Title IX and NWLC

From: edequity@phoenix.edc.org
Date: Mon May 08 2000 - 14:44:33 EDT


Hi Verna! Sorry it took me so long to get back to you; final exams and
everything.

What I refer to as the national trend is inclusive of all sports at the
post-secondary level. Analysis of overall participation rates as reported
by the NCAA indicates that for every female athlete added, four male
athletes have been eliminated to satisfy the quota. I would presume that
you, affiliated with the National Women's Law Center, would be aware of the
numbers. Maybe it's just me, but when I see something doing four times
more harm than good it gives me cause to step back and say "Hey! Wait a
minute! Something's not right here!"

Your organization seems to be responsible at least in part for shrilly
demanding and forcing the implementation of the negative aspects of Title
IX, i.e. arrival at proportionality by any means necessary and if a few
men's teams need to be sacrificed then so be it. In light of this, let me
ask you a question directed to your organization.

First you have to understand that when a team is eliminated, say for
instance a wrestling team, the wrestlers generally don't blame
"proportionality," which is what is really at fault, they blame "Title IX."
I remember several months ago when I attended my brother's wrestling
tournament I wore a T-shirt that said "Title IX Yes---Title IX Quotas NO."
A man came up to me quite irate that I would wear a T-shirt supporting
Title IX at a wrestling tournament. I explained to him that it is not
Title IX that is destroying wrestling but it is the proportionality
requirement that is at fault. He did not seem to understand until I showed
him some literature I happened to have on the subject. The people who are
hurt by your organization and the others who force proportionality do not
think "Proportionality has done this to my son," or "Norma Cantu has done
this to my son," they think "Title IX has done this to my son."

The point of this story is that this man goes to the polls and votes, as do
the wrestlers, the wrestling families, fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers,
etc., as well as those families of young men participating in other sports
that have been destroyed. There are more athletes who lose opportunities
because of Title IX than there are athletes who gain because of it. It
will eventually get to the point where the National Women's Law Center has
wrought so much negativity and caused so much pain to so many people that
there will be a large backlash, not against "proportionality," but against
"Title IX." It will result not in proportionality being eliminated, which
is a reasonable solution, but the entire law being weakened or possibly
vacated. That would be a worst-case scenario because Title IX has done a
great deal of good in terms of equal opportunity.

The question is why would you, in the driver's seat, want to drive Title IX
toward such a backlash that would possibly result in the watering down of
the positive things Title IX has done? Why not head it off before it gets
to that point by amending it to eliminate the destruction, eliminate the
pain it causes?

Amber Valeris DeWine <Your_Honor@mail.findlaw.com.criticalpath.net>



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