strike me as fair in the spirit of the ruling either.  If this is truly a matter of the school ensuring fair opportunities for women and men, you can in some sense, only fairly force the school to equalize the distributions it pays out to those opportunities, not the opportunities it forces the sport with the highest demand to subsidize.

[ChicosBailBonds]

Unfortunately, it illustrates a double standard created with good intention. I have no doubt that at the time there was a lack of opportunity in womens athletics but the fact remains that it has now recently screwed over many prospective NCAA athletes. A personal acquaintance attended a state university in Iowa on a tennis scholarship, but due to title IX implementation, the mens team was discontinued suddenly, along with mens gymnastics and mens baseball. Why? Womens Rugby to equalize. I am all for equal rights but unfortunately equality goes both ways is what many fail to realize. To put it simply, Title IX is the impending death of minor men's collegiate sports. Along with the budget issues it creates, the minor sports are the first to go. Equality be darned eh?

Of course it does...it's reverse discrimination.  Much like other gov't programs.  The very programs they enable in the cause to "fix" a wrong, creates a new wrong.  It's classic.

[StillAWarrior]

As a collegiate wrestling fan, I'm not a fan of Title IX.  It's killed the sport at many schools.  I attended the NCAA wrestling championships several years ago and it was truly amazing how many of the major universities were not represented because they've dropped the sport.  I'm sure it's only gotten worse since then.

As the father of three girls, I'm hoping to ride the Title IX gravy train -- however unlikely that may be.

[GGGG]

Of course it does...it's reverse discrimination.  Much like other gov't programs.  The very programs they enable in the cause to "fix" a wrong, creates a new wrong.  It's classic.

It's not reverse discrimination at all.  The law says that in order to receive federal money, a University needs to offer a ratio of intercolligiate athletic participation similar to the ratio of male:female at the school.  How is that discriminatory in any sense of the word?

[GGGG]

My biggest problem is the way that Title IX doesn't distinguish between revenue generating and non revenue generating athletics.  In high school, I think the fairness of opportunity is necessary to equalize between boys and girls sports.  A lot of high school districts just don't have the money for all the teams they would like, but at that age, I think that the equalizing requirement is necessary to ensure that the people deciding what to keep and what to lose do so fairly.

First off, all sports generate revenue.  I think what you mean is "profit."

Second, how do you determine profitability?  For instance, football is an extremely costly sport.  It makes money at the high Division 1 level, but is basically a money loser everywhere else.  So the rules should be different for different schools?  Furthermore, how do you allocate costs and revenues when they are clearly shared across an entire athletic department?  Student fees...facilities, etc.  It would be a nearly impossible excercize to parse the revenue and costs associated with each sport.

And most importantly, if you truly believe that it's an issue of "equality," then profitability should really not even enter the equation right?

[MUBurrow]

First off, all sports generate revenue.  I think what you mean is "profit."

Second, how do you determine profitability?  For instance, football is an extremely costly sport.  It makes money at the high Division 1 level, but is basically a money loser everywhere else.  So the rules should be different for different schools?  Furthermore, how do you allocate costs and revenues when they are clearly shared across an entire athletic department?  Student fees...facilities, etc.  It would be a nearly impossible excercize to parse the revenue and costs associated with each sport.

And most importantly, if you truly believe that it's an issue of "equality," then profitability should really not even enter the equation right?

All good points, and probably issues you understand much better than I do.  One of the points you bring up I have no good answer for is the profit/loss variability for football among various schools.  If Baylor loses money but UT is on a goldmine, I have trouble hashing out what that means for individual sports at schools in the same conference.  I think that the profit margins from those sports can be itemized and are somewhat distinguishable for most profitable sports, particularly if you for the sake of discussion, equalize costs such as rent for facilities between all sports that use the give facility.  Of course itemizing would be an inexact science, but I think more demand to do so could parse out to a somewhat specific degree.

To your last point, I think it highlights a lot of why Title IX and other equalizing regimes for that matter are so contentious.  (note I dont use regime in some Tea-Party, totalitarian superlative sense.  instead merely in reference to Title IX's expansive influence over sports offerings)  It seems counterintuitive to me to have a situation where one Male sport might subsidize 90% of the athletic department at a school, yet that sport needs to be offset by Women's Water Polo for the sake of equalizing offerings.  It is entirely possible that if not for that Male sport, the school would be able to offer 4 less sports total.  Now I have no problem with an agency demanding that those 4 sports be two mens and two womens.  But when a sport provides opportunities for other offerings by way of revenue, I think it is fair to exempt it from the equalizing requirement of Title IX by way of its ability to create opportunity, something it does with its profit as opposed to simply existing and forcing a reciprocal creation for the opposite sex.

[GGGG]

OK...set aside my high and mighty "if it is about equality than profitability shouldn't matter" point.

What if the opposite were true?  What if one sport is a huge financial drain that takes away opportunities for other sports and participation?

