On June 23, 1972 Title IX was enacted and stated that “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. The most public face Title IX receives is from high school and collegiate athletics, but the original statute made no reference to athletics.”
“Title IX is administered by the Office of Civil Rights in the U.S. Department of Education or the (OCR). It applies to an entire school or institution if any part of that school receives federal funds. This means that any athletic program is subjected to Title IX.
In 1979, the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, under President Jimmy Carter’s administration issued a policy interpretation from Title IX. This interpretation includes the “three-prong test” of an institution’s compliance”.
First, the institution must provide athletic opportunities that are substantially equal to the students’ enrollment. In other words, if there are one thousand students and half of them are student athletes than there has to be roughly two hundred and fifty female athletes and two hundred and fifty male athletes for this rule of apply. But most institutions cannot make this rule, because it depends on how many students want to join an athletic team. Plus if there is a football team at the institution, that team alone makes up almost half of the two hundred and fifty males required, and that is only one sport.
Second, there has to be a continuous expansion of athletic opportunities for the underrepresented sex. At our school females would be the underrepresented sex, with a sixty one to forty nine ratio. The way that our school has solved this problem is by taking a survey which explains to mostly students who are not on a sports team, that if there is a sport that Westminster does not provide, then with enough numbers, they can try to open more opportunities for them. For example, when they take this survey, if there is enough votes to start a racquetball team, then the Athletic Department will decide if they should allow the game of racquetball to become a varsity sport.
The third and final part of this test is the institution has to fully accommodate the interests and abilities of the underrepresented sex. So if the men’s basketball team gets new warm up suits every year then so should the women’s basketball team.
The idea of Title IX is still a very controversial topic especially when it comes to athletics. However, the fact is, it increases the participation opportunities for the underrepresented sex in sports. The increase was higher in high school sports than collegiate sports, but either way, sports have changed dramatically for women because of Title IX.
Http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TitleIX
