Percentage of U.S. college students who are women: 56. Percentage of U.S. college varsity athletes who are women: 42. Percentage of college varsity positions and athletic scholarships that must go to women in order to comply with federally mandated Title IX: 56.
Run the numbers, and a particular question might cross your mind -- why should female college athletes receive a disproportionate amount of funding and support from U.S. colleges and universities?
A 15-member federal commission appointed by Education Secretary Roderick R. Paige in June created a brouhaha last week when it considered sweeping changes to Title IX, a 30-year-old piece of legislation that needs to go to its grave.
Sally Jenkins, a Washington Post columnist who has written several pieces on this issue, said in one recent column, "If you defend Title IX, you're a man-hater, oppose it, and you're a pig." At the risk of being labeled inappropriately as a male chauvinist pig, I will continue.
Title IX, as outlined with statistics at the beginning of this column, requires that schools maintain numbers of male and female athletes that are "substantially proportionate" to the overall male-to-female ratio of the student body. Likewise, the number of athletic scholarships given also must conform to this ratio.
This is commonly referred to as the proportionality rule, and is heralded by women's rights activists as responsible for increasing the number of collegiate women athletes more than five-fold since Title IX's inception in 1972. Over the same time period, overall enrollment of women in U.S. colleges and universities increased slightly more than two-fold (http://nces.ed.gov).
If we lived in a perfect world in which men and women maintained an equal interest in sports, Title IX actually would be intelligent legislation. But the real world is far from perfect.
The most controversial proposal considered by the federal commissionlast week was to change the proportionality rule, the mainstay of Title IX. Under the proposed new rule, schools could deviate as much as 7 percent from the male-to-female ratio and still comply with Title IX.
At the average U.S. university, 56 percent of students are women. So the new rule would mandate, on average, that at least 49 percent of athletic scholarships and varsity slots go to women -- which is actually 7 percent higher than the current proportion of collegiate female athletes. So no problems here, right?
Wrong. After hearing testimony from directors of athletic programs, advocacy groups and star female athletes, the panel split 7-7 on the proposal that would have altered the overly strict proportionality rule.
It's unfortunate that this proposal was not approved by the commission. Gender equity, something that everyone should strongly support, doesn't mean preferential treatment of a gender that might have endured past injustices. Luckily, there are provisions in the current language of Title IX that allow Division I-A schools -- those with big football programs, where it is nearly impossible to match athletic aid to male-female ratios -- to wiggle their way around the proportionality rule.
The most common workaround is to demonstrate a history of expanding women's athletics programs. The University, for example, created a women's rowing team in 1995 and a women's golf team in 2001. This is how U.Va. complies with Title IX. The second option is for schools to survey the student body and provide athletic programs based on the results of the survey.
The University, like other Division I-A schools, matches its athletic scholarships to male and female athletes ex post facto. The University does not give scholarships to female athletes who might never compete just to boost the number of varsity females. This is an appropriate policy -- creating varsity-level positions to meet quotas wastes money and is unfair.
Statistics compiled by the Department of Education show that at The University, 56 percent of athletes are men, while 44 percent are women, closely matching national percentages. U.Va. women accordingly receive 46 percent of athletic scholarships, with men receiving the other 54 percent (http://ope.ed.gov/athletics).
Therefore, the failure of the commission to approve the new 7 percent rule was not a major loss to either side of the debate, although neither side is happy with the outcome of last week's hearings. The half-baked proportionality rule still stands, but it still won't have any impact at Division I-A schools like The University -- as well it shouldn't.
The panel approved several other measures that Education Secretary Roderick R. Paige will consider at the end of this month. These measures will weaken the proportionality rule, allowing schools to meet the requirements of Title IX without implementing quotas. Paige should approve these recommendations without delay, despite what women's rights activists are saying.
It's high time for officials in the Department of Education to stop kowtowing to the liberal agenda, and start thinking about what is best for American students. Title IX, as it now stands, is a perfect example of legislation that encourages gender inequity.
(Sam Bresnahan's column appears Tuesdays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at sbresnahan
@cavalierdaily.com.)
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