Taking a hit

While women's programs flourished under Title IX, men's athletics suffered.

By Dave Benson of The News-Sentinel

News-Sentinel photo Double dutyTom Jarman does double duty at Manchester College, where he is both the athletics director and the wrestling coach.

Zerian Peterson had just finished track practice at Bowling Green State University this spring when head coach Sterling Martin announced there would be a short meeting afterward.

Peterson's mind raced as he tried to think about the meeting's subject matter. Was it an update about a practice? Was it an update about a meet?

It was much worse than that.

"Our athletic director, Paul Krebs, just came out and told us how it was. The men's track team was being cut for financial reasons and because of Title IX," Peterson said. "He said anyone receiving scholarship money after this year would be given an additional year, and that was about it."

The news left Peterson more winded than any track meet ever could.

As a sports management major, Peterson was familiar with Title IX. He believed, and still believes, in everything Title IX stands for.

"The law itself, I feel, is fair," he said. "Men have been getting so much for so long and women have been deprived of opportunities for so long. They're just trying to make up for it.

"But I feel that it's wrong that men's sports have to suffer. Instead of cutting men's sports, they should be creating more opportunities for women. The quick and fast solution is not always best."

While Title IX, which turns 30 years old on Sunday, may be helping women athletes, sports participation opportunities for men have been reduced. Title IX, according to some, is government-sanctioned sex discrimination and men are the victims.

Peterson learned a hard fact of life. While Title IX has accomplished many positive things, it's enforcement has also brought about some negative consequences.

* * *

The good news ...

Title IX has created opportunities for female athletes in areas that were practically nonexistent before its passage in 1972.

According to the National Federation of State High School Associations, there were 294,015 female participants in high school sports in 1971. That number increased to 817,073 for the 1972-73 school year and reached an all-time high of 2.8 million in school year 2000-01.

The numbers have increased dramatically at the collegiate level as well. A National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) participation study conducted from school year 1981-82 to 1999-00 found that the number of female athletes at NCAA schools increased from 74,239 in 1981-82 to 150,185 in 1999-2000.

"I think the passage of the Title IX amendment has been an integral part in terms of the number of participants in girls' and women's sports today," said Rosie Stallman, the director of education outreach for the NCAA. "I think we're doing better. We're getting up to speed. But we still have a ways to go if we're talking about programs across the country."

* * *

... and the bad news

In response to gender equity requirements, colleges and universities around the country are either dropping men's athletics programs or reducing them to the club level to bring participation levels in line with Title IX requirements.

For example, the number of NCAA wrestling programs dropped from 234 to 129 in Divisions I-III over the course of the NCAA's participation study. Fifty-five men's gymnastics programs -- roughly 69 percent -- were dropped. Division I includes the largest colleges and universities in the nation.

The wrestling and men's gymnastics programs were dropped so the total athletic participation offerings to men and women were equitable.

The NCAA currently has 24 men's gymnastics programs competing in Divisions I, II and III.

Participation offerings is one area the Office for Civil Rights checks to determine if a school is complying with Title IX. It is part of a three-pronged way to determine if athletic participation numbers are in line with enrollment numbers. The other two parts deal with an institution's history of expanding opportunities for its under-represented sex, and how it accommodates students' interests and abilities.

"Schools have chosen to drop men's teams instead of adding women's teams," said Jim Carr, managing director and legal counsel for the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA). "Whether they've had to do that because of financial reasons or Title IX, I don't know, but it's happening all over the country."

As the athletic director of Manchester College in North Manchester, Tom Jarman is in charge of overseeing gender equity at the school. As the Spartans' wrestling coach, he has sympathy for those who have been victims of cut-backs.

"Dropping men's programs is extremely shortsighted," he said. "Ultimately, it leads to limited opportunities for both sides. They don't do the math. Every time we drop a men's sports program, we decrease opportunities for women. If you drop the wrestling program with 20 wrestlers, that's 20 opportunities lost for women in the future.

"There are a lot of wrestling programs being dropped in the name of Title IX. That's not right. It's not Title IX itself. It's the interpretation of Title IX. Title IX is great legislation that has encouraged women's participation in athletics," Jarman said.

Although Title IX got the blame, the elimination of Bowling Green's men's track program -- along with the school's men's swimming, diving and tennis programs -- was not based entirely on the law. The Falcons' athletic department currently has a cumulative deficit of $3.4 million over 80 years of competition. The university was also facing state funding cuts of more than $5 million in the future.

"From our perspective, it wasn't a Title IX decision," Krebs said. "It was based on three factors. One was Title IX, one was the financial challenges we face and the third keeping our programs competitive.

