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For once, something good to report on Title IX story

12/7/02 Lewistownsentinel.com

Good news on the Title IX front for once. In a meeting last week in Philadelphia, the Commission on Opportunity in Athletics have formulated various proposals to make the Title IX law more flexible.

The group will vote on the recommendations in January and then submit them to Education Secretary Rod Paige, who has final say on the proposals.

In a good boost for amateur wrestling, the committee suggested that universities could deviate significantly from the proportionality standard of Title IX.

The proportionality rule states that the percentage of female athletes should be roughly equal to the overall female student population at the particular school. Something, I'd like to add, is an absolutely impossibility. Why? Because not enough females participate in sports to equal the total female population of a major university.

That coupled with the fact that more men participate in sports than women (roughly 64-36 percent), but more women attend college than men, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see what the NCAA and its members schools did to make proportionality work - cut men's programs.

And since wrestling is predominately a male sport and since it doesn't bring in the money that football does, it was the first to go.

In order to achieve proportionality, universities had to cut programs and wrestling suffered the worst. Since Title IX passed in 1972, 172 collegiate wrestling programs were killed - most recently BYU and SIU-Edwardsville.

The National Wrestling Coaches Association filed a lawsuit seeking to ban the proportionality standard. saying that men's programs were cut just to meet that parity.

It was this suit that resulted in the formation of the COA. Under its proposal, schools would have a starting point were 50 percent of their athletes would be male and 50 percent female.

Universities would then be permitted to deviate from the starting point to account for walk-ons, transfers and academically ineligible student athletes.

If this is passed, it would be awesome for the sport of wrestling. It's the best of both worlds. Female athletics would continue to grow, while universities could be more flexible with the numbers and not have to cut programs all the time.

Let's hope that everyone comes to their senses and realize you can't make one sector grow at the expense of another. Both male and female student athletes should have the same opportunities.

That was the original purpose for Title IX in the first place.

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Commission debates future of Title IX The committee has looked at the impact the legislation has had on sports programs at universities in the country.

By Lynne Funk 12/9/02
Collegian Staff Writer

The bumpy road to legal equality for men and women in athletics -- a 30-year-long trip laced with potholes, roadblocks, fender benders and angry finger pointing -- has jolted to an important intersection.

Title IX, the legislation passed to make opportunities equal for men and women in federally funded schools, turned 30 this year. And with its birthday came the appointment of a commission charged with thoroughly examining it.

Celebrated by some people as a landmark work-in-progress for athletes across the country, and abhorred by others who say it has been more damaging than progressive, Title IX continues to tug at the purse strings and emotions of college athletic directors, presidents and coaches.

A 15-member commission appointed by the U.S. Secretary of Education Rod Paige played host to four town hall meetings across the country last summer and this fall. The commission now must digest the often-conflicting views expressed in no uncertain terms by panelists and the public.

The findings of the Commission on Opportunities in Athletics will, at the very least, affect the way Title IX is interpreted and possibly modified.

And earlier this year, the National Wrestling Coaches Association sued the Department of Education, contending that Title IX led to discriminatory elimination of hundreds of men's athletic programs. The suit is pending.

Because wrestling has been eliminated at scores of universities, its proponents have moved front and center in anti-Title IX discussions.

According to NCAA statistics, in 1980 there were 374 men's wrestling teams. In 2001 there were 229.

Title IX discriminates against men's teams, said Gary Abbot, director of special projects for USA Wrestling, at the Colorado Springs town hall meeting.

"Every men's sport will be devastated," he said.

The battle lines have been drawn -- and the commission has its hands full.

Ted Leland, co-chair of the commission and athletic director at Stanford University, said the group was appointed to "define the debate" for the secretary of education and for the public.

"At this point there is nothing that can be concluded," Leland said in Colorado Springs. This was the theme of the commission: collect information, listen to the arguments.

