NCPA


Policy Issues

NCPA Publications

Both Sides

Editorial Opinions

Audio/Visual


NATIONAL CENTER FOR POLICY ANALYSIS
HOME / DONATE / ONE LEVEL UP / ABOUT NCPA / CONTACT US
Title IX Costly to Low Profile Men's Sports
Daily Policy Digest

Education Issues / Higher Education issues

Friday, May 10, 2002
Fewer women than men in colleges and universities go out for sports competition. But since the passage 30 years ago of a law known as Title IX, college administrators have been bound to assure that sports participation by women and funding for their teams is on par with those of men. That means that if female participants can't coax greater numbers of their sex to come out onto the field, or pool or stadium, fewer men can participate in their own activities.

  • Since the law was passed, more than 170 wrestling programs, 80 men's tennis teams, 70 men's gymnastics teams and 45 men's track teams have been eliminated.
  • The effort to achieve athletic equality for women is often perceived as a survival struggle between low-profile men's sports and their women's counterparts.
  • Colleges generally try to comply with Title IX by ensuring that the ratio of male and female athletes is roughly equivalent to the overall proportion of male and female students.
  • A sport like football -- with rosters of as many as 110 players, nearly four times the size of a wrestling team -- distorts the ledger on the men's side.
While the lower-profile men's sports have been disappearing in recent years, 39 colleges have added football in the last 10 years.

Source: Bill Pennington, "More Men's Teams Benched, As Colleges Level the Field," New York Times, May 9, 2002.

For text
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/09/
sports/othersports/09COLL.html

For more on Higher Education issues
http://www.ncpa.org/iss/edu/
12770 Coit Rd., Suite 800 - Dallas, TX 75251-1339 - 972/386-6272 - Fax 972/386-0924
601 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, Suite 900 South Building - Washington, DC 20004 - 202/220-3082 - Fax 202/220-3096
Copyright © 2002 National Center for Policy Analysis - All rights reserved.