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As hip as you want to be.
Title IX needs serious revision
Title IX has undergone quite a bit
of scrutiny lately.
The section of the Education
Amendments of 1972, which out
laws sex discrimination at schools
receiving federal funds, could under
go some drastic changes.
And change it should.
I applaud the Bush Commission
for recognizing the need for review
of the law, which has made great
strides for women in athletics over
the past 31 years.
The purpose of the Commission
was to review the current standings
of Title IX and decide whether it
needed to be revised.
A minority opinion was recently
released by
Donna de
Varona and
Julie Foudy of
the Commis
sion, which
outlines the
findings and
recommenda
tions of the
committee.
I do not
agree with
some of the
findings, including that the three
part test of Title IX does not issue a
quota system because it does, and
that Title IX does not cause cuts to
men’s teams because it does.
Title IX needs to be revised and
there are certain issues of the law
which have been under scrutiny that
need clarification.
First, Title IX contains what is
known as the three-part test. It came
about in 1979 and serves the pur
pose to show whether universities
Jesse
Thomas
Go the distance
are in compliance with the law.
The most important of the three,
and the one that endures the most
examination, is the first prong. It
states that a school’s male-to-female
ratio of athletes be in line with its ra
tio of male-to-female students.
So, for example, if Oregon’s stu
dent body is 48 percent female, then
its participants in athletics should
also be 48 percent female.
The first problem is that less than
20 percent of universities across the
nation comply. And those that make
an attempt end up cutting non-rev
enue men’s sports, such as wrestling
or swimming, in order to add
women’s teams.
Oregon, for example, dropped
men’s baseball and gymnastics in
1981 because of a budget crunch.
And recently, Oregon added a
women’s lacrosse team. All in ef
fort to move toward compliance of
Title IX.
Luckily, Oregon was nice enough
to cut baseball rather than wrestling.
The National Wrestling Association
has received the bad end of Title IX
from the start, considering 171
teams have been cut in the past two
decades.
The reason for wrestling cuts
along with other small men’s sports?
Well, everybody loves to point the
finger at football. And why not?
In Texas, all 10 of the schools that
play Division I-A football spent more
money on football alone than on all
women’s programs combined in the
2001 school year.
Is the large amount of money al
lotted to football programs the rea
son that small men’s sports get cut
and universities don’t comply?
Yes.
Do I blame football?
No.
You can’t blame football because
the budgeting of schools is all at the
discretion of each university. Also,
football is the only other sport be
sides basketball which even makes a
profit, allowing other sports to exist.
I have another bone to pick, and it
is with the Office of Civil Rights. The
OCR is in charge of enforcing the
standards of Title IX. And, according
to the minority opinion, “OCR has
never imposed a financial penalty on
a school for failing to comply with
the three-part test.”
So we have this great law, which
does great things, which nobody
abides by and nobody enforces.
Why? Because America has too
many other things to worry about
and quite frankly nobody wants to
talk about Title IX. Everybody is
afraid of saying the wrong thing.
Title IX has done great things over
the past 30 years. There is no deny
ing that. But everybody just wants to
sit around and hope that it will do
even better over the next three
decades all by itself.
Title IX needs to be revised in a
way that still benefits women in
their opportunities, but does not
cause cuts to men’s programs. It
needs to be revised in a way that can
allow universities to comply so it can
be enforced.
Let’s hope the next 30 years go
over better than the first.
Contact the sports reporter
at jessethomas@dailyemerald.com.
His views do not necessarily represent
those of the Emerald.
Men's
continued from page 11
be 6-4 over their last 10. If they can
get to the Pac-10 Tournament title
game or sweep the Arizona schools,
they’ll be 7-3.
“It would be huge for our team to
get on a roll here going into March
Madness,” Oregon guard Luke Rid
nour said. “This is something we just
need to get done and try to get on a
roll.”
In an ironic twist, the Ducks
could very well repeat their Ari
zona weekend in the Pac-10 Tour
nament. Oregon knows it will face
Arizona State in the first round,
and Arizona is a lock at No. 1,
meaning it will face the winner of
the Duck-Sun Devil game.
But Kent and the Ducks are more
focused on the bigger tournament
— the one with 65 teams. The
NCAA Tournament.
“If we can get into the tourna
ment, we’re a very dangerous team,”
Kent said. “We don’t have much con
trol (over the seeding).”
It’s been a while since Oregon has
met the Arizona schools, and a lot has
happened since those first meetings.
The Ducks faced the desert squads on
the season’s first weekend, back in
early January. Oregon lost a thriller to
Arizona before blowing out Arizona
State, 93-74.
The Ducks were largely able to con
tain Diogu in their first contest against
Arizona State, and will hope to do so
again tonight. Diogu had 27 points,
but most of those points came toward
the end of the game with the outcome
long since decided.
Diogu has led the Devils in 14 of
their 27 games this season. The
Ducks are hoping it isn’t 17, be
cause ASU is 9-5 in those games.
And after containing the Devil
ish freshman, Oregon will try to
contain the Wildcat seniors in Tuc
son. And maybe then the game
won’t be so ugly.
Contact the sports editor
at peterhockaday@dailyemerald.com.
Adam Amato Emerald
Andre Joseph was named the Pac-10's Newcomer of the Year on Wednesday.