# Title IX (sexual equality in college sports) -- "Great Success" or "Train Wreck" **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 20, 2002, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/title-ix-sexual-equality-in-college-sports-great-success-or-train-wreck-quot/109996 "2002-05-20T21:11:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Icerigger](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/icerigger/32/432_2.png) [@Icerigger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Icerigger)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2002, 9:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/title-ix-sexual-equality-in-college-sports-great-success-or-train-wreck-quot/109996/21 "2002-05-21T09:54:32Z")
Look, conservatives just don’t like women participating in non traditional roles especially sports. When the women’s soccer team won against China, Rush Limbaugh spent a great deal of time belittling them and he has railed against title IX as well. The fact is many people believe that men are involved in **real** sports and the fact that any male activity would be impeded in any way by giving resources to “girlie” sports is an anathema to many. ---
**Author:** ![wring](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/838e76/32.png) [@wring](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wring)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2002, 11:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/title-ix-sexual-equality-in-college-sports-great-success-or-train-wreck-quot/109996/22 "2002-05-21T11:52:55Z")
[here’s Bernice Sandler who testified in Congress](http://www.umich.edu/~urecord/0001/Apr02_01/18.htm) urging passage of Title IX. According to this, the data above is true, and she testified to same in front of Congress years ago. > [@](#): > > Prior to the passage of Title IX, virtually every school had minuscule quotas for women, Sandler noted. Dormitories had different rules for men and women. At the U-M, women students—even criminal justice majors—were banned from a course in criminal justice simply because it dealt with male offenders so, ‘papa’, your turn. ---
**Author:** ![wring](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/838e76/32.png) [@wring](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wring)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2002, 12:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/title-ix-sexual-equality-in-college-sports-great-success-or-train-wreck-quot/109996/23 "2002-05-21T12:23:19Z")
[and more](http://www.ed.gov/pubs/TitleIX/part3.html) from the education department, giving info such as : > [@](#): > > Virginia state law prohibited women from being admitted to the College of Arts and Sciences of the University of Virginia, the most highly rated public institution of higher education in the state. It was only under court order in 1970 that the first woman was admitted if you keep on hitting ‘next page’, you’ll see more data, more info, etc. ---
**Author:** ![december](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/838e76/32.png) [@december](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/december)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2002, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/title-ix-sexual-equality-in-college-sports-great-success-or-train-wreck-quot/109996/24 "2002-05-21T13:37:16Z")
> [@](#): > > **Icerigger** > Look, conservatives just don’t like women participating in non traditional roles especially sports. I’m a conservative, and I do like women to be fully participating. I’m proud of my wife, the mdical school professor, my cousin the doctor, my sister the writer, etc. > [@](#): > > ## **wring** quote: > > ## Prior to the passage of Title IX, virtually every school had minuscule quotas for women, Sandler noted. Dormitories had different rules for men and women. At the U-M, women students—even criminal justice majors—were banned from a course in criminal justice simply because it dealt with male offenders > > so, ‘papa’, your turn. Thanks, child. [ol][_]The first sentence is so incorrect, it’s a joke. Co-ed schools had plenty of women. And, there were many fine women’s colleges as well. Any woman who wished to attend college had many, many choices of places to attend, long befroe Title IX.[_]Sandler committed the _post hoc ergo propter hoc_ fallacy. I believe these things would have gotten fixed even without Title IX (although there’s no way to check.)Regardless of whether Title IX was needed 30 years ago, it’s not needed today. The culture shift has taken place. It’s time to let the universities and schools control their own education.[/ol] Your Virginia example helps support the case that Title IX wasn’t essential. This was a case of real discrimination. It was fixed without Title IX, two years before Title IX was enacted. ---
**Author:** ![wring](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/838e76/32.png) [@wring](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wring)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2002, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/title-ix-sexual-equality-in-college-sports-great-success-or-train-wreck-quot/109996/25 "2002-05-21T13:48:19Z")
I’ll ask for cites to demonstrate that this woman lied before Congress, thank you. and, if you would peruse the links that I gave you, you’ll note that there is more to be done. Women make up more than 50% of the population, and the data showed that great strides were made by women in those years (bringing near equality in the percentage of graduates from college etc.) and demonstrated that the ‘conventional wisdom’ of the 70’s was flat out wrong - women weren’t in sports or math, **not** because of a ‘we don’t like that’ factor, but because of lack of encouragement and lack of openings. The huge increases in women’s sports alone demonstrates that **something** significant happened. and currently, according to the links, women still only account for 30% of the atheletic scholarships given. ---
