Sports
Does a Real Solution Exist?
Gender equity may sound simple on paper, but it means painful choices for collegiate athletics.
Although Carrie Taylor and Brian Winkler have never met, they've become rivals.
Both want to wear the maize and blue of the U. of Michigan. But because of something called gender equity, only Taylor will be able to play.
The two have been caught up in the same high-stakes shuffle that is being played out at colleges and universities across the country. Gender equity, mandated by Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, asks athletic departments to create equal opportunities for female athletes.
More than 20 years later, gender equity has put athletic departments in a state of panic, prompted lawsuits from both men's and women's non-revenue teams, and, as it threatens to cut into football programs, fueled 15-year-old rumblings among the football powers about breaking away from the NCAA.
As Taylor and Winkler have discovered, equal opportunity is not a simple issue when budgets are tight.
As a small step toward equity in March, Michigan elevated women's soccer from a club activity to a varsity sport. But to pay for the soccer program, the university axed men's gymnastics beginning in 1994-95. Now Winkler, a junior star on the gymnastics team, is wondering if he chose the wrong school.
"I was numb. I couldn't work out; I couldn't do anything," Winkler says of his reaction to the decision. "I was pretty upset and pissed off. I was just realizing that after this year I wouldn't be able to compete in USGF [U.S. Gymnastics Foundation!."
Taylor, on the other hand, is so excited about the prospect of playing on a varsity squad,she's talking about delaying graduation to try out for the new soccer team.
But her excitement is diluted by resentment. "I feel like the men's gymnastics team hates women's soccer," she says. "We're ecstatic about the fact that we're going varsity, but we can't show how happy we are because it would look like we're happy because of their misfortune."
Doing the Right Thing
When Congress enacted Title IX, few could have foreseen the havoc that would be wrought on athletic departments. At the time, it just seemed like the best way of ending gender discrimination.
Public and private schools from the elementary to the post-graduate level were given until 1978 to make all programs — from admissions to housing to sports teams — equally available to men and women.
But 1978 came and went, along with most of the '80s, without Title IX affecting athletic departments — in part because of a Supreme Court case which exempted them from the law.
Then, in 1988, Congress enacted the Civil Rights Restoration Act, which required universities to ensure all of their departments were in compliance with Title IX, regardless of whether the departments themselves received federal funds. To comply, athletic departments had to show proportionality in participation and funding for male and female athletes, a history of increasing opportunities for female athletes, and accommodation of the interests and abilities of their athletes.
That's when the law became a painful reality for collegiate athletics. In the past five years, women athletes have filed lawsuits at Colorado State U., the U. of Texas, Cornell U. and scores of others. At Colorado State, for example, women softball players who had their team cut filed suit under Title IX and got softball reinstated. No case tried in court has yet been lost because of invalid argument,
W. OMES JR. THE RED AND BLACK U OF GEORGIA
Big football programs like the U. of Georgia's make it hard for universities to enforce gender equity.
says Ellen Vargas of the Women's Law Foundation in Washington, D.C.
Gender equity seems like a necessary avenue of redress, considering the results of a 1991 NCAA study. The study showed that men, on average, constituted almost 70 percent of varsity athletes, even though they made up only 50 percent of undergraduate enrollment.
"How can you ethically say you're not in favor of gender equity when the undergraduate population of males and females is close to 50-50?" asks U. of Michigan Associate Athletic Director Peggy Bradley-Doppes, voicing the central argument for gender equity.
Losing the Financial Lottery
But it's proving hard to enforce gender equity and be fair to everyone.
Athletic departments need money to pay for these changes, and in the financial lottery that ensues, men's sports — particularly non-revenue sports — often are the losers.
Bill Kelley, a senior at the U. of Illinois, knows what it's like to lose opportunities — his swimming and diving team was cut in May, along with the fencing team and the women's diving team, because of a budget shortfall. The cuts affected only three female athletes, but 43 male athletes were left without teams.
Kelley and his teammates decided to turn the tables on Title IX, filing suit against the university for gender discrimination. The suit was dismissed by a federal court in August, but Kelley still saves his team was cut because they were male
"We were excluded because of our gender and that's what [the law] prohibits," says Kelley, a senior. Similar cases have been filed or have been settled out of court at the U. of Arkansas and Drake U. At Arkansas, the men's swimming team regained varsity status until all of the team's athletes had finished their eligibility.
"Gender equity is a two-edged sword," says U. of Georgia head football coach Ray Goff. At Georgia, Goff says, the proportion of male to female athletes is skewed mostly because of the football program. "You don't want to eliminate
continued on page 15
OCTOBER 1993
U. Magazine
11