Kathryn Lopez discusses discusses Sarah Palin’s warm endorsement of Title IX, and says, “Title IX had a good intention. It’s what feminists have done with it that’s bad.” However, the language and strictures of the title itself made it possible for feminists to do what they have. It is unfortunate that Palin is holding herself forward as a product of it.
Title IX works just the way affirmative action did. Supporters said affirmative action wouldn’t mean quotas and lowering standards, but it did. Likewise, supporters of Title IX said it was just about equal opportunity for women, and then professed surprise to see it become a tool for feminist tyranny via ruining opportunities for men.
The Office of Civil Rights in the Department of Education, the same bureaucracy that looks out for affirmative action in education, administers Title IX. The office checks for compliance by demanding proof that schools have offered equal opportunity. With all the complexities of the issue, and with the fear of actual and threatened lawsuits, the surest way to show compliance turns out to be through numbers, just as with affirmative action. And that means equalizing the numbers of both sexes participating in various activities.
It has been applied mainly in the area of college sports, and it has meant disbanding men’s teams. Since women haven’t shown as much interest in sports, even with colleges practically begging them to participate, men’s teams had to be dissolved so that the numbers would look the same for both sexes. Many college men have been deprived of the opportunity to enjoy low-level team sports. Another step toward demasculinizing men.
The National Academy of Sciences is using Title IX to push for equalizing the representation of women in science. If there are unequal outcomes it could be that someone is making gender somehow count as an issue when it shouldn’t. Start looking, and you are sure to find something you can call discrimination somewhere.