**Author:** ![SuaSponte](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/67e7ee/32.png) [@SuaSponte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SuaSponte)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2002, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/title-ix-sexual-equality-in-college-sports-great-success-or-train-wreck-quot/109996/26 "2002-05-21T14:24:51Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by december \* > However, it’s different when the federal government gives them money. Since they have to power to tax citizens without limit, there shopuld be limits on what they can require in exchange for returning money back to the citizens. If the government was giving this money “back” to “taxpayers,” you would probably have a good point. But it’s not. The universities **aren’t taxpayers.** They are non-profit institutions. They aren’t getting their money “back” - they never paid any in the first place. Sua ---
**Author:** ![PatrickM](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7feea3/32.png) [@PatrickM](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickM)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2002, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/title-ix-sexual-equality-in-college-sports-great-success-or-train-wreck-quot/109996/27 "2002-05-21T15:37:05Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Jibby7 \* > \*\*Here’s my two cents (and on this issue, that’s about all its worth). > > I’m fine with title IX and collegiate sports, as long as it excludes football from the equation. Football is THE problem with title IX. First, there is no football equivilant in female sports. By equivilant, I mean in terms of raw cost (equipment, insurance, etc), numbers of participants (not unusual for schools to carry over 100 players), and POTENTIAL revenue (some programs make money, the vast majority lose money). Football, while I love it, is a monster in this equation. For the men’s sports, it is a giant resource consumer, and it the number of students allowed on the roster create problems for the men’s AND women’s sports. Perhaps my school was unusual, but I know for a fact that my school packed the women’s track team with women who never competed in events, just to inexpensively make up for the number of men in football. Most other schools in my collegiate conference dropped sports like baseball and hockey instead. So what occurs to make up for football is there becomes more choices of sports for women than men, or certain teams get packed with women who will never play. Meanwhile, the options for men’s sports drop, and very viable sports in which many men compete get dropped, like baseball or hockey. > > If there was a female sport which offset football on its face, an programs like baseball, and say, softball, were cut, I’d be much more in favor of Title IX. Football is the problem. Most men’s sports options will suffer because of it. But football is the crown jewel of most colleges, and above rapproach. Those politics of football create a strange and uncomfortable balance between the men’s and women’s sports. \*\* This is an excellent point. Moreover, there is a huge difference between NCAA schools with popular football programs and unpopular ones. I love college football, but there is a huge difference between the college football at the University of Michigan and at Eastern Michigan University. The two schools both play NCAA Division 1 schedules and are less than 20 miles apart, but Michigan regularly sells out its 100,000 seat stadium at upwards of $35/ticket and EMU struggles to get 10,000 people to come to its games at less than $10 per ticket. Michigan’s football program stands on its own financially and supports the school’s other athletic teams, men’s and women’s alike, while I’ve no doubt that EMU’s football team puts a severe drain on the school’s finances, which leads to cutting minor men’s sports under the Title IX requirements. As I said, I love college football but having said that, a college’s purpose should not be as a minor league for professional sports teams. It a college football team costs too much, all other things being equal, then the college should shut it down. If the alumni don’t like that solution, then the college football team should be supported by the alumni independently of the school, and “off-book” from the school’s, just like the Feds take the Social Security system off the books when they talk about the federal deficit. ---
**Author:** ![Threadkiller](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/aca169/32.png) [@Threadkiller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Threadkiller)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2002, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/title-ix-sexual-equality-in-college-sports-great-success-or-train-wreck-quot/109996/28 "2002-05-21T17:22:43Z")
I, like many other people, am