On Saturday, Title IX turned 40. The law was signed on June 23, 1972, by then-President Richard Nixon. It states:
No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance...
In the 40 years since its inception, the law has certainly helped advance women’s athletics a great deal. Still, there are those who think the bill has done its job, or that it harms smaller men’s sports through funding cuts, or by cutting entire programs.
However, according to the Women’s Sports Foundation, there are still fewer opportunities for female athletes in high school and college, as well as less scholarship money for female athletes. The Foundation also says it’s incorrect to pin blame for cuts to male sports on Title IX because schools determine what athletic cuts to make based on a variety of reasons.
Forty years later, do you think Title IX is still necessary?
Not too long ago Rutgers needed to cut, $175K from one of the men’s program to comply with title ix. The institution responded by getting rid of men’s tennis team. Just like that, those men are probably out of a scholarship. Did this really help one single woman by have these men missing out on the experience of college sports? Then, National Women’s Law Center points out, stated that Rutgers has spent exactly $175K on hotel rooms for the football team during their home games. Do these people really need to have it explained to them that cutting this expense for the football team is a bad idea? You see Rutgers obtain a substantial amount of money from football than it does for any other sport, except possibly men’s basketball. In order to keep up its revenue, it has to provide an elite product on the field and they obviously do this by obtaining the top high school graduates. Now, in order to obtain these athletes, the school has go out of its way in providing extra incentives (i.e. hotel rooms) so they do not go to a competing school. The vast majority of the college sports do not bring in the revenue like football so they do not have the privilege of spending the night at a quiet hotel room before games as oppose to a noisy dorm room. Something tells me that the National Women’s Law Center knows this and just doesn’t care.