As the men on the University of Wisconsin crew team pack the minivans to head out to a big meet, the women on the women’s crew team pack their bags to board planes.
The budget for the respective crew teams is lopsided due to Title IX, which requires a school to fund equal amounts for men and women athletics. In the case of the men’s and women’s crew teams, it affords the women to take planes to certain competitions, while the men’s team only has budget enough for traveling in minivans.
A panel of 15, organized by the Secretary of Education Roderick Paige, is scheduled to give a report to the department of education’s head by the end of February. The report is a list of recommendations the panel saw fit for change but is not binding to the department.
The six-month commission endorsed only a few changes, none of them drastic. One of the more controversial endorsements came from Edward Leland, athletics director at Stanford. Simply stated, the civil-rights office will establish a set number of spots on the roster for each team, rather than counting the number of athletes on rosters the first day of practice.
The colleges would have funding for that many spots on the team but would be able to keep as many or as few athletes as the coach liked. This system is already practiced at Stanford, Leland said.
A three-part test was also debated during the commission. This test gives the institutions the option to pass Title IX requirements in one of three ways: have the same proportion of women on sports teams as they have women in the student body; give a “history and continuing practice” of expanding opportunities in sports for women; or show that they are “fully and effectively accommodating the interests and abilities” of female students.
The University of Wisconsin abides by the first “prong” of the three-part test.
Some student athletes disagree with the proportional issue. Dennis Boyle, who’s on men’s crew, thought the proportional athletes compared to the student body is “stupid.” “It’s good to get girls involved (in sports),” Boyle said.
But, Boyle also said that being on a sports team shouldn’t be a right.
“Not everybody deserves [to be a student athlete]; it should be earned.”
He went on to say, “We need to have this many girls to play college sports? Why?”
Professor emeritus James L. Hoyt believes the advances made since the onset of Title IX have been extremely beneficial for college athletics.
“Wisconsin is laudable in compliance with Title IX,” Hoyt said. He went on to say that the last prong of the test is “just absurd.” In theory, the institution might have to give a survey every year to find the interests of a current student body, but the effects and results of that survey would not go into effect until the next year, when the students have either moved on or changed their views.
“On the whole, the systematic enforcement of Title IX has reached laudable goals … promoting diversity and getting females into sports,” Hoyt said.
If there would be one problem with Title IX Hoyt said he would address, it would be the lack of enforcement. “Title IX is differentially enforced, and if one school doesn’t enforce it, the only thing someone can do about it is file a complaint. [After that], it doesn’t fix much,” Hoyt said.