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[charger13]

There has been a lot of press attention on the cutting of male sports teams at colleges such as Rutgers and James Madison lately concerning Title IX, but you do not hear about how Title IX affects non sports services and activities.  For instance, at Rutgers, there are female-only housing but no male-only housing.  Does anyone feel that Title IX is being enforced selectively?

[tenured_feminist]

Yes, absolutely.  They never go after football.

[ptprof]

Yes, absolutely.  They never go after football.

That's simply not true.  A number of universities have choosen to eliminate football due to both budgetary and Title IX related issues. 

[tolerantly]

I became a runner back in the day when few women were seen in public breaking a sweat -- in fact I had my track tryout with the boys' team -- and have been involved in sports most of my life.  Still, I am much less concerned about Title IX than I am with the ginormous amount of money being spent on college sports in general.  I would happily slash funds across the board.  I would also make all donations and earmarks for university athletics subject to a grantslike cost-sharing scheme, where academics actually wind up with 90% of the dough. 

There is no justification on God's green earth for the amount spent on these programs at a university.  I think the "benefit to the university" arguments have been comprehensively debunked in the last several years.   If someone wants to set up an expensive independent franchise, I say be my guest.  Do not set it up as a parasite on a university, though.  (Or a school district.  I live up a hill from a shockingly palatial highschool athletic-campus spread.  I wouldn't be surprised to find polo fields tucked away up there someplace.)

I would also get rid of athletic scholarships. 

Are sports important?  Sure.  That's why I've got one pair of running shoes, replaced about twice a year, and a collection of ten-year-old nylon shorts & singlets & race shirts.  And a 25-year-old bike and a rather newer helmet.  Most people don't need much more. 

Ah, that felt good.

[yemaya]

Is Title IX selectively enforced?  I don't know.  Perhaps in some cases.  Personally, I have no problem with the idea of a single-sex dorm, gym or whatever on principle.  To me, it becomes a problem is when the facilities for one sex are notably inferior.  It can also present legal and ethnical issues in the case of a transgendered individual pops up.  (Whether post-op or what.)  For instance, one who considers herself a woman and wants to attend a women's college (and perhaps has even had gender reassignment surgery), but is still "male" according to the birth certificate (or biologically so if they haven't had surgery).  In these cases, it's difficult to determine what the "right" thing to do is.  I also realize that single-sex facilities might find us on a slipperly slope as far as "separate-but-equal" is concerned. 

There is no justification on God's green earth for the amount spent on these programs at a university.

I agree - and not just at the university level, but high school as well.  The high school I went to short-changed spending on things like textbooks before they made the football team go without new uniforms every season.  And I say this as a varsity letterman (woman?).
 

I would also get rid of athletic scholarships.

 

I would too - in many cases, athletic scholarships seem to re-enforce problems with entitlement.  Don't get me wrong - I've seen student-athletes who are smart, disciplined and probably could get scholarships based on academic merits.  I just think that the emphasis needs to be placed back on scholarship and given the astronomical rate at which college tuitions rise, that this money would be better spent on scholarships and financial aid.

[tenured_feminist]

Obviously I was being facetious.  But I do have a beef with college football in particular.  It consumes ridiculous quantities of resources at so many schools.  Because it's a "marquee" sport, athletic departments often are able to sell their school a bill of goods about how funding football and targeting donors to contribute to football will lead to overall higher donations for the school generally -- kind of a rising-tide-lifts-all-boats argument.  And as far as I know, there is precious little evidence that this is the case.

I've just seen too damn many kids with torn up knees, lousy GPAs, and truncated futures because of NFL fantasies illegitimately fostered by big football programs to be very happy about the sport as currently practiced at top programs.  And even for the ones who make it through their entire eligibility without serious injuries, what do they have to show for all of the money they've made for the TV and radio stations?

So much resentment is fostered around Title IX equity issues regarding parity in athletic scholarships and resources, and so much frames the issue as one of those girls seeking to wreck the guys' athletic programs for some abstract notion of equality.  But the real problem is having one sport that is entirely closed to one sex, often fields a team of more than 50 participants, co-opts multiple scholarships, and siphons off massive financial resources for maintaining the team/equipment/field/coaching staff/etc.

