Title IX solution is to exempt football
Marc Striowski
graduate student
After reading the comments of on both sides of the Title IX debate the past few days, I felt compelled for the first time in my five years at Notre Dame to write a letter to the editor. Everyone knows of the good things this law has done for women's sports since its inception in 1972. Unfortunately, it has had a negative impact on men, which was never the original intent of the law. I do not believe it needs to be done away with, but rather just amended.
The exact wording of Title IX is as follows: "No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of or be subject to discrimination under any educational program or activity receiving federal financial assistance." All schools, private and public, are generally required to comply with Title IX because private schools like Notre Dame receive federal funds in the form of direct financial aid to its students.
Notre Dame has done a good job creating sports for women to comply with the law; specifically with the women's lacrosse and crew programs. We are, however, in the fortunate position of having an athletic program that makes money and can thus afford to create women's sports rather than cut men's sports.
In Dec. 2000, Kevin White announced that Notre Dame would fully fund all of our 26 varsity programs, creating 64 new scholarships (36 for women and 28 for men). During 2000-2001, Notre Dame awarded 256 scholarships (98 for women and 158 for men). Including the new ones, men would now receive 186 and women 134. Seems unfair right? Well, take out the 85 scholarships going to football and you get a 101 to 134 margin. The fact that there is no female equivalent to football should not be used to penalize men in other sports.
Title IX is not a problem at Notre Dame as we have money to fund and create women's sports. It does, however, hurt schools with less revenue, such as St. John's which recently cut three men's teams.
Scaling down the size of the football program is not the answer either. In the NCAA's 2002 audit report, men's Division I-A sports in 2001 reported profits of $4.9 million and women's a deficit of $3.2 million. Football, on average, generated $4.7 million of profit. Funds from football programs clearly fund other sports, and they often get redistributed among schools through their conference.
The simple solution, therefore, is to take football out of the equation when considering participation and the number of scholarships across genders. Had George Washington University and Saint John's University done that, maybe they would still have men's cross country and track teams.
Marc Striowski
graduate student
South Bend
Feb. 5
All Viewpoint Stories for Thursday, February 6, 2003
