Argument Against Title IX

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Hailed by many as one of the most important and influential pieces of federal legislation, Title IX is overpraised by the government and colleges and it hasn’t made as big an impact as they will have you believe. Title IX states: No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance. (Congress of the United States of America)
Before Title IX, universities put quotas on the number of women they could admit, regardless of how they academically compared to the other male students. Women’s collegiate sports were basically nonexistent and funded by only 2% of the
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In 1979, the Office of Civil Rights developed a “three-prong” test to determine if a school’s athletic department was complying with Title IX. School’s can choose to test compliance by proportionality, having a history of expanding opportunities, or meeting the interest and ability level at their school. If the school passed any of the three requirements, then they would continue to receive funding from the federal government. Most schools chose to test their Title IX compliance with proportionality, meaning the number of female and male athletes is proportionate to the number of respective students. However, only 23% of Division I colleges came within 5% of proportionality (Women’s Sports Foundation) and provided women’s sports teams with only 36% of the total athletic budget (Galles). Female athletes are told that uniforms and transportation to games is their responsibility, but men’s teams’ uniforms, transportation, and other extraneous costs that female athletes are responsible for, are not the male athlete’s responsibility. This puts unfair pressure on female athletes to support themselves and their team, when, by law, it is the responsibility of colleges to support all of their athletic teams proportionally. …show more content…
This is mostly due to a lack of funding from colleges and universities and a lack of enforcement of Title IX by the Office of Civil Rights. After decades of complaints and court cases against colleges for Title IX violations, “not one institution has had its federal funding withdrawn because it [was] in violation of Title IX.” (Women’s Sports Foundation). It does not matter how many civil rights and non-discriminatory laws the government passes if the government cannot enforce them. The inequity between men and women in college sports is just one example of the vastness of gender discrimination that is still deeply ingrained in pop culture, the workplace, and other facets of society. If gender equity can be achieved in federally funded institutions, then it can be achieved