And in many instances, instead of getting rid of football, the athletic department goes after men's baseball or wrestling or something else and then says, "well, it's all the fault of those ball-busting Title IX whackos who hate men's sports."

I feel torn about this, because I really like to watch football, and think it's a great game, but I just can't see the justification for how it's done at the elite and just under elite college sports programs.

[allbutfoundajob]

This was an interesting thread.  The consensus seems to be that mens football should be ended.  Yet, in many universities, the football program makes the most money which is used to fund other sports programs.  I suppose if you wanted to end all sports, you could start by ending the two profitable sports, mens football and mens basketball, which would bankrupt the entire sports program

[tenured_feminist]

I could be wrong, but I think that as a general rule, men's football turns a profit only at schools where the teams are regularly ranked.  Most other places, it's a wash or a black hole of resources.

[helpful]

Don;'t forget the ridiculous amount of money for those marching bands and cheerleaders when they could be doing good music. When I am watching a college football game sometimes I wonder whether all these band members, cheerleaders and even the crowd of students ever go to school. I thought going to university was all about learning!

[slac_vap]

To address the OP's question (if there actually was a question there, which I doubt), from http://titleix.info:

"Most people who know about Title IX think it only applies to sports, but Title IX applies to every aspect of federally funded education programs. In fact, athletics is only one of 10 major areas addressed by the law. These other areas are: Access to Higher Education, Career Education, Education for Pregnant and parenting Students, Employment, learning Environment, Math and Science, Sexual Harassment, Standardized Testing, and Technology."
 
To address allbutfoundajob's comment, echoing TF's comment about the money pit that is college football, from the same website:

"Most football and men's basketball teams spend much more money than they bring in. A 1999 study shows that 58% of Division I-A and I-AA football programs don't generate enough revenue to pay for themselves, much less any other sports. These programs reported annual deficits averaging $1 million and $630,000 respectively. In general, only 48 colleges brought in more money than they spent in 1999, and the annual average deficit at Division I-A colleges that year was $3.3 million."

And that just addresses D1 schools.  The numbers are likely even more dismal for D2 and D3 schools.

[charger13]

"No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, or denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any educational program or activity receiving federal assistance."

This statement from the Title IX text clearly states that the law applies to all services and activities and not just sports. This thread has evolved into a discussion on football and although football needs to be given attention, we have avoided discussing all other services in activities.

At Rutgers, they have turned the only public single-sex college left into a new Douglass Residential College for women at the main New Brunswick/Piscataway campus.  The new residential college offers many opportunities to women at Rutgers, but there is no equivalent programns for men.  Unfortunately, supporters of "Title Ix" have remained silent on the Rutgers issue.

Clearly the only people who support programs for women at colleges and universities without having equal programs for men are people who believe in dicrimination.

[zharkov]

"No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, or denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any educational program or activity receiving federal assistance."

This statement from the Title IX text clearly states that the law applies to all services and activities and not just sports. This thread has evolved into a discussion on football and although football needs to be given attention, we have avoided discussing all other services in activities.

At Rutgers, they have turned the only public single-sex college left into a new Douglass Residential College for women at the main New Brunswick/Piscataway campus.  The new residential college offers many opportunities to women at Rutgers, but there is no equivalent programns for men.  Unfortunately, supporters of "Title Ix" have remained silent on the Rutgers issue.

Clearly the only people who support programs for women at colleges and universities without having equal programs for men are people who believe in dicrimination.

The law goes on to say.....

in regard to admissions this section shall not apply to any public institution of undergraduate higher education which is an institution that traditionally and continually from its establishment has had a policy of admitting only students of one sex;

(see http://www.usdoj.gov/crt/cor/coord/titleixstat.htm)


So women's colleges can, in my reading, remain women's colleges.

[slac_vap]

The law does not require that there be absolutely identical programs for men and women, but rather that persons not be excluded from any particular type of programming based on sex.  So, in fact, it is perfectly legal for a public university to set up a housing program for women and not for men, unless there are men who have also voiced a wish to be included in the program.  As another example, the law does not require that a university offer the same sports for men as for women, but rather that the opportunities for participation in sports be equivalent.