Lisa Graham Keegan, commission member and chief executive officer of the Education Leaders Council, said: "I would just tell you what we seem to be hearing, over and over again, is that Title IX, yes, it's working to promote opportunities for women. Some places, not so much," Keegan said.

After hearing arguments from hundreds of people who convened in Atlanta in August, Chicago in September, Colorado Springs in October and San Diego in November, the commission now has the job of sifting through the information and clearing the slate.

1972- Title IX of the Education Amendments bans sex discrimination in schools.
1974- The U.S. Senate passes, but the House fails to pass, an amendment that would exclude revenue-producing sports from Title IX.
1975- Original date schools were given to comply.
1978- Health, Education and Welfare Department provides final guidelines for schools.
1988- Civil Rights Restoration Act says Title IX applies to all operations of a college receiving federal funds.
1997- Supreme Court upholds a lower court ruling that found Brown University in violation of Title IX.
2001- As a result of Title IX, enrollment of women in athletics programs has increased significantly.
2002- Commission on Opportunity in Athletics formed to investigate the debate surrounding Title IX.

From the beginning

The 1972 legislation, one of 13 amendments to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, started a revolution in the way that federally funded schools treat women in athletics and academics.

It simply stated: "No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving federal financial assistance."

This single sentence has been clarified, contested in lawsuits filed by both men and women, and debated endlessly to determine precisely how best to provide opportunities for both genders in athletics.

In 1979, the Department of Education said a school must meet one of three criteria to comply with Title IX, often referred to as the three-pronged test: fulfill the proportionality goal -- the percentage of men and women athletes must equal the percentage of men and women in the general student body; show it had recently expanded opportunities for women, or prove that women had been accommodated.

"There was a theory out there that women didn't have an interest," said Bernice Sandler, senior scholar at the Women's Research and Education Institute in Washington, D.C. "Title IX proved that wrong."

Sandler has studied the legislation from the beginning -- and she was one of the women behind it.

"I really thought, in one or two years [sex discrimination] would be fixed," Sandler said. "I was extraordinarily naive."

The beginning of the road to Title IX hit home for Sandler when, in 1969, she applied for a full-time position at the University of Maryland, and a co-worker told her she came on "too strong for a woman." And that was why when Sandler didn't land any of the seven open positions, she decided to do something about it.

She studied the Civil Rights Act, which prohibited discrimination in employment on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin and sex, excluding "educational institutions in their educational activities."

Sandler found a presidential Executive Order that prohibited federal contractors from discrimination in employment on the basis of race, color, religion and national origin. It was dated Oct. 13, 1968, and it included gender.

Sandler spent almost three years conducting interviews with women who felt discriminated against and men who supported change. Because there were so few people actively pursuing cases against sex discrimination, Sandler quickly found Edith Green, D-Ore., who had worked with sex discrimination in higher education.

Then, after extensive investigations, seven days of Congressoinal hearings that resulted in a two-volume set of nearly 1,300 pages of information, Green's bill was passed and signed into effect by President Richard Nixon June 23, 1972.

An uneven playing field

Since then, it's been a tug-of-war, but neither side has fallen in the mud pit. In the early years of Title IX there were questions about precisely what the law required of college athletic departments and legal challenges that followed.

Originally, Sandler and others saw the need for Title IX in an academic setting, with the lack of women in educational positions. Today, Sandler says Title IX has made landmark movements for women.

However, even with this, Sandler said, "We're obviously not there yet." And even though many athletic directors argue against the proportionality aspect of the test today, Sandler said it was football coaches who originally suggested it. "Back then, proportionality didn't seem that bad because of the numbers," Sandler said. "The worry about proportionality wasn't there because there were fewer women enrolled in schools."

Meeting the proportionality test simply was easier.

Tim Curley, Penn State's athletic director, said funding is the primary challenge for schools' compliance of Title IX.

He said the Big Ten Conference made living up to Title IX a priority, but "every school is challenged from a funding standpoint, including Penn State."

