Athletics

Before Title IX

Things were different. The primary physical activities for girls were cheerleading and square-dancing. Only 1 in 27 girls played high school sports. There were virtually no college scholarships for female athletes. And female college athletes received only two percent of overall athletic budgets.

Since Title IX

There's been real growth in the number of women who participate in sports, receive scholarships, and benefit from increased budgets. There are more opportunities to compete at elite levels through competitions like the Olympics, World Championships and professional leagues. Even more importantly, we know that playing sports makes women healthier. They're less likely to smoke, drink, use drugs and experience unwanted pregnancies. Studies also link sports participation to reduced incidences of breast cancer and osteoporosis later in life. These health benefits for women and society alone should be reason to keep Title IX strong.

Why Title IX Is Still Critical

The general perception is that girls now have equal opportunities in all areas of athletics. But that's just not true.

• In 2006 -2007  there were 3 million girls participating in high school athletics. They made up 41% of high school athletes, even though they represent more than 49% of the high school student population.
  
• In 2005-2006 there were 171,000 women participating in college athletics. Women  represent only 42% of college athletes, even thogh they represent over 50% of the college student population nationwide.
  
• Each year male athletes receive over $136  million more than female athletes in college athletic scholarships at NCAA member institutions.
  
• Women in Division I colleges are over 50% of the student body, but receive only 32% of athletic recruiting dollars and 37% of the total money spent on athletics.
• In 2008, only 43% of coaches of women's teams were women. In 1972, the number was over 90 percent.

• There were 416 athletics complaints filed with OCR between January 1, 2002 and December 31, 2006—likely just a fraction of the number of complaints that were raised informally with schools during that period. The OCR complaints challenged discrimination against girls or women 11 times more frequently than they claimed discrimination against males, demonstrating concretely that the playing field is still far from level for female athletes.
• While more than one-quarter of the complaints overall challenged schools’ failures to provide sufficient participation opportunities for girls and women, more than half—54%—challenged inequitable treatment of girls’ or women’s teams once female athletes were allowed to play. Among complaints filed on behalf of K-12 girls, moreover, fully 60% of the allegations concerned inequities in treatment of female teams. And many of the treatment complaints—particularly those concerning disparities between girls’ softball and boys’ baseball teams, such as in the quality of softball versus baseball fields—identified blatant and egregious inequities that had persisted for many years.
• From January 1, 2002 - December 31, 2006, OCR initiated only one compliance review of a school’s athletics program. Moreover, while OCR processed the majority of the complaints it received, resolu- tion of those complaints was unreasonably delayed in a number of instances, and onerous evidentiary burdens were sometimes put on the female athletes filing the complaints.

Take Action

Support The High School Athletics Accountability Act of 2007 (H.R. 901) and the High School Sports Information Collection Act of 2007 (S. 518) would address continuing and widespread inequities by requiring high schools to report information (much of it already collected by the schools) on the gender breakdown of their teams and athletics expenditures.  This information will allow schools, parents and students to evaluate their athletics programs to make sure that they are treating boys and girls equally. Encourage your elected officials to support and work to pass this year these two important, bipartisan bills.
Take Action:  Contact your Congressman or Congresswoman now!