Bush Caves In To Clintonian Feminists' Title IX Outrages

TooGoodReports ^ | 07/24/03 | Phyllis Schlafly

[bedolido]

The Bush Administration has just re-affirmed the Clintonian feminists' Title IX outrages, which impose a gender quota-like system on college sports. The feminists are squealing with joy, but Bush is dreaming if he thinks they will ever reward him with their votes.

At least 56 percent of college students are women, yet only a fraction seek to compete in intercollegiate sports. The Clintonian feminists' "proportionality" test laid down the absurd rule that fewer than 56 percent of women on athletic teams would be judged unlawful sex discrimination.

To protect against lawsuits, colleges have been disbanding men's teams, a practice that doesn't benefit women in the slightest. Wrestling, one of the least expensive sports, is a major casualty of this mindless demand for quota equality.

Other fatalities include men's track and field, swimming and gymnastics; Howard University even abandoned its baseball team. You don't have to be a math major to compare the total number of male and female athletes at a college and then dismantle men's teams until the proportion reflects enrollment.

A July 11 "guidance" letter sent by the Bush Administration to all colleges tosses some soft-soap language at the men such as "the elimination of teams is a disfavored practice." But the guidance preserves the "proportionality" methodology that invites an army of attorneys to sue any deep-pocket college with a gender-quota discrepancy.

The new guidance promises that the Department of Education will "aggressively enforce" Title IX and continue to use the Clinton Administration's three-prong test which the guidance claims "has worked well." More important, the guidance keeps the door open for feminist lawyers to continue to take the "proportionality" prong all the way to the bank and hope to collect over $1 million in attorneys' fees from each college (which was the lawyers' fee for suing Brown University).

The guidance proves that President Bush's statements against quotas are just empty rhetoric. The guidance allows the colleges to continue using quotas (under the code word proportionality), which the liberals and feminists who run the colleges are eager to use.

Men's sports teams can't be saved by private funding since this battle is not about money. Many male teams such as football are excellent fundraisers because alumni (like most sports fans) are bigger fans of men's sports than women's.

Walk-on athletes who are not recruited or financed by the college should be removed from gender comparisons, since they reflect the fact that men are far more interested in sports. Older women, who increasingly attend college but are beyond their athletically competitive years, should also be excluded.

At the very least, the Bush Administration should have called for comparing the gender ratio of those who make the teams against those who tried out. If a higher percentage of women make the teams than men do, which is usually the case, then the college is probably not discriminating.

Last year Education Secretary Rod Paige appointed a panel to study the effect of Title IX on college sports. But after the feminists went on a media attack against reform, the Bush Administration retreated in fem-fear.

Paige quelled the commotion by announcing he would consider only proposals that received unanimous commission support. That guaranteed perpetuation of the status quo.

Men on sports teams act like men, and the feminists are hostile to the male culture. College football produces social conservatives such as Jack Kemp, Steve Largent, J.C. Watts and the late Supreme Court Justice Byron White.

College wrestling programs brought us conservative stalwarts Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Speaker Dennis Hastert. Track and field yielded Jim Ryun, one of the greatest milers of all time and now a Congressman.

While football players are known to date cheerleaders, women collegiate athletes are not known to chase quarterbacks. The radical feminists' hostility toward men is manifested in the abolition of sports in which men excel, such as wrestling.

Young women are ultimately hurt by this irrational feminist agenda. Girls are unwittingly pushed into higher risks of injury and hormonal-changing drugs.

Studies show that female competitors have a higher incidence of knee and head injuries compared to men. Torn anterior cruciate ligaments (ACLs) are crippling women athletes at an alarming rate, and last year decimated even the well-trained women's professional soccer league.

A 1999 study found that girls softball had double the rate of serious head injuries as boys baseball, despite a baseball's greater hardness and speed. Last fall, the only girl in a junior football league in Chicago suddenly collapsed and died from a blood clot in the brain, apparently caused by a routine tackle days earlier.

It is unjust to limit the number of men in intercollegiate sports to the relative number of women in college. Discrimination should be based on opportunity (the word in the regulation) rather than on equal results.

Just imagine what would happen if our military refused to enlist men unless an equal number of women enlisted!

[Peach]

A big disappointment.

[Alberta's Child]

These colleges could effectively end Title IX tomorrow if they wanted to.

Simply require all athletic programs to be self-supporting. All college sports other than football and men's basketball will immediately become "club teams" funded entirely by the participants.

[Nonstatist]

If a higher percentage of women make the teams than men do, which is usually the case, then the college is probably not discriminating.

Thats too much common sense. And she's right, we're looking at the end of college wrestling and other sports. A damn shame.

[Nonstatist]

Thats exactly the feminist's goal, in the end. Get rid of college athletics. I guess you've got the talking points.

[joesnuffy]

Let the tax payers (property owners) decide what sports to keep or cut

[Dante3]

Goes to show what Bush is really like.

[Tacis]

This is the push for diversity where democratic process, i.e., one man, one vote, is replaced by the diversity concept where all groups must be represented. The objective is the destruction of democracy and capitalism as all these co-equal groups out vote the "normal, white" group and strip its members to the bone.