I'll bring up the example of a university in the state where I live - Indiana State University.  ISU made the decision 20-25 years ago to drop very successful men's programs in wrestling and gymnastics in order to keep football that bleeds money to this day.  (Former Olympians Bruce Baumgartner and Bart Connor are ISU alums.)  Of course, they blamed Title IX, but in reality they could have easilly saved those programs by cutting a very bad, and very costly, football program.

See this is the basic program.  Football is a huge money drain at most schools.  It gives out the most scholarships, has the highest operating costs, and the least opportunity for revenue with only a handful of home games per year.  It can be argued that it takes away much more than it gives.

[Ari Gold]

Of course it does...it's reverse discrimination.  Much like other gov't programs.  The very programs they enable in the cause to "fix" a wrong, creates a new wrong.  It's classic.

Chicos for Senate '10
You'd be better than Whitman or Boxer

It's true. that Title IX is reverse discrimination. Schools are forced to put up with feminists playing victims and opportunistic lawyers have leveraging the dumb college gender equality laws.

And the idea that it's just about a Male/Female Ratio is wrong. Its about the ratio of female students to female athletes. so male sports gets cut because not enough girls go out for sports, which hurts the guys, even though the girls could care less, especially at the high school level.

At the College level look at what just happened at Quinnipiac. How is it fair that 3 mens teams have been cut, while the ACLU fought to keep women's volleyball. The guys are out of luck while the women's volleyball team struggles to get 3 wins (Men have been cut to 7 sports, while Quinnipiac has to have 10 women's sports). 
(proof that sultan doesn't have time to come down from his high horse to read the article) Not only is it discriminatory towards men, the girls volleyball team sucks.

The Title IX zealots (like Sultan) may not want to admit it but men and women are different. Fewer girls than boys want to run around and smash into each other. In school, girls dominate chorus, cheer and dance, student government, band, and the yearbook -all that stuff-. Dance classes don’t get an equal number of boys, even when they recruit them.

But when one more guy than girl wants to play a sport, feminist parents aren't shy about unequal treatment.

[GGGG]

I read the article.  In fact, I agree with Gregg Easterbrook on almost everything he writes.  And while I think he makes some fair points about the banalities of the law's enforcement, Title IX is a good law.

Quinnipiac tried to argue that cheerleading is a sport.  It's not.  I also don't have a great deal of sympathy for schools who drop sports to meet the goals of Title IX.  If you don't want to drop sports, invest more into your athletic programs.  But schools like Quinnipiac don't want to do that...they want all the benefits of competing at the high level in certain male sports (like ice hockey) without wanting to invest in actual female sports.  Instead they come up with a fake sport to fiddle with the ratios.

And you are flat out wrong that it has anything to do with male:female ratio.  The DoJ has a basic three-tiered test to see if a school is in complicance with Title IX.

--ratio of male:female athletic opportunities are roughly equal to the male:female ratio of the student body
--ratio of scholarship dollars between male and female athletes is roughly equal to the ratio of the student body
--that the facilities are relatively equal

So just because Quinnipiac has more female sports, that doesn't mean it offers the same scholarship opportunities or has the same facilities.

Now please do me a favor...respond with substance.  Don't just label me a "zealot," which if you actually knew me would find hilarious.  Se if you can actually use that MU education of yours to move beyond basic talking points.

[MUBurrow]

OK...set aside my high and mighty "if it is about equality than profitability shouldn't matter" point.

What if the opposite were true?  What if one sport is a huge financial drain that takes away opportunities for other sports and participation?

I'll bring up the example of a university in the state where I live - Indiana State University.  ISU made the decision 20-25 years ago to drop very successful men's programs in wrestling and gymnastics in order to keep football that bleeds money to this day.  (Former Olympians Bruce Baumgartner and Bart Connor are ISU alums.)  Of course, they blamed Title IX, but in reality they could have easilly saved those programs by cutting a very bad, and very costly, football program.

See this is the basic program.  Football is a huge money drain at most schools.  It gives out the most scholarships, has the highest operating costs, and the least opportunity for revenue with only a handful of home games per year.  It can be argued that it takes away much more than it gives.

This is a cool point in that I guess I am trying to highlight that equal numbers of sports offerings doesn't necessarily represent an equal investment in mens and womens athletics.  the football point highlights that.  i guess what I was suggesting was that Title IX be enforced more to ensure that the operating losses of mens and womens sports be equalized.  that would sort of bring my earlier suggestion in while acknowledging that expensive flopping programs like small schools football actually takes opportunities away be reducing the AD budget.  meanwhile, the women's equalizing sport might cost 1/25th of football.  So perhaps what I should have said is that the operating losses of non profitable programs for men and women should be equal, and not necessarily just the superficial number of programs.  This could be done by some version of a 5 or 10 year index maybe? 
Again, I acknowledge the problems with itemizing costs and attributing profits/losses to individual sports.  I am more just throwing things at the wall to see what sticks that might improve on the current enforcement.