Penn State's general student body is about 52 percent male and 48 percent female. The athletic scholarships given to men are about 54 percent to men and about 46 percent to women.

While it is possible, with better planning, to keep men's sports while maintaining or even adding women's, and all the while working on the proportionality aspect of Title IX, Curley said, it is not easy and many athletic directors hope there will be some "relief" in how proportionality is applied.

Despite the difficulties of meeting Title IX expectations, the progress is undeniable.

Since 1972, there has been a more than 400 percent increase of women playing college sports and more than 800 percent increase of girls playing high school sports.

"It wasn't suddenly women wanted to play sports," Sandler said. "It was finally the schools opened up the doors and invited them in [and] women stormed the doors."

According to the U.S. General Accounting Office, women's participation in college athletics since Title IX's passage has grown from 32,000 to 163,000.

And while the numbers have continued to increase since the early '70s, members of the Women's Sports Foundation argue it's still not enough.

According to a study by the Foundation released in August, women make up 53 percent of Division I student populations while receiving 41 percent of the opportunities, 43 percent of scholarship dollars, 36 percent of athletic operating budgets and 32 percent of recruiting monies.

The issue at hand

While the original legislation was proposed because of the sex discrimination in education, athletics since has been the centerpiece of discussion.

"Title IX was written 30 years ago," commission member Rita Simon said. "Are we working toward it too slowly? Are there differences in equal opportunities for different kinds of sports?"

Simon, who also is the founder and president of the Women's Freedom Network and professor in the School of Public Affairs and Washington College of Law at American University, said: "I think we have to look at it and say 30 years is a long time. Where are we now compared to where we want to be in total compliance with Title IX?"

After 30 years, men's teams have been cut, with many athletic directors arguing it was because of Title IX. But Sandler contends there are many myths about Title IX and its repercussions for men's teams.

Wrestling advocates have contended Title IX definitely has been detrimental to the sport, noting that 108 schools dropped programs between 1984 and 2000.

But Sandler contends that most men's teams have been dropped because of irresponsible financial planning by athletic directors, who use Title IX as a "distraction" for their actions.

Penn State President and commission member Graham Spanier said finances are relevant.

"We can't just come up with some big grand dream and expect it to happen," he said. "I think it would be a big mistake if we came out of this thing [and said], well, here's what needs to happen, so let's ask the government to pay for it."

Much debate clearly has focused on whether men's sports have been eliminated because of Title IX or because of tight finances. This has led to what some believe to be the "unintended consequences" of Title IX -- cutting men's teams to help move toward proportionality.

But while it is true that men's teams have been cut, the number of men's teams still outweighs the number of women's. According to the General Accounting Office 2001 report on adding and dropping teams, from 1981 to 1999 there were 3,784 women's teams added and 36 men's. But today there are still about 170,000 men's teams and about 150,000 women's.

An argument posed by Title IX critics is that some schools have added women's sports that don't draw that much interest by women.

But even after the chopping away of less popular men's sports, Sandler said many schools have yet to fully enforce Title IX.

The commission devoted considerable attention to the proportionality aspect at its Colorado Springs meeting.

The question of why are there still schools 20 to 30 percent off of proportionality was left unanswered.

Commissioners at the Colorado Springs meeting expressed frustration at the inconsistency of numbers cited by those who spoke about the success -- or lack thereof -- of schools on the proportionality test.

The commission spent a large portion of time arguing that they did not have enough data to completely identify the problems in the proportionality prong of Title IX .

Spanier said Penn State is among the best schools in compliance with Title IX -- almost within the 2 percent mark on the proportionality test. "We have no intention of changing that," Spanier said.

And while every men's team at Penn State has roster caps, including football, about 100 male walk-ons are left out. Even as Penn State's percentage gives off a good impression, other schools do not have the same happy ending.

A lot of the numbers the commission heard didn't add up, and this left some commission members questioning the enforcement of proportionality.