thrilled by the strides college women’s sports have taken recently. Women should (and now more often do) have the opportunity to compete in athletic events–be it in college or elsewhere. However this has come at a cost to men’s sports programs. Cuts have been made by virtually every college or university in their men’s athletic programs and title IX is nearly always listed as a/the culprit. I am an avid college volleyball fan and while it is good to see the women doing so well the men are struggling so bad that it is nearly too painful to bear. Even with divisions I and II lumped together for championship play they are nearly below the required number of schools for NCAA competition (Loyola Marymount and San Diego State both dropped men’s programs recently). College wrestling has a similar, if not worse, recent history. I have seen this trend of schools cutting the less popular programs linked to a decline in US men’s Olympic performance (and conversely the rising success of the women’s Olympic fortunes). These trends will probably continue. The problem is that you really can’t have it both ways. Ideally, they would have just made a bigger pie that could be sliced more equally. Instead, they are now robbing from the poor men’s programs to fund the women’s success. The problem (most) conservatives have with Title IX is (I)not(I) the success of women’s programs or women obliterating “traditional gender roles” but rather the means required to bring it about. It is always better for people or institutions to do the correct thing without being forced. Now we have a legislated mandate forcing higher education to conform. On the whole Title IX has done a world of good but there is a downside. ---
**Author:** ![wring](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/838e76/32.png) [@wring](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wring)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2002, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/title-ix-sexual-equality-in-college-sports-great-success-or-train-wreck-quot/109996/29 "2002-05-21T17:59:40Z")
**Threadkiller** and I object to the concept that ‘Title IX’ killed those programs - a different way to look at it would be: Certain programs for male atheletes that had in the past existed **at the expense of programs for females** have been cut. Look at the data - spending is still heavily in favor of the male programs, I’m not finding it in my cold heart to be saddened that the males have had to give up what amounted to the females share of the pie. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2002, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/title-ix-sexual-equality-in-college-sports-great-success-or-train-wreck-quot/109996/30 "2002-05-21T18:22:25Z")
**december** replied to **wring** : \*“on [this page](http://www.edc.org/WomensEquity/resource/title9/before.htm) we have [… quote snipped]” **wring,** feminist sources are not noted for truth and accuracy. You’re so young that you don’t know how to evaluate this mishmash.\* Well, **december** , much of the page **wring** linked to consists of quotes from the exact same DOEd source that you cited in your OP. Presumably you’re okay with the “truth and accuracy” of that part, yes? As for the statements that you objected to: \*“Female students were not allowed to take certain courses, such as auto mechanics or criminal justice; male students could not take home economics.” This was not true everywhere. Nor is it a big deal. \* Who on earth are you to say that it’s not “a big deal” for students to be denied access to the courses they want to take **solely** on account of their gender? Just because it doesn’t make any particular difference to you personally, it’s “not a big deal”? Hell, by that admirable standard of importance, none of us Americans should care about the European synagogue vandalism that you keep on about, since none of us attend European synagogues. Way to demonstrate your impartial concern for fairness and equity, **december**. :rolleyes: \*“Most medical and law schools limited the number of women admitted to 15 or fewer per school.” I doubt this. Many of my female friends went on to medical or law school. None of them expected that getting admitted would be harder for a woman than for a man.\* Once again, **december** , anecdotal evidence from the experience of a few people you happen to know personally does **not** constitute reliable data about a nationwide phenomenon. Against that anecdotal evidence, let’s set the considered opinion of [Professor William Chafe](http://www.pbs.org/fmc/interviews/chafe.htm) of Duke University, author of _The American Woman: Her Changing Social, Economic and Political Role 1920-1970:_ > [@](#): > > One of the great ironies of post-war [WWII] history is that notwithstanding the continuing and extraordinary change in the women’s work world, there’s almost no progress toward equality. There is a totally double standard in terms of wages, in terms of opportunities. Most colleges are still training women to be nurses and teachers. Most professional schools are not admitting women. And most medical schools, law schools, business schools have quotas. They would not accept more than five percent of women. The hospitals will not accept women interns, so there is a tremendous set of barriers full of discrimination and sexism against women. […] If you were well educated and had a comfortable middle class background, the feminist revolution