printable versionVantage Point: Gender equity in sports -- more candid dialogue needed
BY DEBORAH RHODE
Deborah Rhode
How do we measure gender equity in athletics? Are we there yet, and if not, what is standing in the way? Those questions have provoked considerable controversy among those who run, and those who regulate, college athletic programs. The reasons were apparent in a recent program sponsored by the Stanford Center on Ethics, which featured Tara VanDerveer, head coach of the Women's Basketball Program; Dick Gould, former director of tennis; Dena Evans, former head coach of the Women's Cross Country Program; and Kerry McCoy, head coach of the Wrestling Program.
All of the participants agreed that Title IX of the Civil Rights Act had played a crucial role by mandating gender equity in athletic programs at institutions receiving federal funds. But they disagreed strongly over whether the statute as currently implemented is creating more problems than solutions.
Clearly, this legislation has prompted enormous progress in opening opportunities for female athletes. When I grew up in the pre-Title IX era, my gym classes offered hula hooping, baton twirling and ring toss. When I played on the Yale women's varsity tennis team, we had no locker room, scholarships or travel budget. Our coach was a local physical education teacher who brought iced tea to matches and occasionally murmured "good shot" from the sidelines. Dick Gould recalled that when he and his wife began coaching at Stanford, the situation was similar. Female players didn't even get new balls; they got castoffs that were not just "used" but "very used." Tara VanDerveer started at a high school with no basketball team on which she could play, and her unfunded college season was nine games.
Today's landscape looks totally different. Women now account for some 44 percent of participants in intercollegiate athletics, a percentage that has quadrupled since enactment of Title IX. But they still receive only 30 percent of athletic budgets, largely because of the expense of football teams, which have no female equivalent. In order to bring expenditures for women closer to those for men, most schools have cut budgets for male teams. Half of men's intercollegiate sports have experienced cutbacks to comply with federal regulations; wrestling has had the severest reductions. This, according to coaches like Gould and McCoy, is a form of reverse discrimination that is inconsistent with the equal opportunity principles of the legislation.
In essence, Title IX requires that institutions either fund male and female athletic programs in proportion to their male/female student body enrollments, or provide opportunities that accommodate the interests and abilities of the disadvantaged sex. The question is whether there is any alternative to reach that result in a context of limited resources without reducing men's opportunities. For example, might there be some "excess" in the best-funded male programs? Is it fair, asked VanDerveer, for the men's basketball team to charter flights to its away games while her players fly steerage on budget carriers? Is it fair, Gould countered, for the women's tennis team to have more scholarships than the men's, even though more men have the interest and ability to play competitively? Should football remain in the equation for purposes of measuring gender equity, or would it be fairer to require proportionality in sport-by-sport expenditures?
One of the other controversial issues that has recently divided federal policymakers is how to gauge student interest. Recent changes in federal regulations allow schools to conduct e-mail surveys. Critics argue that this approach is inadequate. It is clear from the not-so-good-old-days pre-Title IX that interest is in part a function of opportunities. No one in my era wanted to play girl's basketball or soccer because we didn't have programs like the ones now available. But it is also true that, for a variety of cultural reasons, men's and women's interest in competitive college athletics is not the same, and it may not always make sense to shortchange talented and committed men to provide underutilized opportunities for women.
At the close of the Stanford panel, VanDerveer thanked the Center on Ethics for sponsoring the program and noted that although she and Gould had been at Stanford for over two decades, this was the first time that they had discussed the issue publicly. It shouldn't be the last. More candid dialogue needs to occur at both the campus and national policy level if we are truly to achieve gender equity in athletics.
Deborah Rhode is the Ernest W. McFarland Professor of Law and the director of the Stanford Center on Ethics.