"Now, I know there's some bad apples out there," Spanier said. "You know, we may argue about, between the top 10 or 20 universities, are they good or bad because they're at 1 percent or 2 percent or 3 percent off the number, but we know darn well there are some people that are 20 and 30 percent off, and why haven't they been shut down?"

Sandler said a lot of the problems stem from women's fears of going after their schools.

As of June 7, 2002, the Office of Civil Rights, the watchdog of Title IX, was monitoring 111 intercollegiate and interscholastic cases that involved the three-part test.

"They have to have a complaint," Sandler said, and people are afraid of filing, fearing the backlash from it. It takes time for the government to investigate. "It hasn't been well enforced," she said.

Where to go now

Spanier said the problem with most of the arguments presented in Colorado Springs -- by both men and women -- is this: too much was a rehashing of the past.

"I would like to make a pitch for us taking a more forward-looking approach than looking back," he said. "I think if our commission can have a legacy, it should really be what can we collectively do to enhance opportunities for young men and women going forward. I think everybody around the table, after hearing 150 people already, is a little bit confused about exactly what the right thing is to do."

But, in the end, Spanier speculated there could be a change in the regulations, a new letter of clarification or additional interpretations that flow from subsequent court decisions.

Spanier said because of the fear surrounding the three-part test, on both sides, change could be an option for the commission to consider.

And while the arguments and fears continue to circulate, the commission has a tough job to do when it presents its findings to Paige in January.

Keegan said: "If we can get to the end of the game by coming up with the magic -- the silver bullet -- that solves all these problems, that would be great. But I think that there is a more realistic and absolutely invaluable goal that we can attain, and that's to identify for the secretary of education what the reasonable arguments are on either side of these issues."

So the "reasonable arguments" soon will fall into to the hands of Paige, who ultimately will map the direction the 30-year-old law will go.

"About the only thing everybody's agreed on is that Title IX will not be abandoned," Spanier said.

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Title IX creates double standard detrimental to male athletes

By Jasen Asay 12/09/02

Something has to be done with Title IX, and my suggestion is to burn it like it was a bra in the 1960s.

Before you put the paper down and call me a chauvinist, let me explain. I am a huge fan of women's athletics. In fact, a major reason I started playing soccer at the age of five was because my two sisters were already playing. I enjoy covering local women's teams for this newspaper.

Although Title IX was meant as a positive move in order to increase the opportunity for women to play sports, the law put into effect in 1972 has caused just as many negatives by taking opportunities away from men.

This past week, a commission has met behind closed doors to see what, if anything, should be done about the law.

The main problem with Title IX is that it includes football, which has up to 80 male scholarship players. It usually takes two to three extra women's teams to equal the same number of athletes. At Southern Utah University, the Thunderbirds recently added women's soccer which, along with the gymnastics program, is still not enough to create an equal balance.

At least the addition of soccer in Cedar City made since sense. Arizona State recently filled a two-mile ditch with water so that the school in the middle of a desert could add a women's rowing team to reach compliance with Title IX. As the team was put together, the university was handing out full-ride scholarships to athletes with "no experience necessary."

But rather than add more sports for females, many schools are cutting out successful male programs.

In the last six years, more than 350 men's athletic programs at universities -- from baseball and wrestling to gymnastics -- have been eliminated to achieve statistical balance.

Students at Miami (Ohio) University have lost their men's wrestling, soccer and tennis teams, although there are plenty of vacant roster spots on the women's tennis team. The university cut the men's teams because it claimed funds were no longer available, although the school somehow sent its women's precision skating team to Europe for competitions.

Bonus points for anyone who knows what precision skating is.

Despite producing 20 Olympic swimmers, the UCLA men's swimming team had the drain pulled.

Many men who wish to compete at a sport which isn't football or basketball often end up settling for club teams. All five universities in Utah have women's soccer programs that are sanctioned by the schools. All five also have men's club soccer teams where each player pays at least $500 a season, provides his own travel to play other club teams and sleep in overcrowded motel rooms.