made possible for you as a woman [to have] opportunities that were simply not there for your parents or your grandparents - opportunities to go to medical school, law school, business school, to have a career, to become an executive. The glass ceiling was there, but there was still so much else you could do that before you no one else had been able to do. I’m thrilled that five or six women that you knew were able to get good educations and professional training prior to the 1970’s. But if you think that their limited experience means that there were no significant gender barriers for women **in general** , you’re kidding yourself. (Aren’t you an actuary IRL? Don’t you **have** to have some understanding of the difference between the experience of particular individuals and the trend for an entire demographic group? How can you so consistently suppress that understanding in your SDMB posts?) \*“Many colleges and universities required women to have higher test scores and better grades than male applicants to gain admission.” This may have been slightly true in some cases. Is this discrimination? No, the school wanted a certain number of male and female students. More high-quality females applied than high-quality males in some cases.\* **Requiring** female applicants to have higher qualifications than male ones for admission is **not** discrimination?! Okay then, I guess we won’t be hearing any more complaints from you if some schools require white applicants to have higher qualifications than black ones. \*“Women living on campus were not allowed to stay out past midnight.” True. That was considered appropriate in loco parentis care in those days.\* All of the gender discrimination we’re pointing out here was considered “appropriate” by the parties practicing it. That is not in itself a sufficient justification for discrimination. \*“After winning two gold medals in the 1964 Olympics, swimmer Donna de Varona could not obtain a college swimming scholarship. For women they did not exist.” Too bad. Colleges are for education.\* Okay, then why are you complaining that “the number of men’s spots [on sports teams] lost was 3.4 times the number of womens’ spots created. So, the overall impact of Title IX has been to reduce participation in college athletics”? If it’s no big deal that a college doesn’t support female swimmers, why should it be a big deal if it doesn’t support male lacrosse players? Either participation in college athletics is unimportant for men and women alike because “colleges are for education”, or else college sports funding matters because athletics are a non-trivial aspect of college education. You can’t have it both ways. _Economics teaches us that regulation is most needed for monopolistic industries. College is just the opposite. There are hundreds or thousands of institutions competing with each other for students. Competition will do a better job of encouraging quality than regulation will._ That’s the well-known mantra of the free-market fundamentalist. But it doesn’t do a very good job of accounting for the fact that there **was** significant discrimination in education against many groups—including women—prior to the 1960’s and 1970’s, and that non-discrimination legislation was important in helping to eradicate it. Sure, you can always fall back on hypotheticals and argue that the legislation wasn’t **really** necessary, that unregulated competition **would** have eradicated the discrimination by itself **eventually**. Maybe so. But I’m glad that many people 30–40 years ago weren’t quite so passive about it as you’re recommending. ---
**Author:** ![december](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/838e76/32.png) [@december](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/december)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2002, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/title-ix-sexual-equality-in-college-sports-great-success-or-train-wreck-quot/109996/31 "2002-05-21T18:54:28Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by wring \* > \*\ ***Threadkiller** and I object to the concept that ‘Title IX’ killed those programs - a different way to look at it would be: > > Certain programs for male atheletes that had in the past existed **at the expense of programs for females** have been cut. > > Look at the data - spending is still heavily in favor of the male programs, I’m not finding it in my cold heart to be saddened that the males have had to give up what amounted to the females share of the pie. \*\* Requiring gender equality only for athletics is totally unfair, because a larger per cent of males want sports, while women tend to select other activities. E.g., my daughter played in the Swarthmore orchestra, which was heavily female. She hung out at the Feminist Center, which was 100% female, with no male equivalent. (Can you imagine the outrage if Swarthmore had set up another center for _men only_? :eek: ) [sup]They could call it the Male Sexist Pig Center[/sup] The article cited in the OP said that 3.4 men’s positions on college teams were cut for every woman’s spot created. Why were more there more cuts than additions? Administrative burden may be the reason. Colleges may have found it a pain in the neck to cope with the administrative hassle, so they simply dropped some of their sports. ---
