The game's over as
far as the blue-ribbon
commission set up by the Department of Education to review Title IX
— the so-called women's-equity law that has devolved into a federal
quota mandate in high-school and college sports — is concerned. In
a
letter issued late Friday, the Bush administration upheld the current
Title IX guidelines, including the Clinton-era proportionality quota that
has been the death knell to many men's teams in colleges across the country.
(If a school's student population is 60 percent women and 40 percent men,
the sports programs have to reflect that breakdown exactly — even
if 60 percent of the women don't want to play sports.)
In February, when
the Commission
on Opportunity in Athletics issued its report, eyebrows
were already raised. The secretary of education, Rod Paige, announced
that only recommendations that received unanimous consent in the commission
would be considered when revamping the current enforcement guidelines.
It was looking bad then, as if the administration had already decided
to capitulate to the feminists. The very existence of the commission —
which would hear from supporters, critics, and victims of the current
law — had been an outrage to women's sports groups that want the
law never to be touched, except to make it harder for guys to play sports
in college. That's not an exaggeration, either. As story after story in
school after school demonstrates, regardless of female interest in specific
sports at specific schools, if the feminists set their sights on you,
or if the school looks around and gets nervous: Goodbye male wrestlers.
Goodbye men's track.
The legacy of Title
IX, according to 2001 General Accounting Office figures has been: since
1972, over 170 men's wrestling programs, 80 men's tennis teams, 70 men's
gymnastics teams, and 45 men's track teams eliminated. Meanwhile, women's
sports programs increased nine fold over the same period.
What was the point
of going through the motions in pursuit of fairness? What was the point
of setting up a commission to supposedly review Title IX? What was the
point of nominating fair-minded people to the Office for Civil Rights
like Gerald Reynolds (whose nomination battle was
a tough one largely over the Title IX issue — feminists were
convinced he was an agent of reform — gutting, in their minds)? Although
Reynolds signed the letter than went out on Friday (after 4 P.M. —
did someone think the opponents of capitulation wouldn't notice?), one
wonders where the order really came from. Someone in the administration
obviously thought a little reform was not worth the trouble of feminist
harping. Folks like the Women's
Sports Foundation broke out the champagne on Friday; the National
Women's Law Center called it a "huge win for women and girls
everywhere." One wonders what the point was. It's not as though Martha
Burk and the rest of the sisters who oppose Title IX reform will jump
on the coalition of the willing to reelect the president in '04. Regardless,
someone decided to sell out agents of fairness — and the victims
of gender quotas in college sports, past, present, and future.
One commission insider, speaking on the condition of anonymity, called
the charade —
the formation of the commission, the hearings, the report —
"a waste of…time and talent," given the end result.
The cave comes despite
the fact that "Five of the seven women on the president's commission
on Title IX, including a college basketball coach, athletic director and
a WNBA All-Star, recommended sensible reforms to the law," as Jim
McCarthy, a D.C.-based PR strategist working with college coaches challenging
the current law, notes. (They suffered one court setback this year, before
the Friday letter.) "Their solutions were rejected and instead the
Department of Education is implementing the demands of the gender activist
groups."
But the game is far
from over, say critics of the current law. "We are still well within
the first period, and our existing strategy already contemplated the administration's
action…Indeed, from a purely legal perspective, we welcome it,"
says Larry Joseph, a lawyer working with the coaches and the College
Sports Council.
Promises McCarthy,
"The college coaches and the kids they teach have been fighting this
battle on their own from the start. Anyone who thinks they are going to
be deterred by gender activists, trial lawyers or politicians needs to
watch a film called Rudy. We have every intention of winning this
one for the Gipper."
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