Over the past 20 years, women's sports have grown in a tremendous way, and Title IX has played a role in that growth. Unfortunately, with the way the universities and courts have interpreted and enforced the law, it has also done unnecessary damage to men's athletics.

It has become a double standard.

Contrary to what most people think, Title IX doesn't only deal with athletics, but it requires gender equality in all aspects of a school's operation. According to the National Federation of High Schools, female high school students outnumber males in all extracurricular activities except sports.

The Independent Women's Forum has calculated that if the courts were to require gender parity across the board, 96.4 percent of all female cheerleaders would have to turn in their pom-poms, and 35.8 percent of female choir members and 25.4 percent of female orchestra members would be cut. Thirty-three percent of female debaters would be denied the chance to compete -- all in the name of equalizing the opportunity for boys and girls in schools.

But that will happen about the same time Augusta becomes a female-only club.

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Spreading around the Title IX blame

December 8, 2002
Kirk Wessler kwessler@pjstar.com

In my church choir, women outnumber men by almost 2-to-1.

I don't know for sure, but since everyone of high school age or older in our congregation is welcome to join the choir, I think this is because more women than men want to sing with our group.

In the Tri-County Tennis Tournament last summer, male participants outnumbered females by 2-to-1.

I don't know for sure, but since the tournament is open to everyone in Peoria, Tazewell and Woodford counties, I think this was because more men than women wanted to compete in the tournament.

Some might say these lopsided statistics require fixing. Perhaps we need a law that says, since roughly half the population is male and half female, the choir must have an equal number of men and women, or the tennis tournament must have an equal number of males and females.

To enforce this law, to comply with it, we must convince more men to sing in the choir, or more women to play in the tournament. Or else, we must cut women from the choir and men from the tournament.

This is where we are with Title IX, the 1972 law that bans sex discrimination in programs at any college or high school that receives federal tax money. Title IX applies to all programs and activities, but nearly all attention to it is focused on sports.

A school can prove it follows the law in one of three ways: The percentage of male and female athletes must be proportional to that of the student population. Or the school must show a history and continuing practice of expanding opportunities for the underrepresented sex. Or the school must show it completely and effectively accommodates the interests and abilities of female student-athletes.

The Secretary of Education's Commission on Opportunity in Athletics was formed to consider whether changes in the enforcement mechanism are necessary. The 15 members have listened to expert and public testimony since June, and now they are arguing over the proposals they will make to Education Secretary Rod Paige by Jan. 31.

Predictably, the battle lines are formed on the proportionality test.

Critics say the only "safe harbor," the only sure way to satisfy the feds that a school complies with Title IX, is to provide roster spots for males and females in a proportion identical to that of the student population.

Defenders of the current standards say that's not true, that a school can use either of the other prongs to prove compliance.

In fact, everything is based on proportionality.

Brown University fielded women's teams long before Title IX and continued to increase opportunities after 1972. During a subsequent budget crunch, Brown tried to cut an equal number of men's and women's programs. Female athletes sued, and the courts ruled against Brown, saying that when equal cuts were made, women were hurt disproportionately. The only way for that to be the case was for the proportion to be out of whack in the first place.

So much for history and continuing practice.

And how would a school prove it is "accommodating the interests" of its female students? Interest surveys are disdained, because perhaps questionnaires are incomplete or poorly worded and an interest in something like crew at a school in the middle of the desert might be overlooked. If interests are being met, then the numbers will reflect that.

Why?

Because, as far as Title IX's true believers are concerned, if all external factors and opportunities are truly equal, then the interests of men and women will be identical.

In their world, men and women will have equal interest in football, equal interest in flying airplanes, equal interest in playing the violin, equal interest in reading books, drinking beer, shooting baskets, hunting deer, watching action movies, reading romance novels, playing slot machines or walking in the woods. And participation will mirror interest.

Their world, though, is not real.