**Author:** ![wring](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/838e76/32.png) [@wring](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wring)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2002, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/title-ix-sexual-equality-in-college-sports-great-success-or-train-wreck-quot/109996/32 "2002-05-21T19:07:23Z")
actually, once again, **december** your facts are inaccurate. The **data** submitted has indicated that once barriers were lowered and there was more availability for women in sports, they’ve responded. For you to claim (as you have here) that when there \*\*weren’t \*\* opportunities available, it was because ‘women didn’t want them’ is an incredibly myopic view. and, of course, we still haven’t heard you admit that you are **substantialy factually wrong** about ‘there wasn’t any significant discrimination going on’. So, you’ll forgive, won’t you, when I don’t believe your current unsubstantiated assertion that women didn’t care for sports? ---
**Author:** ![december](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/838e76/32.png) [@december](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/december)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2002, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/title-ix-sexual-equality-in-college-sports-great-success-or-train-wreck-quot/109996/33 "2002-05-21T19:21:55Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Kimstu \*Well, **december** , much of the page **wring** linked to consists of quotes from the exact same DOEd source that you cited in your OP. Presumably you’re okay with the “truth and accuracy” of that part, yes? Not at all. Please don’t hang me for being fair and balanced. > [@](#): > > \*\<\<“Female students were not allowed to take certain courses, such as auto mechanics or criminal justice; male students could not take home economics.” > > This was not true everywhere. Nor is it a big deal. \* > > Who on earth are you to say that it’s not “a big deal” for students to be denied access to the courses they want to take\>\> Because they didn’t want to take those courses. You and I disapprove of the gender stereotypes that existed in the 1950’s, but don’t blame the schools for teaching the students what they wanted to learn. > [@](#): > > Against that anecdotal evidence, let’s set the considered opinion of [Professor William Chafe](http://www.pbs.org/fmc/interviews/chafe.htm) of Duke University, author of _The American Woman: Her Changing Social, Economic and Political Role 1920-1970:_ Chafe has his considered opinion, and I have mine. At least I supported my opinion with somje anecdotes; Chafe offered no support at all. Furthermore, he may well be an advocate for a certain POV… > [@](#): > > _“Many colleges and universities required women to have higher test scores and better grades than male applicants to gain admission.”_ **Kimstu** , your bullshit detector should be ringing, when you see that undefined word, “many.” In fact, many schools took women only. Co-ed schools generally were able to take a specific number of eac sex, because dorms had only one gender (and no sex.) The college accepted the best men and the best womebn they could get. The spin on this quote tells me that Chafe is not a reliable source. > [@](#): > > \*“After winning two gold medals in the 1964 Olympics, swimmer Donna de Varona could not obtain a college swimming scholarship. For women they did not exist.” > > Too bad. Colleges are for education.\* > > Okay, then why are you complaining that “the number of men’s spots [on sports teams] lost was 3.4 times the number of womens’ spots created. So, the overall impact of Title IX has been to reduce participation in college athletics”? If it’s no big deal that a college doesn’t support female swimmers, why should it be a big deal if it doesn’t support male lacrosse players? I do not like athletic scholarships, but I want colleges to make athletics available. > [@](#): > > But it doesn’t do a very good job of accounting for the fact that there **was** significant discrimination in education against many groups—including women—prior to the 1960’s and 1970’s, and that non-discrimination legislation was important in helping to eradicate it. At best, Title IX helped us to make an appropriate change. However, the unintended consequences will be with us forever. Getting away from all the nonsense, here’s the way it really was. My wife was accepted to study graduate math at Berkeley, on the same basis as I was. She was surprised that many professors knew her be name. She finally realized that she was the only American woman in many of her classes. This wasn’t discrimination; it was what American women were choosing to do and not to do. ---
**Author:** ![Threadkiller](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/aca169/32.png) [@Threadkiller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Threadkiller)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2002, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/title-ix-sexual-equality-in-college-sports-great-success-or-train-wreck-quot/109996/34 "2002-05-21T19:38:39Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by wring \* > **Threadkiller** and I object to the concept that ‘Title IX’ killed those programs - > > Certain programs for male atheletes that had in the past existed **at the expense of programs for females** have been cut. This is some of the strangest rhetoric I have ever read on this board. Title IX certainly has killed off several men’s programs: The cites? Try [a google search on “Title IX Men’s College