"It did involve the proportionality part of the three-prong test. It wasn't based solely on gender equity. It was a question of how do we meet our other goals and stay in compliance with Title IX."

Wrestling coaches tried to fight back. The National Wrestling Coaches Association (NWCA), the Bucknell University wrestling program and the Marquette University wrestling club filed a lawsuit against the Department of Education seeking Title IX relief.

But the Bush administration gave its opinion of the lawsuit May 29 when it said the suit should be thrown out, partly because of the statute of limitations and the NWCA's challenge of the three-part test that was established in 1979.

The NWCA filed its response Monday. It filed an opposition to the motion to dismiss the case and requested a summary judgment on the grounds that the three-part test was reopened when a clarification was issued in 1996 and that the three-part test never was law because it lacked presidential approval.

"Essentially, we want the right to seek new regulations that protect women without hurting men," said Mike Moyer, executive director of the wrestling coaches association. Marquette's Wrestling Club was self-funded and received no institutional money. But because of the interpretation of Title IX, which is viewed as a gender quota, school officials felt they had to get rid of the program because there were too many male athletes. Gender quotas in athletics simply don't make sense.

"The language of Title IX says you cannot discriminate on the basis of sex. But when you cap a men's program just because they're men or get rid of a program just because they're men, that violates the very spirit of the law."

The National Wrestling Coaches Association has an unlikely ally in the Independent Women's Forum, a nonprofit organization devoted to bringing common sense to women's issues. The women's forum hopes to bring common sense to Title IX through education.

"The (women's forum) is often accused of opposing Title IX. But we don't oppose Title IX, said Christine Stolba, senior fellow at the Independent Women's Forum. "What we're opposing is the way the Office for Civil Rights chooses to enforce Title IX. Given their regulations, colleges are enforcing statistical proportionality.

"Common sense and poll data suggest that men are more interested in playing sports than women. But there are more female students than male. It becomes a numbers game, where the number of athletes has to be proportional. The easiest way to do that is to cut men's teams."

Rodger Murphey, a spokesman for the Department of Education, dismisses the gender-quota criticism because he says the proportionality prong of the test is not used that often.

Murphy cites an Office for Civil Rights study of all the Title IX cases it handled between Oct. 1, 1992, and June 30, 2001. Out of 120 cases involving participation rates, only 34 -- or 28 percent -- were resolved using the proportionality part of the three-prong test.

In a perfect world, Krebs would be able to keep all 11 men's programs at Bowling Green.

But as Zerian Peterson and his teammates found out, the world and Title IX are far from perfect. Sometimes good intentions bring unintended, negative consequences.

Game-day expenses

The following are game-day expenses allowed by universities or the men's and women's athletic departments for the 2000-01 school year.

Big Ten colleges

Men's Women's

Indiana U $489,691 $302,220

Michigan State $2,323,017 $1,232,552

Northwestern $1,359,383 $805,104

Ohio State $2,066,093 $1,083,871

Penn State $2,770,837 $1,687,279

Purdue $1,448,795 $961,533

U of Illinois $2,318,942 $1,039,534

U of Iowa $1,593,507 $1,155,752

U of Michigan $2,760,492 $1,939,155

U of Minnesota $2,291,302 $1,985,896

U of Wisconsin $2,798,397 $1,726,336

State colleges

Men's Women's

Ball State $718,547 $461,432

Butler $421,412 $246,507

Evansville $388,521 $338,607

Indiana State $489,691 $302,220

IUPUI $242,272 $242,121

Notre Dame $3,666,936 $1,506,283

Valparaiso $460,982 $283,503

Local colleges

Men's Women's

Huntington $87,054 $71,369

IPFW $177,128 $129,612

Manchester $154,701 $66,687

Tri-State $137,289 $59,787

Saint Francis $167,101 $78,363

Indiana Tech $113,778 $91,352

Taylor-FW $17,328 $18,934

-- Figures compiled by Jon Swerens

of The News-Sentinel

The Office for Civil Rights established a three-pronged test to determine if schools were in compliance with Title IX:

Prong 1: Substantial Proportionality: Athletic participation opportunities for men and women must be substantially proportionate to their undergraduate enrollments.

Prong 2: History and Continuing Practice: Institutions must show a history and continuing practice of program expansion that is responsive to the interests of the underrepresented gender, usually female athletes.

Prong 3: Accommodating Interests and Abilities: Institutions must meet the interests and abilities of its female students even where there are disproportionately fewer female students than male students participating in sports.