Here, we will soon have a black-female-swimming-team mandated, but no white teams to counter all the male teams that employ black athletes. The growth will come in shifting resources from the traditional sports activities to teams that give Hispanics and handicapped athletes a chance.

Sports for the crips will be especially amusing, expensive and, really stupid. The government and most left-wing schools, for example, will require that the blind kid who wants to play basketball will have to be provided with the resources to compete. Dogs can't do it, so each blind kid will probably get a seeing-eye normal person to assist him on the court.

Sure, it will be stupid. But, the liberals will feel good about themselves and the America-haters will win another diversity victory in the batlle to destroy democracy.

[jethropalerobber]

To protect against lawsuits, colleges have been disbanding men's teams, a practice that doesn't benefit women in the slightest.

huh? being treated as equals by the state does not benefit women in the slightest?

we are talking about state funded athletic programs here aren't we? men and women both pay taxes don't they? it seems the disgust in this article is misplaced - there's nothing wrong with equal treatment from the state, the problem is that the state is funding these types of activities to begin with.

[Alberta's Child]

Get rid of college athletics.

Eliminating school funding for athletics does not mean college athletics will end.

Anyone who has played on a non-affiliated college hockey team knows what I'm talking about. The school provides the use of its athletic facilities to any group of students that wants to use them, but the students themselves organize the leagues and cover the costs of buying equipment.

Hey, guess what -- This is exactly how college athletics operated when collegiate athletes were truly amateurs.

[Mr. Jeeves]

Title IX has mindshare. A whole lot of women believe it single-handedly created Mia Hamm. Bush and his team apparently saw no way that an appeal to logic and reason would work with fans of Title IX, so he chose to pick other battles.

[Alberta's Child]

A whole lot of women believe it single-handedly created Mia Hamm.

Oh, that sounds like a great rationale to support Title IX, huh? I saw Mia Hamm playing on a tiny network station last night that couldn't have reached more than a couple of hundred thousand homes. But Anna Kournikova never benefitted from Title IX, and she can draw fans like dog crap draws flies -- no matter how poorly she plays tennis.

[Nonstatist]

Anyone who has played on a non-affiliated college hockey team knows what I'm talking about. The school provides the use of its athletic facilities to any group of students that wants to use them, but the students themselves organize the leagues and cover the costs of buying equipment.

What "leagues" ?? Are you equating club sports with organized competition? Casually organized clubs like the frisbee club do not have paid coaching, organized tournaments, and top notch competition because all they are is "clubs". Go to any wrestling "club" at a college and watch how attendance drops to nada after the first couple weeks.

Again, why should there be theater, dance, english lit, and a bunch of other useless "classes" on campus and no organized sports? Wrestling is cheap compared to theater or "Women's Studies", but what the heck: only men wrestle (for the most part).

[ought-six]

I still support Bush, although my enthusiasm is waning rather quickly. The one thing that will end my support for him is what he does on the gun issue. If he caves on that, and goes along with the grabbers, I'm through with him, because then it doesn't really matter whether we have him or a Dim in office; the result will be the same: the end of the Constitution. When that happens, we had all better gear up for some very bad times, because the socialists will have taken over completely, and America's collapse will be imminent. The Founders are beginning to whisper in my ear, and what they are saying is: Be Ready!

[KneelBeforeZod]

Women's crew is a big draw for schools trying to adhere to title ix.

add as many people as you want, no experience necessary, and the equipment is cheap.

[Alberta's Child]

I'm talking about the collegiate equivalent of a corporate softball league. My college had no hockey team, but there were enough students interested in hockey that they formed their own team and competed against other schools with similar teams. We did not play against Boston College or the University of Minnesota, but these games were all sanctioned by the state athletic commission and were fully officiated according to NCAA collegiate hockey rules.

[RicocheT]

"there's nothing wrong with equal treatment from the state, the problem is that the state is funding these types of activities to begin with."

I do not agree with the above statement. Athletics, organized and club teams, are a part of college life. Students who also chose to participate and compete in athletics help themselves and their college.

My daughter is a swimmer at a small college, NCAA division 3, which means no scholarships. She does better academically during the season than off season as athletics focuses the mind as well as the body. The only sports that make more money than they cost are the men's football and basketball teams. That is from fan choice, not discrimination. Those sports help provide funds for the other organized sports and the clubs.

[Nonstatist]

he chose to pick other battles

Then he wasted a lot of time and money with his useless "meetings" and "conferences". But then, wasting money is this Bush's greatest contribution to governence.

[Nonstatist]

And everybody "pays their way"? Now, aint that fair?? College classes on the role of women in 19th Century Angola, but no college baseball or wrestling? Screw the ol' college spirit, among other things. Hey, wont life at Penn State be so improved without that annoying football everywhere?? Lets make all campus life as appealing as Erie Community College !!

[Nonstatist]

Women's crew is a big draw for schools trying to adhere to title ix... add as many people as you want

You think women are dying to be on the crew team? My niece was plucked out of the college cafeteria to join, and bacame captain two weeks later. 4 weeks after that she quit.