Sports”](http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=Title+IX+men%27s+college+sports&btnG=Google+Search) I would like to see some cites backing up your assertion. The NCAA first came into existence in 1910 (1906 under an earlier name). They didn’t even govern women’s sports until 1980. [(cite)](http://www.ncaa.org/about/history.html). In fact the trend has just been the opposite of what you claim. The men’s programs were there before the women even started competition. > [@](#): > > Look at the data - spending is still heavily in favor of the male programs, I’m not finding it in my cold heart to be saddened that the males have had to give up what amounted to the females share of the pie. No argument about the funding, that is, however, slowly changing. I would be willing to bet (I can look for cites later if you wish) that the (vast) majority of revenue comes from men’s sports. I would also make the argument that without the men leading the way, organized women’s sports would never have existed in college above the club level. All this being said I _am_ for women’s college sports, I just hate the way we had to get there. ---
**Author:** ![wring](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/838e76/32.png) [@wring](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wring)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2002, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/title-ix-sexual-equality-in-college-sports-great-success-or-train-wreck-quot/109996/35 "2002-05-21T19:38:49Z")
Who the **HELL** are you to say what women did or didn’t want to take in college. You cannot possibly assert that zero women **wanted** to take them, but what we **can** see is **zero** got to take them. I cannot figure out what your point is. it seems to be: 1. We didn’t need Title IX because discrimination didn’t happen. 2. While we can prove that women were in fact prohibted from taking certain classes, or participating in non offered sports, it’s not 'cause they were being discriminated against, it’s cause they didn’t want to take the classes, or weren’t interested in sports. 3. The fact that women **now** take those classes and participate in sports is 'cause somehow over the past years, women themselves changed their inate desires and talents, not 'cause external controls were lifted. 4. And anyhows, we don’t have discrimnation now, so we don’t need laws any more to insure that it doesn’t happen (then I suppose there’d be zero lawsuits on Title IX? and of course, we always drop laws once we achieve 100% compliance). and we know all of this because no one in **december’s** personal circle of friends and close associates experienced anything else. I was one of those females who wanted to take shop, remember? ---
**Author:** ![wring](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/838e76/32.png) [@wring](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wring)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2002, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/title-ix-sexual-equality-in-college-sports-great-success-or-train-wreck-quot/109996/36 "2002-05-21T19:46:29Z")
**Threadkiller** you misunderstand what I posted. I am not claiming that there are fewer men’s sports now, and that they were dropped so the colleges involved would become compliant with Title IX. What I object to is the equation being specified thusly: A. We **had** X number of mens’ sports, and y number of women’s sports. (y being substantially less than x). B Now, because we’re being forced to have even up that equation a bit by offering more sports to women then we had, we had to cut Z number of men’s programs, and that’s due to Title IX. What I was suggesting that A. In the past, when you had x number of men’s sports and y number of women’s sports, you were \*\*able \*\*to have that much more men’s sports **because** you took $$ that ‘should’ have been more equitably allocated. B. Therefore, in order to achieve a better balance, we are having the men’s sports program cease ‘stealing’ from the women’s programs. IOW, if gender equity had been the rule (as it ‘morally should have been’), the men’s programs wouldn’t have been there in the first place. Sort of you took more than your share for many, many years, don’t expect me to cry when you have to give some of it back now. See? ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2002, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/title-ix-sexual-equality-in-college-sports-great-success-or-train-wreck-quot/109996/37 "2002-05-21T20:35:31Z")
**december:** _Please don’t hang me for being fair and balanced._ Not only will nobody ever hang you for that, **december** , nobody will ever even accuse you of it. \*Who on earth are you to say that it’s not “a big deal” for students to be denied access to the courses they want to take\>\> Because they didn’t want to take those courses. You and I disapprove of the gender stereotypes that existed in the 1950’s, but don’t blame the schools for teaching the students what they wanted to learn. \* I’m not objecting to the fact that schools offered both home ec and shop classes, or to the fact that most people who wanted to take the former were girls and most who wanted to take the latter were boys. What I’m objecting to, and what constitutes the discrimination that I **do** blame the schools for, is that the minority of students who preferred the other class were not allowed to enroll in it. _Chafe has his considered