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Facts and Myths on Title IX / Proportionality
by Dale Anderson Fact Sheet The main message is that the bureaucrats in Washington D.C. have created a quota, and that quota is killing male athletic opportunities. The quota must be abolished. Title IX was enacted to abolish discrimination against females in the educational setting. The Federal Department of Education was charged with the responsibility of creating rules to interpret and enforce Title IX. The Department of Education created a quota that requires every school to achieve proportionality. Proportionality means that the schools must increase female (or decrease their male) athletic participation so that the percentage of female athletes is the same as the percentage of females enrolled. – Presently, females constitute about 55% of the students enrolled in higher education. That means that about 55% of the athletes in college must be female. That also means that it is virtually impossible to achieve the quota without destroying every male Olympic sport at the college level. (It is projected that soon female enrollment will approach 60% of the total student enrollment which makes the problem even worse.) – There are presently about 200,000 male athletes at the NCAA level. There are presently 125,000 female athletes at the NCAA level. – All college administrators believe that they must achieve proportionality. Therefore they believe that the above numbers must be equalized. – For every female participatory slot added, about four male slots have been eliminated. If this trend continues, all male Olympic sports programs will be extinct in 5-10 years. (Add 15,000 to the female numbers and subtract 60,000 from the male. That will mean that "gender equity" will be achieved at 140,000 athletes a piece.) – Presently, females have more sports programs/teams (7000+) to participate on at the college level than males have. – Presently, females have more scholarships than men do in all counterpart sports (e.g. track - 18 to 12.5; swimming - 14 to 9.9; volleyball - 12 to 4.5; gymnastics 12 to 6). – There are 35 high school wrestling programs for every college wrestling program. For females the ratio is 8 - 1 (soccer); 10 - 1 (tennis); 7 - 1 (field hockey); 11 - 1 (swimming); 11 - 1 (volleyball), etc. Does that seem fair? Myths Disseminated by the Quota Advocates Myth: The main problem is money. Reality: The way the OCR rules work is that enrollment ratios drive participation ratios and participation ratios drive everything else, including the money. Therefore the system requires equality of participation before there can be equality in funding. It would be possible to equalize the number with money if the numbers were closer. Myth: The problem is football. Reality: Remember, again, that the quota requires participatory equality before considering funding. Even if quota advocates eliminate every football player, the participatory quota will still not be satisfied. There are 50,000 football players, and 75,000 male athletes must be dumped to achieve proportionality if proportionality is to be achieved by elimination. In reality, of course, the walk-ons in every sport, including football, will be dumped first; then the Olympic sports, then financial "equality"à. Myth: There is a relationship between enrollment's and participation's. Reality: There is no research that any quota advocate can point to that shows a relationship between enrollment ratios and participation ratios such that enrollment should be used as test. It is arbitrary. When you think about it a moment, there is about as much of relationship between enrollment ratios and participation ratios as there is the between the Dow Jones average and the number of tuba players in the band. Myth: The courts have not ruled that it is not discrimination against males or a violation of Title IX to try to achieve proportionality by eliminating males. Reality: In a recent case in Bakersfield, California the Federal District court ruled that it was a violation of Title IX to eliminate males to try to achieve a quota. Quotas equal discrimination by their very nature. And as the President said, "Discrimination is un-American." Myth: Proportionality increases female participation. Reality: Proportionality is used only to eliminate males. There is not one case that can be documented where proportionality was used to increase female participation. There are two other rules under Title IX that require schools to continuously increase female participation or accommodate all of the athletic interests of all of the females on campus. These two rules are used only to increase female participation. Myth: Schools are not limited to proportionality to avoid charges of discrimination. There are two other ways to comply with Title IX. Those ways are for the school to have a history of increasing female participation and continues to increase participation or if the females in the school do not wish to participate. Reality: The problem is that the Education Department does not in reality recognize these "tests" except as stepping stones to achieving proportionality. Every educational administrator or athletic director who is honest will tell you that their school must ultimately achieve proportionality to avoid the wrath of the Department of Education.
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