Common sense should be used in Title IX compliance

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By Jessica Gavora, Special to SI.com

Are women really as interested in sports as men? And if not, is it the responsibility of a college or university to create that interest?

These are the questions at the heart of the controversy over Title IX today. On one side are some women's groups who claim it really doesn't matter if women are as interested in sports as men. It's up to colleges and universities to create that interest.

On the other side are people such as myself, who believe that, in 2007, women are a dominant force on college campuses, they are given abundant opportunities to participate in sports and they know what they're interested in. We should let them decide.

Surprising as it may seem, interest in athletics is something that has been missing from the federal government's enforcement of Title IX for more than a decade now. Title IX compliance today is based on a standard very different from interest. It is called statistical proportionality.

Statistical proportionality demands schools manipulate their athletic programs -- attract more women if they can, kill men's teams if they have to -- so that their athletic gender split matches that of their undergraduate student population. If the school is 63 percent female, 63 percent of its athletes have to be female.

But do they have the same interest in sports? Current Title IX enforcement purposefully avoids that question. It ignores student interest in sports in favor of the arbitrary numerical formula of proportionality. No other opportunity in education -- be it in the engineering department or in drama or dance programs -- is proportioned this way. Even accommodations such as student housing that are, like sports, segregated by sex are proportioned according to student interest.

The case of James Madison University is typical. Last fall, the school offered 28 athletic teams to its students, 13 for men and 15 for women. Only six schools in Division I offered more athletic opportunities. But JMU's female student population was 61 percent and growing and its athletic rosters couldn't keep pace, despite offering more teams for women. So when the university feared it was about to be sued for not achieving statistical proportionality under Title IX, it was forced to make 61 percent of its athletes female (to match its student body) the only way it could: cutting teams. Seven men's teams, two women's teams and one co-ed team will no longer be part of the program.

I was an athlete and I know women are fierce competitors and dedicated athletes. But men and women -- taken as a whole -- are different. Title IX's refusal to acknowledge this is doing tremendous damage on college campuses today. In just the past year alone, hundreds of athletes -- not just at James Madison but also at Rutgers, Ohio University, Butler, Clarion, Slippery Rock and Syracuse -- have lost their opportunity to compete due to Title IX.

It doesn't have to be this way. And the way to stop this isn't to change Title IX or turn back the clock on women's opportunities in sports. The way to end the elimination of athletic opportunities in the name of "equality" for women it is to start to take women at their word in the the law is enforced. Men's and women's actual levels of interest in athletics -- not what the government or some special interest group says they should be, but their demonstrated interest -- should be the standard for determining whether a college or university is complying with the law. If schools aren't meeting the interests of both sexes equally, they should be sanctioned. If they are, they should be left alone.

The Department of Education took an initial step toward this in 2005 when it issued a model survey for schools to use to comply with Title IX. But more needs to be done to make this a real alternative to proportionality.

The Title IX regulations currently require that even if a school surveys its students and finds unmet interest in sports by both sexes, it is only obligated to fulfill the interests of women. The interests of men can safely be ignored.

The fix is simple. The Title IX regulation -- not the law but the bureaucratic rules implementing it -- should be changed to require schools to equally meet the interests of both sexes. So if a school finds that 47 percent of its students who are interested in athletics are women, it would apportion 47 percent of its opportunities to women.

The law sets a high standard -- equal opportunity for both women and men. And the only way we're going to know if we're meeting this standard is if we ask. It's common sense. But then again, common sense has been lacking from our debate over Title IX for a long time.

Jessica Gavora is the vice president for policy of the College Sports Council, a national coalition of students, coaches and parents dedicated to athletic opportunity for women and men.