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Grappling With Equity Supreme Court ruling could impact Title IX

By ADAM RUBIN 4/30/2001
Daily News Sports Writer

Well before this year's team arrived in Philadelphia for its conference tournament, Syracuse wrestling had started to wither. Then, during a somber weekend in early March, the once-storied program, slated for elimination, suffered a final indignity.

Syracuse, which had produced seven national champions, 34 All-Americans and five Olympians during its 87-year history, won only one match at its league championship — by forfeit. Its wrestlers lost 12 matches, a result inconceivable years earlier, when Syracuse dominated that competition.

"It's kind of like watching a cancer patient die," Syracuse coach Scott Miller says. Miller blames what he believes is the misguided enforcement of gender equity laws — Title IX — for the demise of his program. He also faults out-of-control spending on the men's revenue sports — including football — that leaves wrestling among the Olympic sports slighted by athletic directors.

Miller is not alone in his assessment: In college sports the primary barometer for Title IX compliance is a "proportionality test" which requires a university with a student-body enrollment that is 55% female, like Syracuse, to have its percentage of women athletes approach that number. Critics point to it as the reason for cuts in men's sports, calling it a quota system that demands an unnaturally high percentage of women athletes.

Those critics applauded a Supreme Court ruling last week that experts say could require plaintiffs claiming gender-equity violations to prove intentional discrimination. The ruling, coupled with a Bush administration that might be less likely to encourage the Office for Civil Rights to enforce standards, have some sensing a so-called victory for male athletes' rights.

That "victory" may be costly — and it is not yet at hand. Donna Lopiano, executive director of the Long Island-based Women's Sports Foundation, points to widespread public support for Title IX as a reason for caution. She cites an NBC/Wall Street Journal survey that found 76% of respondents approved of cuts in men's athletics if the money saved was invested in women's sports.

As a result, Lopiano says, it would be unwise for the administration to alter the interpretation "especially when the public supports Title IX the way they do." Title IX, enacted in 1972, makes no specific reference to athletics. But the statute, which bars discrimination on the basis of sex, has been used during the past three decades to dramatically increase women's athletic opportunities.

Those who hail proportionality credit the test for the increase in athletic opportunities for women — from 90,000 female college athletes in 1981-82 to 163,000 in 1998-99. Still, women represent only 42% of college athletes, demonstrating the need for continued vigorous enforcement, they say.

Lopiano calls Title IX a scapegoat for the true reason for men's sports cuts at the Division I level — athletic directors with warped priorities. Rather than continue to provide funds for men's Olympic sports such as wrestling and gymnastics, Lopiano says, athletic directors have instead entered into an out-of-control arms race in the revenue sports — football and basketball — that leads to budget shortfalls and cuts.

At Nebraska, which recently dropped men's swimming despite a $42 million athletic budget, she points to the school's decision to install a multi-field baseball complex with heating under the soil, a new row of skyboxes and costly turf for its football stadium and a track with hydraulically banked turns. And that does not even tackle the salary of football coach Frank Solich and his assistants.

As for the Supreme Court ruling — a states-rights case that dealt with Alabama's refusal to offer multilingual driver's license tests, but which could be applied to gender-equity suits — Lopiano predicts it won't have a chilling effect on the ability of women athletes to seek action in the courts. Intentional discrimination won't be difficult to prove, she says, because "teams are segregated by sex ... and the decisions made are explicitly gender-based."

Women generally have two ways of protecting their rights against discrimination under Title IX — through the courts or by filing a complaint with the federal Office for Civil Rights. President Bush has yet to appoint a replacement for Norma Cantu, OCR's head under the Clinton administration. But it is believed that the new leader could attempt to reduce — or even eliminate — the influence of proportionality as a criteria for Title IX compliance.

Bush proclaimed his support for Title IX in a recent Chronicle of Higher Education report. "Title IX has opened up opportunities for young women in both academics and sports, and I think that's terrific," he said.

But Bush also issues this qualifier: "I do not support a system of quotas or strict proportionality that pits one group against another. We should support a reasonable approach to Title IX that seeks to expand opportunities for women rather than destroying existing men's teams."

Says Kimberly Schuld, director of policy for the Independent Women's Forum, which supports less reliance on proportionality: "We're looking for an agency that will pursue intentional discrimination, very little of which currently still occurs at the collegiate level. There are so many watchdogs on these people, I don't think they're getting away with stuff."

According to the original guidelines issued in 1979, a school can achieve Title IX compliance without demonstrating proportionality. It also can comply with the law by showing a recent history of adding women's opportunities, or by demonstrating that it has enough offerings to satisfy the interest. But critics argue that proportionality was the main consideration in determining compliance during the Clinton administration — forcing athletic directors to cut men's sports to achieve a certain percentage of women athletes.

Regardless, any action in the interpretation of Title IX comes too late for the Syracuse wrestling team.

"It's going to take a long time to undue that damage," says Pat Greene, a founding member of Keep Syracuse Wrestling Inc. and a former Orangemen wrestler. "And there's going to be serious battles. Syracuse is gone. But it certainly seems to give some hope to those men's programs that may be on the chopping block."