Bread & Circuses

OPPONENTS of race-based preferences are winning in the courts, but, thanks to the Clinton Administration, sex-based preferences have triumphed in the gym. In the name of “gender equity,” colleges belonging to the NCAA have cut 20,900 male athletes from team rosters over the past five years. Male wrestling and gymnastics programs face extinction. Although eliminating men’s teams does not improve athletic opportunities for women, a 25-year-old antidiscrimination initiative imposes strict quotas on collegiate playing fields.

Back when the Equal Rights Amendment was wending its way through the state legislatures, Congress approved Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, which prohibited sexual discrimination in federally assisted education programs. There’s little evidence of discrimination in education today. The majority of students in college now are women, and women earn the majority of masters’ degrees. But the feminists are not content.

OPPONENTS of race-based preferences are winning in the courts, but, thanks to the Clinton Administration, sex-based preferences have triumphed in the gym. In the name of “gender equity,” colleges belonging to the NCAA have cut 20,900 male athletes from team rosters over the past five years. Male wrestling and gymnastics programs face extinction. Although eliminating men’s teams does not improve athletic opportunities for women, a 25-year-old antidiscrimination initiative imposes strict quotas on collegiate playing fields.

Back when the Equal Rights Amendment was wending its way through the state legislatures, Congress approved Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, which prohibited sexual discrimination in federally assisted education programs. There’s little evidence of discrimination in education today. The majority of students in college now are women, and women earn the majority of masters’ degrees. But the feminists are not content.