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Athlete gender law discriminates, needs change

By: Holly Bezant
November 14, 2002

"No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex be excluded from participation in, or denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any educational program or activity receiving federal aid."

Sounds great, huh? This is Title IX, passed in 1972. It is good that women are being considered equally with men in regard to being allowed to partake in academic endeavors. However, it is not so cut and dried with athletics.

First, under this law, equal amounts of athletic financial aid must be given to males and females. Secondly, there must be an equal number of males and females in the school sports, and schools must show that they are at least making progress toward equalizing the male-to-female ratio of athletic participation. Lastly, all publicity, travel expenses and facilities, among many other benefits and opportunities, must be equal between male and female sports.

Let's examine what led to Title IX. In 1972, the percentages of women graduating with degrees, depending on what type of degrees, was anywhere from 7 to 25 percent of the graduates (including medical and law school graduates). Now, those percentages have increased to at least the 40-percent range, and probably higher, since percentages ranged from 38 to 44 percent in 1994.

Under Title IX, many universities and colleges have had to get rid of men's athletic programs in order to ensure that the men's and women's teams are equal in number and support. This means that the University of Miami and the University of California at Los Angeles both had to drop their men's swimming programs, both of which had produced Olympians.

Other colleges have tried to meet the federal requirements by dropping anything from men's wrestling to soccer programs. Several schools have even cut the ever-popular sport of football.

In short, if a school is 55 percent female, then 55 percent of the athletes have to be female. Since there are more males than females interested in sports, this is very unfair. As already discussed, several schools have had to cut men's sports programs rather than adding female sports.

I mentioned that more males than females are interested in sports. Not only can I vouch for that from the girls that I know but also because surveys have been conducted on it. For instance, at Brown University, surveys conducted in the 1990s showed that even though the student body was 51 percent female, only 40 percent of those interested in playing varsity sports were females.

Another factor in all of this is that men's sports are much more popular than women's sports are.

Football and basketball games are sold out most of the time at N.C. State. While I love volleyball and gymnastics, I enjoy football a little bit more. I would not want a men's sport to be cut just because we have an increase in female students, nor would I want a women's cricket team or some other obsolete sport team to be created just to fulfill the law requirements.

Unfortunately, all of the athletic aspects of Title IX are merely interpretation. Nowhere does the law directly mention athletics. This interpretation could grow and reach other fields. For instance, there are certain fields that are dominated by men. More men than women become chemists. Will this soon be considered discrimination? There are far more females in my zoology class than there are males. Does this mean that some of us should be kicked out so that we are equal in number with males? None of that makes sense. Everyone has their specific abilities, with males and females often having different ones.

The number of female athletes in regard to male athletes should not be a factor in the sports that a school supports. If there is a female sport that women feel should be in place at a school, then they can try to get it put into action. If it is a reasonable and popular sport, it would surely be seriously considered. Discriminating against existing men's athletic programs by cutting them short should not be the solution.

Holly loves playing sports but woefully isn't good enough for the varsity level. E-mail her your condolences at paz_rata@yahoo.com.

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FILA statement: Position of wrestling at the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games

11/14/2002
FILA/

TO ALL NATIONAL FEDERATIONS
TO ALL FILA BUREAU MEMBERS

Subject: position of wrestling at the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games

FILA informed you at the beginning of September 2002 of the proposal from the IOC olympic programme commission concerning the possible reduction of the events, even the elimination of a wrestling style from the programme of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games.

On 21 October 2002, the FILA President, Mr. Raphael Martinetti, accompanied by the Secretary General, Mr. Michel Dusson, met at the IOC headquarters the President, Dr. Jacques Rogge, in order to defend the entirety of the styles and the categories within the olympic programme.

The IOC President who was accompanied by the Technical Director, Mr. Gilbert Felli, carefully listened to the serious arguments developed by the FILA delegation.

At the end of the meeting, we received information from Dr Rogge that the situation of wrestling would not be submitted to the IOC Session in Mexico, since the maintaining of wrestling on the programme was not questioned.

The IOC Executive Board will, however, be competent to submit to the FILA during the first months of the year 2003 possible proposals for modifications or maintaining of the current status quo.

It is therefore unnecessary and even harmful to wrestling if the National Federations lead any actions on the side of the IOC members, since the final discussion will not be under the competence of the IOC Plenary Session.

On the other hand, the Bureau members and National Federation Presidents who are in good relations with members of the IOC Executive Board, whose names are mentioned on the enclosed list, are invited to plead our cause in order to maintain in the future the entirety of the styles and catagories.

Thank you in advance for your collaboration.

Raphael Martinetti
FILA President

Annex: list of the IOC Executive Board members

IOC EXECUTIVE BOARD

PRESIDENT
Jacques ROGGE

VICE-PRESIDENTS
Richard Kevan GOSPER
Thomas BACH
Vitaly SMIRNOV
James L. EASTON

MEMBERS
Zhenliang HE
Gunilla LINDBERG
Franco CARRARO
Lambis W. NIKOLAOU
Toni KHOURY
Tomas SITHOLE

REPRESENTATIVES OF SUMMER IFs
Denis OSWALD

REPRESENTATIVES OF WINTER IF
Ottavio CINQUANTA

NOCs
Mario VAZQUEZ RANA

ATHLETES
Sergey BUBKA

ADMINISTRATION
DIRECTOR GENERAL
Francois CARRARD