I don't know what any of those interest levels are. But I'll guarantee you each one is different for men and women.

I'll also guarantee interest does not equal participation. If it did, I would skydive.

No question, a big reason we've reached this point of acrimony in the life of Title IX is the arrogant, intellectually dishonest, intractable position taken by the universities that play NCAA Division I-A football.

But the no-compromise stance on proportionality by Title IX's defenders also is arrogant, also intellectually dishonest and also intractable.

And it's every bit as wrong.

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DON'T BLAME TITLE IX FOR DECLINE IN WRESTLING

Copyright Pulitzer Publishing Company Dec 6, 2002

I am writing in response to the Nov. 28 article on plans by Southern
Illinois University at Edwardsville to get rid of its wrestling
program.

The article stated, "Nationally, college wrestling programs have
declined as colleges struggle to comply with the federal Title IX law, which tries
to keep participation levels of male and female athletes proportionate to
the enrollment of men and women."

Any claim that the decline in men's wrestling programs is due to Title
IX's policies is unfounded. The blame should be put where it belongs.
Wrestlers are not valued by the schools. Schools would rather give a full
scholarship to the male football benchwarmer than give it to a wrestler.

From 1984 to 1988, Title IX's application to intercollegiate athletics
was suspended because of the Supreme Court's decision in Grove City College
v. Bell, which held that only parts of schools that received earmarked
federal funds (which intercollegiate athletics do not) were covered by Title
IX.

In that four-year period, when the three-part test was not in effect,
colleges and universities cut wrestling teams at a rate almost three
times as high as the rate of decline during the 12 years after Title IX's
application to intercollegiate athletic programs was firmly
re-established through the Civil Rights Restoration Act of 1987.

Data regarding the interscholastic level support a declining interest
in wrestling as well. High school wrestling participation peaked in
1976-77 at 355,160. By 1981-82, it declined to 245,029 and by 1998-99 to 234,973,
according to the National Federation of State High School Associations.

Title IX did nothing more than require that all of this country's
citizens be treated equally. Before Title IX went into effect, only about
294,000 girls across the country participated in high school sports, because
they received few or no resources. Last year, that number exceeded 2.7
million (41.5 percent of high school students), according to government
statistics.

The increase is due to Title IX and its mandate that women should have
equal treatment in education. In spite of those statistics, some people
continue to say that girls are just not interested in sports, and so do not need
an equal opportunity to participate. They are trying to take away Title
IX, using cuts in men's wrestling and other programs as an excuse.

There is a need for major priority changes in collegiate athletics to
halt the "them against us" attitude being fomented. Bold steps are needed to
reform collegiate athletics, and to ensure that all who want to
participate have the opportunity and resources to do so.

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Title IX about big spenders, not genders

lrobertson@herald.com LINDA ROBERTSON 12/8/02

How did Title IX become the Wicked Witch of the West? Why has such a simple law been turned into a villainess?

Title IX, which mandates equal athletic and academic opportunities for men and women at the nation's educational institutions, is under attack 30 years after President Richard Nixon signed the catalyst for the boom in women's sports.

Without Title IX, there would be no Mia Hamm and Brandi Chastain, no Connecticut and Tennessee women's basketball, no Kerri Strug nor Marion Jones. Even Jennifer Capriati, clueless about the law, can thank Title IX for making sports as integral to young women's lives as they always have been to men's.

These athletes are members of the Title IX generation. Most of their mothers missed out on the sports revolution, but their daughters ought to grab the baton and keep running -- unless Title IX is forced to take two steps backward.

The National Wrestling Coaches Association sued the Department of Education in January, claiming the law compels schools to add women's teams at the expense of men. The wrestlers say it is a ''quota system'' that amounts to reverse discrimination.

