Now She's Got Game

Gam

pel Pavilion on the University of Connecticut's campus can seat 10,000 people, and every time the women's basketball team plays there, the place sells out. At a recent home game against Seton Hall University, UConn's athletic director, Lew Perkins, surveyed the cheerleaders, the band, the students with their faces painted in the team's colors, the dancing Husky mascot and sports reporters from publications not normally inclined to cover women's college athletics. "This turnout has nothing to do with Title IX," Perkins remarked, referring to the 1972 law that requires schools receiving federal funds to offer equal opportunities to men and women. "These people are here because our women's basketball team is so great."

It should be noted that Perkins has demonstrated strong support for Title IX and worked strenuously to bulk up women's athletic participation at UConn. His comment reflects the pride he feels in the team, which has become almost more popular than the men's squad. A national phenomenon and a school obsession, the women Huskies have won a record 64 straight games, most often crushing the opposition, as they did Seton Hall a few weeks ago.

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But doesn't Title IX count in the team's success? Would the school have allotted the resources, facilities, equipment or salary for a first-rate coach to develop the program if it had not been mandated to do so by law? And without Title IX to mandate opportunities for female athletes in high school, would UConn have found players primed to succeed at the college level?

When Title IX was written, it was clear that women needed help to achieve equality on the playing field. But 31 years later, some question whether the legislation has worked too well and promoted women at the expense of men. Under the law, a school can demonstrate Title IX compliance in one of three ways: by making the percentage of female athletes the same as the percentage of female students, by showing an ongoing history of increasing opportunities for women, or by showing that it is accommodating the interests and abilities of women.

It is the first option, the proportionality test, that gets Title IX critics in a lather. Many schools believe that this is the only sure way to avoid accusations of noncompliance, since progress can be measured in hard numbers. But detractors say it leads to dismantling men's teams while adding women's as a school attempts to meet its goals. UCLA and the University of Miami have eliminated their men's swim teams, even though both regularly sent competitors to the Olympics. In 1997, Boston University dismantled its football program, which had been around for 91 years, and in 1999, Providence College ended its popular baseball program. "Title IX benefited women who were discriminated against," says Jessica Gavora, author of Tilting the Playing Field. "But now it is being used as a preference, not a shield against discrimination."

In perhaps the most frequently cited of these trade-off cases, Marquette University decided to end its wrestling program in 2001, even though the team was primarily supported by private donations. The school said it was trying to create parity between the total number of spots for women and those for men. This was one of the cases that led the National Wrestling Coaches Association to file a lawsuit against the Department of Education, claiming that Title IX was unlawful and encouraged "gender quotas."

Few words are more likely to get the Bush Administration's attention than "quota." So last June, U.S. Education Secretary Rod Paige appointed a 15-member Commission on Opportunity in Athletics to consider changes to Title IX. The move dismayed the law's defenders, who believe that the White House is intent on rolling back years of gains. During his campaign for President, Bush said he was against "strict proportionality" in Title IX. And last year he appointed affirmative-action opponent Gerald Reynolds to head the Office of Civil Rights, the department charged with overseeing the law's enforcement. The commission is scheduled to make its recommendations to Paige this week, though he is not required to take any action.

The proposals under consideration include changing the proportionality test by giving half the number of athletic spots to men and half to women, regardless of the ratio of men to women in the student body; allowing institutions to count the number of slots available on each team, as opposed to the number of people actually playing; and excluding walk-ons, or students who do not receive scholarships and therefore are not supported by the athletic budget, from participation totals.

Supporters of Title IX say none of these recommendations are necessary and the law is being used as a scapegoat for schools that have exercised poor fiscal management over their athletic budgets. "On too many occasions, schools that have cut teams have blamed Title IX," says Lamar Daniel, who consults with schools on Title IX issues. "At those institutions that I have worked with, lack of money has been the primary reason for cutting teams." Women's advocates point to the bloated size of men's football teams. If, for example, proportionality requires a school to offer only 100 slots for men's sports and a football team takes up 85 of them, that leaves fewer slots for less fan-friendly, non-revenue-producing men's squads such as gymnastics and swimming. "The attitude for too long was that it was O.K. for women to have equal opportunity only after every boy who wants to has the right to play and never loses that right," says Donna Lopiano, executive director of the Women's Sports Foundation.