Title IX is a bit more complex than that

Editors note: Due to the length of this letter to the editor we were unable to print all of it. However, the full version is available below.

Thank you for a good summary of athletic issues involved with the Somers school district budget.  Such matters rarely come to the attention of most taxpayers across the country who are just asked to pay the bills without understanding why the most expensive school system in human history seems to achieve the developed world's poorest results.  Please understand that my letter is NOT intended in any way as a statement on any aspect of the Lakeside and Somers schools; I have no basis at all to even suspect that the wonderful people involved with those schools are not doing the very best job possible.

However, I’d like to address the following statement in your article: "Title 9 mandates equal athletic opportunities for boys and girls, so when one gender specific sport is added or removed, another must be added or removed as well."

This statement is not only false, it is a truly gross over-simplification of fact. 

 Title IX is universal civil rights law.  It is one of the 1972 amendments that the Greatest Generation, before taking its leave, added to its landmark 1964 Civil Rights Act.  It makes no mention of sports or of girls.  In accordance with our Constitution, it applies equally to BOTH genders.

The Greatest Generation fully recognized that the critical key to economic opportunity in America is education.  The Title IX law was intended to ensure equal gender economic opportunity through equal gender academic achievement in American public education.  Sports wasn’t even envisioned as an issue by those drafting and enacting the law 40 years ago, although subsequent legal experience demonstrated that sports is included in its vast reach.

Title IX states, simply and unequivocally:  “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.

As a whole library of court decisions during the 1970s and 1980s firmly established as legal precedent, the wording (and funding realities) makes the law applicable to every aspect of all US public education – from K through post-graduate school.  The intent of the law was to ensure equality (or “balance”) in the academic achievements of both genders – in the results of the core mission of American taxpayer-funded education.  The objective is to ensure equal economic opportunity, not getting on some sports team; those drafting and enacting the law were thinking on a far grander plane than simply athletics. The primary focus was on K-12, not on higher education; K-12 was expected to produce students who could enter higher education unassisted in equal numbers and on equal footing (although some matters with higher education were also addressed by Title IX court decisions well before athletic programs became the “last issue”). 

Among a long list of legal standards established in American law by court cases based on Title IX is that “quotas” may not be applied, but other statistical means may be used to both determine “discrimination” and to ensure “balance”.  The main thrust was gender balance in academic achievement – i.e., in the “results” of American academic education, not in the “process”.  Good intentions in effort count for nothing if the results don’t balance.  Another standard is that victims cannot be held responsible; the institution is solely responsible for meeting its mandate and is thus REQUIRED to change in any positive way necessary to ensure the mandated gender balance.

An example of how well this civil rights law is being upheld today can be seen by comparing genders in the article on Dean’s Lists contained in the same issue of West Shore News; those reaching this highly laudable achievement are mostly young women (and I, of course, proudly salute every one of them).  A much better example would be comparing genders of those participating in advanced placement programs in the nation’s high schools – also overwhelmingly dominated by girls (usually at ratios of well over 10 to 1).  You can also see it in drop-out rates, academic versus vocational participation, test scores, graduation rates, college admissions, scholarship awards, degrees awarded, etc., etc..  THIS is where the gross violations of Title IX are today – in direct and blatant violation of federal Title IX civil rights law.  These disparities, in fact, are far greater than they were before Title IX became the law of the land.

The greatest civil rights shame in America today is the way our boys are steadily falling further and further behind girls in American public education – in declining academic achievement that translates directly into declining economic opportunity.  As a man heavily involved in the great civil rights movements, including the women’s rights movement, in Washington DC and the South during the 1960s, I know that ensuring that this does NOT happen is the very purpose of Title IX.   But all of the above examples, and many more, have now been going on so long that everyone thinks they are just “normal”.  They are not. 

Unfortunately, most of the public is unaware of ever growing disparities, the ever expanding gender imbalances, because of the universal practice among schools and education journalists to use only gender-neutral terms such as “students” and “children” instead of “boys” and “girls” when discussing the performance of our schools.  In fact, boys are no longer even granted a gender unless they screw up and do something wrong.

In America, women without children working full time now earn 117%, and steadily rising, of the incomes earned by men without children working full time – a natural consequence of the country now ensuring university educations every year to twice as many women as men.  These are really huge numbers that are cumulative.  Such gross imbalances are dangerous for our society, and will inevitably place far too great a burden on tomorrow’s women.

Your error, however, is understandable.  As a result over the last twenty years of applying Title IX solely to one tiny (and actually quite insignificant) issue, the statement that you made has become ingrained in the popular consciousness.  It should be corrected whenever it is encountered because of the great harm it is doing to half of our population - the half without a lobby – and the truly enormous and unfair responsibility it will place on the distaff half of our society in the future.

Again, thanks for your otherwise informative article.  I did take note of the overwhelming emphasis on athletic programs to address problems with a budget that MUST involve far more than just athletics.  I do apologize if I missed an earlier article that did present the complete picture; it’s not easy for the public to get an adequate understanding of that picture, or to cast fully informed votes, when so much of it is missing.

Bob Lavin,

Lakeside