President Bush, who recognizes ''quota'' as a conservative buzz word, created a commission to study ways to change the law. The commission finished the heated ''town meeting'' phase this week and will submit recommendations by Jan. 31. The agenda is clear: The head of the Office of Civil Rights is opposed to affirmative action; a chief aide in the Attorney General's office wrote a book assailing Title IX; House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) is a former wrestling coach who has led the charge. The question is how badly Title IX will be wounded.

The wrestling lawsuit isn't likely to hold up in court, but it has been damaging by pitting men against women when the real fight for fairness should unify men and women in nonrevenue sports against bloated football and basketball programs. Even NCAA president Cedric Dempsey says the biggest barrier to gender equity is overspending by football and men's basketball.

Title IX doesn't require or encourage athletic directors to cut men's teams. Inefficient and unjust athletic directors are using it as an excuse for cutting men's teams.

Slice through the rhetoric of the wrestlers and see their glaring half-truth: While 171 wrestling, 84 men's tennis and 56 men's gymnastics programs were discontinued between 1981 and 1999, the General Accounting Office says more men's programs were added than subtracted. The additions included 135 men's soccer, 82 men's basketball and 85 baseball programs. Overall, the number of males playing sports at levels since 1972 has increased, not declined. Maybe wrestling just isn't winning the popularity contest.

And while male gymnasts deserve our sympathy, women gymnasts in that same period lost far more -- 100 teams.

The University of Miami's renowned men's swimming and diving program is being cut while women's volleyball and women's soccer have been added. Female athletes become scapegoats when critics should hold the athletic department accountable for a misguided budget decision.

This shouldn't be a blame game about how many wrestling teams are cut but an investigation about why 80 percent of high schools and colleges are not even close to compliance, according to the Women's Sports Foundation. The NCAA says Division I-A schools spend an average of $11 million on men's programs and $4.6 million on women's even though women make up the majority of enrollment.

UM had been cited as one of the worst offenders but now has a plan for compliance. But it was telling that when the UM Center for Research on Sport in Society held a Title IX symposium on Friday and Saturday and sent out dozens of invitations, no one from the athletic department attended.

Title IX opponents argue that women are not as interested in sports as men.

''I find that as insulting as when they used to say women really aren't interested in voting,'' Nancy Hogshead-Makar, Olympic swimmer and law professor, said at Friday's symposium.

At one of this fall's town meetings, one woman claimed girls are not predisposed to like sports. ''Society doesn't tell [boys] to be interested in sports -- their own biology tells them that,'' she said. Under her reasoning, we can assume girls' genes tell them to take up cooking and cleaning.

Title IX isn't a men vs. women issue. Title IX is a football issue.

Instead of blaming women rowers, why don't the wrestlers take a look at the football players, who consume huge pieces of the budget pie while the ''minor'' sports are left with crumbs. While the women try to come up with solutions, selfish football extends no aid.

Why do football teams need 85 scholarships -- almost four for every position -- when NFL teams survive with 53-man rosters?

''The real quota isn't Title IX; it's those 85 untouchable scholarships,'' said professor Mary Jo Kane of the University of Minnesota, a symposium speaker. ``The networks will still televise 60-man teams.''

Do football teams really need to spend every Friday night before a home game in a hotel? That costs an average of $60,000 a year, according to the NCAA. Expensive baby-sitting. Why do football teams need nine assistant coaches? Why are they constantly remodeling weight rooms?

Forget the myth that football is the ''golden goose'' that pays for all other sports. The NCAA says at 75 percent of its institutions, football doesn't pay for minor sports or itself. And no one wants to kill the goose. Just put it on a diet.

The fairest way -- for men and women -- to make Title IX work is for the NCAA or university presidents to order a reduction in football scholarships to 60. At UM that would result in some $750,000 for ''minor'' sports.

Listen to the reasoning of Geena Davis, actor and amateur archer who never got to play sports in school and said this to the Bush commission:

``Every father and mother is watching what you do. We want our daughters to be treated with the same fairness, concern, respect and encouragement as our sons, whether it's in the classroom or on the playing field.''