Because it seems to be a good day for psoting about totally non-controversial political topics that I will undoubtedly not have time to follow up on, here's an article from Inside Higher Ed that takes a dim view of current arguments about Title IX:
Right now, the situation is getting us nowhere. Ultimately, all we ever talk about is the number of men and women playing sports at a given institution, and whether the women's number is as high as it ought to be. Raw participation numbers occupy a pretty small portion of the U.S. Department of Education's Title IX regulations, but the overwhelming majority of news stories, debates, and lawsuits filed in this area -- as well as recent research published by the Government Accountability Office -- can be reduced to counting ponytails. Meanwhile, disparities between men's revenue sports and all other sports continue to grow, while participation opportunities for women have stagnated.
Enough. Parents, coaches, and athletics administrators need to take a fresh look at what gender equity really means. Rather than focusing on participation statistics, it would be helpful to remember that Title IX forbids denying anyone the benefits of such a program or subjecting them to discrimination on the basis of gender, not merely excluding them from participation. If policy were based on the assessing the benefits of participating in sports -- measuring the quality of participation opportunities, not merely the quantity -- we could move a long way toward fulfilling the promise of Title IX.
It's an interesting suggestion, and certainly a different approach to the argument. Whether it's really practical is another matter, but at least it's a change from the same old bickering.
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A school with no school-sponsored athletics has no gender inequity related to them. Yet another reason to make that the norm, rather than the exception.
OK, First get football numbers out of the picture, then count buzzcuts and ponytails. THEN make them use the same amount of state/federal money be available for the mens programs in total as the womens. Now if the men get more TV money, they can keep it. The women can keep their TV money too, but I'm guessing its less.
Does more than the current system to make facilities and such more comparable, but addresses certain realities (that college sports is a big business at some places, and mens sports are more popular than womens).
Oh yeah, and reinstate mens wrestling and track/x-country programs that were cut in the ponytail counting.
Parents, coaches, and athletics administrators need to take a fresh look at what gender equity really means
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That is what "equity" means. Rights do not exist, only appetites. Conflict resolution is stealing what cannot be earned. Inequity means keeping score. Self-esteem is delusion actively seeking empirical repudiation (i.e., "hate language").
"A school with no school-sponsored athletics has no gender inequity related to them. Yet another reason to make that the norm, rather than the exception."
This is a horrible idea. Having spent 2 years on a varsity team (track) at Cornell (I left because my knees, due to previous injury, could not take the intensity required) I can assure you that at least in the non-tv sports the athletes are doing it out of passion for the sport (and yes, I was effected by title IX by bouncing on and off the official roster several times). Cutting all school sponsored sports would do athletes and athletics a great disservice (consider where the next generation of Olympic level runners, jumpers/throwers, rowers, wrestlers, etc are developed).
To parody that argument, "there is a gender gap in physics majors in this country, just one more reason to have schools with out an school sponsored physics major be the norm"
Everyone harps on football, but at most schools (as I recall from looking at budgets 4+ years ago) ice hockey is the most expensive, for both men and women.
I would also lodge a protest against the buzz cut vs pony tail stereo types. Some of the best women runners at Cornell have short hair and the mens XC captain this year had long hair. And don't get started on the varsity athletes are dumb meme either. A good number of Cornell mens track team (who I know the most people on) are in the engineering school and I believe (I think I remember this from when I was being recruited 4 years ago) that the student-athletes at Cornell have a better graduation rate than Cornell as a whole.
You could go a long way towards solving this by cutting varsity-level sports and keeping the rest - eliminating the use of college sports as a minor professional league (an insult to the purpose of a higher education institution) and sports programs that completely define a student by monopolizing most of their time, and instead treating sports for what they should be - recreation, fun. Then make the distribution of money interest-based and blind to how much money any given sport takes in (or at this point, just make all games free to attend.) Also, if the level of competition is reduced, many sports can be combined. I've played in some great co-ed intermural ultimate frisbee leagues.
Cutting all school sponsored sports would do athletes and athletics a great disservice (consider where the next generation of Olympic level runners, jumpers/throwers, rowers, wrestlers, etc are developed).
While I don't disagree with your overall sentiment, a good deal of Olympic level male rowers come from rowing programs that are NOT school funded. There are only a handful of men's rowing programs that are college funded, the rest are funded through dues, donations and fund raisers.
jeffk:
You are missing the point that the level of competition is part of the reason athletes do what they do. If you want to take part in only semi-competitive sports, go to a DIII school. When I was looking at schools 4 years ago I decided I wanted to go to DI school because I wanted to be running in a highly competitive environment. If your interest in sports is purely recreation, fine that is your choice. However don't go proclaiming that no one can be competitive.
You also talk like students are forced to take part in programs that take all their time. Being a member of a team is a choice. At Cornell any athlete can simply walk away at any time (This may be different at schools with scholarships, but I don't really know anything about them) they choose to. Athletes choose to devote that much time because they want to be the best they can be (i know it sounds cheesy). Again, you may not want to put in the time but that is your choice, let other people make their choices.
While we are moralizing about how students should or should not be allowed to spend their time, why don't we conclude that no student should speed less than 60 hr/week on course work, never consume more than 2 drinks a week, do away with the greek system and all student organizations, and mandate a nightly curfew?
(sorry, this topic makes me really angry)
tonyl:
ok, I will admit I do not know the funding mechanisms of all those sports, I was just thinking about Olympic sports without professional organizations (that I know of) in this country.
TonyL said:
While I don't disagree with your overall sentiment, a good deal of Olympic level male rowers come from rowing programs that are NOT school funded. There are only a handful of men's rowing programs that are college funded, the rest are funded through dues, donations and fund raisers.