opinion, and I have mine. At least I supported my opinion with somje anecdotes; Chafe offered no support at all._ So being a professor of history at Duke and having published several books on women’s changing roles in the past century doesn’t constitute an argument that he probably knows more about the subject than you do? Mmm-hmmm. _Furthermore, he may well be an advocate for a certain POV…_ If “being an advocate for a certain POV” automatically discredits somebody’s statements, then given your own diehard conservative advocacy, why should anybody pay any attention to any of yours? If you can discount an opponent’s remarks merely because he holds different political views, then there’s no ground for debate at all. \*“Many colleges and universities required women to have higher test scores and better grades than male applicants to gain admission.” Kimstu, your bullshit detector should be ringing, when you see that undefined word, “many.” In fact, many schools took women only. Co-ed schools generally were able to take a specific number of eac sex, because dorms had only one gender (and no sex.) The college accepted the best men and the best womebn they could get. \* “Able” to take a specific number of each sex? As though it wasn’t possible for co-ed schools to build more women’s dorms, or reassign some men’s dorms to women? Nonsense, **december** : co-ed schools **chose** to enroll a much smaller proportion of women than men, and so the qualifications of the successful women in the (much smaller) applicant pool tended to be better. This has been acknowledged by [the president of MIT](http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/tt/1990/may02/23114.html), in an [article](http://www.emory.edu/history/women.emory.html) about coeducation at Emory University, by a [professor at the University of Virginia](http://www.virginia.edu/insideuva/textonlyarchive/95-09-22/2.txt), and in many other places. As for my “bullshit detector”, I try to calibrate it to respond to the presence or absence of actual supporting evidence from knowledgeable sources, not to the mere presence of so-called “undefined words”. If you actually go out and **look** at the available evidence about male and female student qualifications at co-educational institutions before the 1960’s and 70’s, you’ll see that the above statement is quite justifiable. _The spin on this quote tells me that Chafe is not a reliable source._ **december** , debating with you would be a lot more rewarding if you bothered to read things carefully. I made it very clear in my previous post that that sentence was one of the statements from **wring** ’s link that you objected to previously. It does not appear in the remarks I quoted from Chafe. Therefore, you have no grounds for concluding that it undermines Chafe’s reliability, even if you refuse to accept my evidence that the statement is perfectly credible. _I do not like athletic scholarships, but I want colleges to make athletics available._ Then I would think you’d be pleased that colleges have now made athletics much more available to women, rather than just griping that men aren’t getting as disproportionate a share of the athletics funding pie as they used to. _At best, Title IX helped us to make an appropriate change._ Finally, we agree on something. _However, the unintended consequences will be with us forever._ So much for agreement. What are the “unintended consequences”—diminished funding for men’s teams? Why should we assume that that will “be with us forever”? Universities can recognize, as many are recognizing, that they need to change their sports funding strategies so they can fully fund men’s sports without skimping on women’s. Whether this means redirecting more men’s funding away from the huge resource-gobbler of football, raising more funds expressly for certain teams, or just increasing sports funding overall, they’ll most likely figure out a way to give everyone a fair chance to play. _Getting away from all the nonsense, here’s the way it really was. My wife was accepted to study graduate math at Berkeley, on the same basis as I was. She was surprised that many professors knew her be name. She finally realized that she was the only American woman in many of her classes. This wasn’t discrimination; it was what American women were choosing to do and not to do._ Look, I’m not disputing that this was the **individual experience** that your wife had. I’m simply contesting your totally indefensible extrapolation from your wife’s (and a few other personal acquaintances’) experience to the assertion that discrimination in education was not a problem for **American women in general**. To draw that conclusion, you have to completely ignore a whole mass of evidence. You may consider that evidence is “nonsense” and only a few individual anecdotal histories count in determining “the way it really was”, but you shouldn’t expect to convince anybody else that way. (Thank God that you personally knew Julia Robinson and something of her experiences at Berkeley, or you’d probably also be insisting that there was no discrimination against women faculty members either, because you didn’t know of any. Sheesh. :rolleyes: ) ---
**Author:** ![sqweels](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f19dbf/32.png) [@sqweels](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sqweels)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2002, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/title-ix-sexual-equality-in-college-sports-great-success-or-train-wreck-quot/109996/38 "2002-05-21T21:14:04Z")
I have two questions with regard to Title IX: 1. Why are athleticslooked at seperately from other extra-curricular activities? 2. Why are mens and womens athletic programs kept “equal but seperate”? ---
