"enTITLE IX" is about the most communist, anti american based code our lawmakers have created since welfare. Everyone knows it is completely discriminatory and tries to circumvent free enterprise, but it is "justified discrimination" because is suits our current political correctness needs. I am the father of two very athletic daughters and it doesn't change my opinion one bit about that horsecrap legislation.
NCAA sports are not "free enterprise" -- NCAA schools receive billions of dollars in federal aid. Title IX simply makes gender equality in sports a condition of receiving all that money. Any NCAA school could choose to engage in "free enterprise" by turning down the federal money and having exactly the sports it wants.
They will keep diving, but get rid of swimming??? Strange. Title IX has its merits... but it needs to be seriously reformed before it kills off all non-football men's sports. The point of Title IX was to equally distribute money amongst male and female athletes. If a program is self subsidizing (as in football), it should be exempt from Title IX.
Since Title IX is not going away, in order to bring in more D.1 men's sports, would you be in favor of reducing the number of scholarships to football? Currently, the NCAA stipulates that a D.1 program have at mimumum 65 full athletic scholarships. We all know that most programs use their alloted 85. Realistically, how many scholarships are needed to field a football team (remember a NCAA mandated cut would affect all football teams)? Currently, you can go three deep (12 offensive positions and 12 defensive positions: assuming kicker and punter are on scholarship) in football (12 x3 = 72). Since most teams probably only have two kickers and two punters on scholarship at any one time, this allow for 15 redshirts/4th on depth chart. By reducing the number of football scholarships across the board, the freed up scholarships could be used for a D.1 men's soccer team or volleyball team, etc. Before we dismiss Title IX out of hand, remember our own Jody Conradt was one of the pioneers for equality for women in sports. This is good blog entry by Richard Justice titled "All Jody Conradt did was help change the world." March 13, 2007 (excerpts) She fought those early battles so my daughter and your daughter don't have to....She did it because it was the right thing to do......you ought to sit down and write Jody Conradt a thank-you note. Tell her you appreciate that she blazed a trail for your kid. Thanks to Jody Conradt and others like her, your kid has the same scholarship opportunities a male athlete has....She went into an environment that ranged from hostile to let's-ignore-'em-and-they'll-eventually-go-away. She fought for practice facilities, equipment, the whole nine yards...Believe me when I tell you she had to fight for every little thing. She simply wasn't wanted...Conradt resigned Monday in Austin after her Longhorns failed to make the NCAA Tournament for the second straight year. She won 783 games in 31 seasons at Texas. She took her teams to the NCAA tournament 21 times and to the Final four three times. Her 1985-86 won it all...Those raw numbers are a huge part of her legacy, but it was so much more than that. It was showing the way for others...Beyond the raw numbers was the way she ran her program. She graduated 99 percent of her players. If you played for her, you learned how to play the game the right way. You picked up some lessons on discipline, social skills, leadership and communication along the way. Texas will hire a good coach to replace her and that new coach might have even more success than Jody Conradt. Every game she wins, every star player she recruits, will be part of Jody's legacy.
The success and funding of our women's sports is incredibly dependant on the success of our football program. Reducing the number of scholarships for our football team would have a negative impact on women's sports. I'll leave it at that.
Stuck at work.... That is my point. All sports are not equal in the revenue they generate...therefore, mens programs (or womens for that matter) that are cash flow positive should not be held against the scholarship tally for the federal money. Title XI was probably necessary to spur some colleges to move forward with opportunity for women and maybe it brought about some change faster than would have otherwise happened, but c'mon. It is outdated now and any purpose it served has now not only ceased, but is reversing its intention. Cutting any scholarship from any kid of any gender or race etc. at this point for the benefit of another based upon gender or race etc. is absolute discrimination. Drew Shirley "Federal Aid" is merely a deceptive term for my hard earned dollars being taken from me by the government to redistribute wealth (communism) and color it some other way to dupe us into thinking it is okay. It is the same thing with scholarships in Title IX. Redistribution of what supply and demand hath wrought as the natural course of life. I work harder than some people, therefore I may earn more...lazy people say it isn't fair and when enough of them get together they elect someone to come take it from me and give it to them. Is it ethical? No. Is it legal? In our society, if enough lazy people get together and say it is...it becomes so. Thusly with college scholarships, Football and some other mens programs made money, therefore it was financially smart for schools to give away tuition to good athletes, enough woment got together and said it wasn't fair so they took the schollies from the men and gave them to the women. We elect the lawmakers who determine how much to take and what to do with it....I'm not arguing the validity of putting stipulations on the money in the "great redistribution", I am arguing that these particular stipulations are more discriminatory (since they are mandated by the government itself) than the natural effects of supply and demand that created more scholarships for men vs. women in the "free enterprise" system in the first place. It is the whole "dumbing down" theory of lowering the bar so that everybody can have success. Punish the successful so everybody is equal. Therefore, this is one of the most Hypocritical and unnecessary rules in existence. If it were challenged objectively in a court of law at this point, it would probably be overturned as unconstitutional. It is federally encouraged (if not mandated) discrimination against male student-athletes. So for anyone who can try to ethically argue for either higher taxes or Title IX....Suck one.
The problem with Title IX is not the original legislation, its activist courts/judges who "interpreted" the law to mean that 50% of scholarships have to go to women. That metric is NOT in the law, it says NOTHING about being required to split the schollies 50/50. All it says is that you have to provide equitable financial resources to female athletes. The liberal courts "interpreted" the law into a 3 part test: 1) is the school expanding opportunities for women; 2) are the financial resources split 50/50, including scholarships; 3) some other vague "test" I cant remember. The bottom line is that there is only one objective measure under the 3 part test, and universities usually get hammered in court unless they meet that threshold. So universities nationwide basically used the "50/50 split" rule as proof that they in compliance with title ix because the other measures are incredibly vague and non-objective and its hard for a university to prove they are meeting those thresholds. So we really dont need repeal of title ix, we just need to change the law to get rid of the ridiculous "interpretation" rules the liberal activist courts and judges have piggybacked on top of title ix. I challenge anyone to read the original law and find anything that the courts use today in their "3 part test" BS.
In the meantime, scholarships are LITERALLY given away to women. Here in Knoxville, the crew team puts up posters every year promising scholarship money to anyone that can get in a boat and use an oar. I'm not making this up. I believe the women's crew team has something like 14.5 scholarships available each year. It's horsecrap. Football should be exempt. After that, you have a men's b-ball team; you have a women's. You have a women's crew team; you have a men's. And so on....
Lancehorn, I am going to be a libertarian candidate in the fall election, so you're preaching to the choir. I am not in favor of Title IX as legislation. You're missing my point. My point was that Title IX does not require NCAA schools to have gender equity in athletics. It only requires gender equity IF the school wants federal funding. Arizona State or any other school could have any sports it wanted by declining the federal funding. My other point is that NCAA athletics has not even a remote connection with "free enterprise." As a UT fan, you certainly all recognize that you're blasting government intrusion into NCAA sports, when your favorite school is a government school?!? Lancehorn, you keep using terms like "free enterprise" and "supply and demand," but I hope you realize that market economics has nothing to do with collegiate athletics whatsoever.
