The Effectiveness of Title Ix Throughout Ncaa Institutions

A couple years after the implication of Title IX, the Commission for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women was initiated. Commission for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (CIAW for short) was created for the sole purpose to further engage women’s involvement into college sports. Title IX’s enactment can be viewed as a motivator for the NCAA to include women and give them the equal amount of opportunities that their male counterparts receive. Many people criticize Title IX’s purpose, most, or if not all of these critics were men, they believed that women weren’t worthy enough to be given any form of opportunity. NCAA was the strongest critic as far as Title IX goes, they attempted to appeal all acts handed down on them during the mid-late 1970s. Although throughout the years many institutions and people have made it clear that the NCAA’s implication of Title IX is nowhere near where they had hoped it would. In a 2012 article, Adele Rapport, chief attorney of the Dept. of Education Office for Civil Rights voiced her concern with sexual assaults that nearly every university in America deal with. Rapport states that 20-25% of college women are expected to be either raped or potential rape victims. This study is nearly a sample of the lack of effectiveness that Title IX has throughout NCAA institutions.

Title IX is meant to prevent any form of discrimination towards women, however, critics view this rule as putting women on pedestals and diluting any respect towards women. In other words, people view Title IX as a charity case and it does more harm than good from men’s standpoint for it has led to numerous men’s programs being eliminated throughout the U.S. Between the time span of 1985-2002, each NCAA D1 institution has lost on average about 54 male athletes. While the average female athletes grew on average about 90 per D1 school. According to the most recent data (2016; acquired from NCAA.org) since Title IX’s installment the number of female athletic administrators and coaches has steadily remained the same. These statistics should be very concerning for not just Congress, but for the entire world for it shows that despite rules being enforced by the highest governing bodies, people still have zero desire to change the culture of gender equality. A trend has arose from the elimination of men’s sports due to Title IX, the only programs that have been disbanded in many schools are those that don’t generate a significant amount of revenue. Men’s sports such as baseball, swimming and diving, wrestling, gymnastics, and even tennis have been dropped from various well known D1 institutes such as the University of Oregon, Iowa, Michigan State, etc. Many experts believe that this isn’t institutes way of saying no to men and yes to women but they view it as cutting their losses by eliminating the programs that are “taking up space”. Programs like football and basketball are the just desserts for NCAA participating schools, other programs such as the ones listed above are expendable for schools. In states such as Iowa and Nebraska where men’s baseball and track are holy grails for local high school athletes, for Iowa to disband their program due to lack of generated revenue leads to many concluding that Title IX deserves much criticism for the University of Iowa’s decision.

Though Title IX is truly meant to enforce change and generate more opportunities for women, it has done so but at the cost of men’s opportunities as well. This rule has done more harm than it has good as fair as gender equity. Though Title IX is one of the main reasons that some men’s programs have been eliminated throughout the NCAA, there’s a recoil to this effect. The NCAA has published public data to show its 45 years of Title IX, although it can be considered nice its findings prove to be; horrific. Women make up a small margin from not an athlete standpoint, but from an administrative and coaching one as well. As of 2016, only 40% of women sports are coached by women, leaving the rest to be men! How come? Well I believe personally that it has to do with the elimination of men’s teams, these coaches have no where to go so they end up coaching women teams as well. For example, Geno Auriemma, considered the Greatest women’s basketball coach of all time (11x NCAA tournament champion) has been at the helm at the University of Connecticut for now 34 years! 34 years ago (1985 to be exact) Title IX was just 13 years old and the push for women’s equal opportunities to participate in the NCAA had just broke to 30% overall. I bring up Geno as an example to say that other institutes will view his success and hope to copy it; by getting themselves a Geno of their own. In addition, other men who cannot find any opportunity coaching in men’s sports will see men like Geno and think to themselves: “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em”. This kind of chain link will leave women right back where they started unfortunately; at the starting line. What’s wrong with Title IX is that even though it’s meant to enforce change, people are very reluctant to go along. What we forget to remember is that this country is run by men, who view women as second class citizens. I believe that it will be a long time (5-10 years) before women are given the proper respect and opportunities they’re entitled to.