**Author:** ![december](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/838e76/32.png) [@december](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/december)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2002, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/title-ix-sexual-equality-in-college-sports-great-success-or-train-wreck-quot/109996/39 "2002-05-21T21:41:33Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Kimstu \* > Not only will nobody ever hang you for [being fair and balanced], **december** , nobody will ever even accuse you of it. Now, now. I was fair enough to include a cite for the other side. > [@](#): > > What I’m objecting to, and what constitutes the discrimination that I **do** blame the schools for, is that the minority of students who preferred the other class were not allowed to enroll in it. Sure, but perfect equality is impossible, and seeking it results in silliness. You and **wring** probably support the idea of subsidizing a Feminist Center, but not a Male Chauvenist Pig Center. Still, I would not accuse the two of you of being sexists. > [@](#): > > So being a professor of history at Duke and having published several books on women’s changing roles in the past century doesn’t constitute an argument that he probably knows more about the subject than you do? Mmm-hmmm. Sorry, I was there. What should I believe? Chafe or my own eyes? > [@](#): > > “Able” to take a specific number of each sex? As though it wasn’t possible for co-ed schools to build more women’s dorms, or reassign some men’s dorms to women? Nonsense, **december** : co-ed schools **chose** to enroll a much smaller proportion of women than men, and so the qualifications of the successful women in the (much smaller) applicant pool tended to be better. This has been acknowledged by [the president of MIT](http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/tt/1990/may02/23114.html), in an [article](http://www.emory.edu/history/women.emory.html) about coeducation at Emory University, by a [professor at the University of Virginia](http://www.virginia.edu/insideuva/textonlyarchive/95-09-22/2.txt), and in many other places. Well, I can tell you that the women in my U. of Chicago class were far below the men (on average), in the truly competitive areas of math and science. I can’t speak for Emory. (Maybe Emory U. historian Bellesailles, the one who faked the gun count figures, worked on this study ;)) > [@](#): > > **december** , debating with you would be a lot more rewarding if you bothered to read things carefully. I made it very clear in my previous post that that sentence was one of the statements from **wring** ’s link that you objected to previously. It does not appear in the remarks I quoted from Chafe. I apologize. (Posting at work like this is not conducive to grteat care.) > [@](#): > > Then I would think you’d be pleased that colleges have now made athletics much more available to women, rather than just griping that men aren’t getting as disproportionate a share of the athletics funding pie as they used to. Yes, I am, but I’m unhappy that athletics is less available to _people_. > [@](#): > > What are the “unintended consequences”—diminished funding for men’s teams? [ol][li]Diminshed funding for athletics overall; that is fewer sports available to students. [_]Weaker education, due to bureaucrfatic interference.[_]Greater cost, due the burden of coping with the feds. Slippery Slope – sets a precedent for other federal and state actions, that will weaken education even farther. [/ol] [/li][quote] Why should we assume that that will “be with us forever”? [/quote] Because federal regulatory programs almost never end, even if they have outlived their usefulness. > [@](#): > > (Thank God that you personally knew Julia Robinson and something of her experiences at Berkeley, or you’d probably also be insisting that there was no discrimination against women faculty members either, because you didn’t know of any. Sheesh. :rolleyes: ) Here I’m arguing that those other sources _understated_ the degree of discrimination against women faculty. See, I was there, and I know were discrimination was taking place and where it wasn’t. ---
**Author:** ![wring](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/838e76/32.png) [@wring](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wring)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2002, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/title-ix-sexual-equality-in-college-sports-great-success-or-train-wreck-quot/109996/40 "2002-05-21T21:54:50Z")
No, you didn’t, **december** know where discrimination was and wasn’t, if you believe (as you seem to do) that female professors were being discriminated against, but female students weren’t, especially since they didn’t ‘want’ to take the classes or participate in the sports which were not available to them. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/title-ix-sexual-equality-in-college-sports-great-success-or-train-wreck-quot/109996.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/title-ix-sexual-equality-in-college-sports-great-success-or-train-wreck-quot/109996.md?page=3)