Don’t Blame Title IX

As the Alabama and Boise State football teams celebrated their undefeated seasons last fall, one team looked back on the past several months less favorably. The Hilltoppers of Western Kentucky University did not win a single game for the first time in the program’s history, in large part because the football team moved to a more competitive division.

The move came under controversial circumstances. At the time, WKU was in violation of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, renamed the Patsy T. Mink Equal Opportunity in Education Act in 2002. The law, commonly just referred to as Title IX, guarantees men and women equal access to college athletic activities. WKU's violation was for awarding too many scholarships to female athletes. To return to compliance with Title IX, the school moved the football team to a better division in 2006 and began offering more scholarships to male football players. Since the transition, the Hilltoppers have been getting crushed.

A 1979 policy interpretation by the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare of Title IX requires that schools provide athletic opportunities proportionate to student enrollment, demonstrate a continual expansion of athletic opportunities for the underrepresented sex, or fully and effectively accommodate the interests and abilities of the underrepresented sex. In the vast majority of violations, the underrepresented sex is women. The WKU case was one of the few cases in history in which men were underserved.

The WKU case has served as fodder for anti-Title IX groups, including the Independent Women Forum, an opponent of gender equity programs including the Violence Against Women Act. And these opponents don’t just exist on the fringe. The 2008 Republican Party Platform included opposition the enforcement of Title IX in college athletics. In the fall of the same year, conservative commentator Phyllis Schlafly blamed Title IX for the cancellation of “hundreds of men's college athletic teams, thereby costing us dearly in the recent Olympics,” a claim that leaves social scientists scratching their heads, especially given that the United States still won the medal count in the 2008 Summer Olympics.

But WKU administrators remain confident that they made the right decision in moving to a new division. According to Assistant Athletic Director Todd Stewart, the decision to move the team was a collaborative effort. “The athletic department had tremendous input and actually did the bulk of the research into this endeavor,” he says. “We had numerous meetings and conversations with alumni and corporate partners to get their feedback.” Moreover, they believe that, despite some criticisms of the federal statute, Title IX served them well in the process, not faulting the civil rights legislation for the team’s woes or the costs placed on the school.

The elimination of some men’s teams has indeed been necessary for some schools to remain compliant, but that shouldn’t be seen as a strike against the civil rights law. The number of relative opportunities is what matters. If schools provide disproportionate athletic opportunities to men, then one path to reaching higher education—through scholarship and recruitment for athletics—closes for women. Additionally, Title IX has indisputably created more opportunities than it ever eliminated. When Congress enacted in 1972, fewer than 30,000 women participated in intercollegiate athletics. Today, over 150,000 women participate in NCAA sports.

Still, some conservatives search for examples to bolster their opposition to Title IX’s application to college athletics. If they plan to use WKU football’s recent struggles ask an example, they may want to consider looking elsewhere. The totality of the evidence from WKU’s last five years doesn’t support their claims.

During the 2004-2005 academic year, female athletes at WKU received 7.5 percent more scholarship money than male athletes, and the school’s board of regents decided to increase the number of scholarships it awards to male athletics while holding the number it awards to women constant rather than cutting women's scholarships. The move effectively increased the number of football scholarships from 63 to 85, bringing WKU back into compliance with Title IX.

Though the move was initially intended to put WKU on the right side of the law, it was also an initial step in university President Gary Ransdell’s greater dream: to make WKU “a leading American university with international reach.” He believed moving divisions was “one way to help the university achieve this mission,” says Stewart. “WKU receives far greater exposure from television appearances than we previously did, thus many areas of the university and campus are now highlighted in ways never possible before.” Still, this may not be the best time for football team to be on television.

ESPN’s Mark Schlabach ranked the Hilltoppers as the worst team in its division this year. After WKU’s 20 consecutive losses, it’s hard to argue with him. Still, the team’s difficulties are not necessarily proof positive that WKU made the wrong decision in moving to a better division. The athletic department expected a serious learning curve for the football program after its move. Stewart says he’s “confident in the future field success of our football program.”

One could easily conclude that WKU’s compliance with Title IX won out, while the football team lost. But this isn’t the case for WKU. The school wanted to move to the better division, and the college's administration anticipated the team’s struggles. Officials do not blame Title IX for the struggles. Stewart explains, “WKU’s attitude toward Title IX has been consistently favorable since the law was implemented, and the move to [our current division] has not altered this at all.”

Andrew Bluebond is a staff writer for Campus Progress. He attends Claremont McKenna College.

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