opinion_
Title IX shows money makes a difference
Women athletes at the University
have shown that where there’s a will,
there’s a way; Title IX has shown that
where there’s money, the way is made
easier.
Title iX, a reference to the federal
legislation that mandates equal oppor
tunity (read: financial support) for
women in school athletics, has been
widely credited with the phenomenal
nationwide surge in interest and suc
cess of long-neglected women’s sports
programs.
That success provides a lesson for
those responsible for similar University
undertakings, such as equity in
academic and administrative employ
ment, where efforts have been less
dynamic.
In athletics, where the pressure to
flesh out the legal framework with dol
lars has gone farthest, Title IX’s be
nefits appear legion. From a feeble
program — underfunded, understaffed
and under-recruited in the early 1960s
— the University has established:
• An undefeated basketball team
that has beaten a long list of increas
ingly tough opponents, including a
stunning victory two weeks ago over
the Korean national women’s team;
• An undefeated gymnastics team;
• A swim team that has three swim
mers nationally ranked in the top 10 in
their specialty events;
• A cross-country team that com
piled a nearly unblemished record and
finished strongly at the national meet;
• Field hockey and volleyball teams
that finished their seasons with com
petition at national tournaments.
• Coach Elwin Heiny’s basketball
team has gotten a large share of the
publicity and acclaim, but the women’s
program as a whole reflects the heal
thiness of the institutional emphasis it
received.
• That health — in enthusiastic in
terest of both spectators and partici
pants — derives primarily from the
booming financial investment made
during the past three years.
Coach Elwin Heiny’s basketball
team has gotten a large share of the
publicity and acclaim, but the women’s
program as a whole reflects the heal
thiness of the institutional emphasis it
received.
That health — in enthusiastic in
terest of both spectators and partici
pants — derives primarily from the
booming financial investment made
during the past three years.
The total budget for intercollegiate
women’s athletics has grown from
$146,000 to $425,000 in that time, ac
cording to Becky Sisley, former
women’s athletics director and now as
sistant athletics director in a depart
ment that integrated in 1977 to serve
both men and women.
Athletic scholarships for women, first
awarded in 1977-78 for a total of
$10,000, have risen to nearly $70,000.
Substantial additions of coaching,
training and medical personnel and
facilities and planned implementation
of a letter-award system for women
have accompanied this monetary sup
port.
Without faulting the spontaneous
enthusiasm, initiative and commitment
of women athletes and their coaches, it
still seems clear that this broad founda
tion of institutional support has forged
the outlets for expanded participation.
Success in competition, of course,
leads to greater public support, which
has grown most visiblity for the
women’s basketball team. Modest but
ever-growing paid admissions at Mac
Court games have returned a profit for
the athletic department. Another home
game next Thursday, will receive the
team’s first live radio coverage, by local
station KUGN.
If the University augmented its affir
mative action program in academic
and administrative hiring with the same
sort of financial commitment, we might
begin to see some benefits to match its
recent verbose ballyhoo in this area.
So far, a rather parsimonious
$10,000 has been promised to pay
travel expenses for members of racial
minorities and women who are candi
dates for employment at the University.
Unfortunately, unlike women’s athle
tics, most of the success for the
University’s academic affirmative ac
tion program rests not on the would-be
participants — the candidates them
selves — but on administrators and
department heads whose past records
are poor in recruitment and hiring of
both women and minorities.
Of course, the task — reversing
centuries-old patterns of discrimination
— looks big.
But the example of women’s athle
tics assures us that if the commitment
is strong enough, the magnitude of a
problem does not necessarily preclude
its solution.
voi rs
‘Gimme a Hegel, please’
Each day the glittering sun rises and crests above a
beautiful University setting. The first rays of dawn filter
through the trees and settle on ‘‘today’s cause.
Perched insignificantly on the EMU terrace we find a
group of students gathered about a table in hopes of fi
nally uncovering the lost stands of activism buried deep in
the hearts of all of us. The table is bustling with energy,
posters arrive and get plastered on billboards, pamphlets
stack themselves neatly among copies of everyone's favo
rite radical literature, buttons adorn the chests of the more
diligent believers and the day begins!
What unfettered joy!
The first customer arrives groggy with his eyes half
closed, saying “Nay, I can’t read” as he passes up an
opportunity to get involved. Passing up literature is not a
good way to gain favor with this group, when you walk by
you can feel icy stares piercing your back, you can feel
minds focused on your destruction, you sense a kind of
giddy uneasiness in the air as if you’d just spit on a picture
of Bing Crosby in front of your father.
Considering that, the next customer pauses and ac
cepts a mimeographed copy of a revolution-by-numbers
pamphlet, “Hey, I already have this one.”
"No you don’t, we took the word Palestine’ out of the
last one and put in ‘Houston,’ it’s the same idea, just a
different place.”
“Oh, I get it, you can take a framework and fit anything
that happens into it and . .zap. .instant revolution!”
After saying that he stands looking at his feet, thinking
very hard, then all of a sudden it occurs to him, “Say, isn’t
that being a little dogmatic ...”
The people at the table stiffen, their faces turn white,
their lips become taut fixtures stuck below their noses, then
they melt, they become children “But, but we can't
think . . .don’t you see .. .God help us ..”
They break into sobs and collapse on the terrace. The
customer finds this a bit strange and decides to go on
wondering what he could do to help, he thinks to himself as
he walks to the EMU Deli, “It’s so contradictory, but then
who could deny the heavenly gift of mediocrity?"
"Could I help you, sir?” The counter person shakes
him out of his contemplation, “yea, gimme a Hegel, hold the
cream cheese.”
H. Cook
senior, philosophy
Chinese politics in verse
Winning hearts and minds - Chinese style
Vice premier Teng Hsiao-ping wants to prove
That China is no paper tiger,
So he orders a punitive raid
Across the border into Vietnam.
irieirs
Fwpus i>sr vms
■' AS LON6 AS I aw TK BAS, THE BENS Af©UNt>
HERE WE TfETTY HARMLESS!'
China perhaps doesn't want to be known
As a Nixonian “pitful giant."
Chairman Hua kisses the Shah's cheek
While Iranian patriots die in the streets.
But all this does not seem to bother the vice premier
Because while Tehran burns
He shakes Carter's hand and
Tries to win “hearts and minds"
Of the American people by soft-sell and lots of smiles
And gladdening the hearts of Brzezinski and Kissinger
By warning against the "polar bear."
Jas Saund
graduate, journalism
No respect, no burgers’
It appears that while the U.S. continues a “good
neighbor" policy with Iran, the only virtues these people
have to offer Americans are international harrassment and
embarrassment. We speak in particular of the attack on the
U.S. embassy in Tehran and the attacks waged against
American citizens working and living in Iran. Our displeas
ure concerns the acceptance of Iranian students into U.S.
universities.
As taxpayers we take great offense to the persistent
and dangerous threats upon American citizens in Iran, yet
we, as egalitarian Americans, continue to grant the Iranians
the same privileges and freedoms our forebearers sac
rificed their lives for.
Maybe as Americans we have gone soft. This sad
dens us. We feel that in response to the life-threatening
gestures of the Iranian hordes, the U.S. State Department
should review its policies concerning the present and future
granting of visas to the Iranian students, who are presently
enjoying hamburgers and colas in the Erb Memorial Stu
dent Union.
No respect — No burgers!
John Gilles
senior, economics and finance
Roy Roystacher
graduate, political science