This is exactly my point, and male rowers are the perfect example. If the drive to compete is so overwhelming, then club sports will serve every bit as well as NCAA ones.
And as for a cornellian's suggestion that my statement was equivalent to saying that physics should be defunded because of the gender gap... Well, I suppose that would be true, if you considered physics to be outside the core mission of a university in the same way that athletics are. Of course, I don't think that this is a particularly reasonable position, and the gender inequity is very far from the only reason for eliminating sports from universities. I fear that further discussion of this point may be a bit far off topic (and I'm a bit sorry for dragging the conversation as far off topic as I did), so maybe I'll let it drop here.
I'm not talking about what people can or cannot do. Your examples are not parallel; schools do not have varsity drinking programs, and schools are about learning and studying. I'm advocating severing the tie of two unrelated programs that are unhealthy for each other. Universities should have no more interest in functioning as incubators for professional athletes than they should have in raising llamas.
Granted this is all something of a side issue, but I brought it up because, should one accept my premise, it would be a large step towards simplifying title IX issues.
If you want to take part in only semi-competitive sports, go to a DIII school.
Sports should dictate academic decisions?
nick:
your initial statement made no mention of qualifiers as to core mission etc, you simply stated that if there was a gender inequality, then it could be fixed by eliminating the program. You did not stipulate any conditions on when this could be applied. I'm glad you think that it is an absurd idea. I will now interpret your first post as saying "if a program that I, nick, do not like has a gender gap, then its gender gap can be fixed by eliminating the program"
What are these other reasons to eliminate sports?
jeffk:
"schools do not have varsity drinking programs"
Maybe my observations are biased, but there aren't many schools with out a Greek system.
"schools are about learning and studying"
What about the business types where school is as much about making connections and building networks? (I have heard compelling arguments that networks are the reason private universities are worth the cost, but that would really digress). Further you seem to imply that sports can never add anything to "studying or learning". The discipline needed to be on a DI team do carry over well to other aspects of life, like course work. If you have good coaches the athletic program can and will compliment the academic program.
On a completely different track, one of the things that is important to learn at some point in your life, and university is one of the last `safe' places to learn it is how to interact in a group, deal with people you don't agree with/think are idiots, work as a team to get something done. These are all skills that are `taught' by a sports team.
A land grant University can in fact have an interest in raising llamas if the local agriculture is invested in them (Cornell has a decent sized cow herd...all Cornell dairy is produced and packaged on capus...it's really really good :) ) (llamas are being used with sheep herds now so it isn't all that unreasonable).
"If you want to take part in only semi-competitive sports, go to a DIII school.
Sports should dictate academic decisions?"
No one bats an eye when students make academic decisions based on where a school is, the `social scene' or the quality of food. By comparison the suggestion that students make decision on what school to attend based on sports programs sounds down right rational.
I made my choice of school based on both althetic and academic programs and I seem to have turned out just fine (I graduated with double major in physics and math this May and am starting the PhD program at UChicago in the fall)
As for if clubs can replace school sponsored sports, I don't buy it. Something that I can't put my finger on is the qualitative difference between competing purely for your own self, and competing for a school/larger organization. I suspect it is something that must be experianced to be understood.
At a minimum sports are just one more way to prove Havahd is the worst of the ivies and for that reason should be maintained. ;)
I'm of the mode of thinking that there needs to be a reason for schools to have varsity level sports, rather than just taking it as a given.
Maybe my observations are biased, but there aren't many schools with out a Greek system.
Conveniently, I'd like to see that dissolved as well.
What about the business types where school is as much about making connections and building networks?
They're jackasses that are there for the wrong reasons. I'd also like to see business schools divoriced from institutions of actual learning.
These are all skills that are `taught' by a sports team.
Right, but I'm not advocating getting rid of sports, I'm advocating getting rid of the programs that make students basically professional atheletes with a college education hobby. If sports were ran the way I suggest, they would be more inclusive and more people would have a chance to acquire those skills.
"I'm of the mode of thinking that there needs to be a reason for schools to have , rather than just taking it as a given. "
where X = {'student theater', 'student government', 'co-ed dorms', 'dorms', 'department such-and-such', 'anything you please'}
Do you have any notion of school spirit? (and as I said before, Havahd needs to be frequently reminded of their place (we had a jumper on the Cornell team single handed out score the entire havahd track team at heps...that made me very happy))
what pray tell is "actual learning"? What are the "right reasons"?
most school already do have club teams. I fail to see how getting rid of varsity sports in favor of only clubs will increase participation. All you will do is push all the people who should be on varsity (this implies both skill and mind set) to the clubs where they will dominate everyone else, who will get sick of being crushed and leave, and the club system will die.
You seem to be missing the distinction between playing sports because they are a fun activity, and playing sports because they are competitive, and hence a fun activity. The people from these two mind sets should not be mixed because it results in the first group getting hurt (There are a number of people who won't play frisbee with me any more)
Alternately, there are some sports where there aren't enough people at most schools to support an interesting intramural program, for instance track. There are few enough people at any given school interested in running that with in a few weeks the pecking order would be well sorted out, and everyone would get bored. By having it as a varsity sport runners can compete with runners from other schools. If this were under your club system, all that would happen is that your club would look exactly like a varsity sport, only with out school support, good coaches, or any credit for it (at Cornell you get gym credit for varsity sports teams) which is just silly. This is what happens to the best riders on Cornell's club bike team.
Do you personally know any one who could pull off being on varsity at a DI school or be considered an elite athlete any other way?
You still haven't given any of the multitude of reasons to do away with varsity sports.
I'm not advocating getting rid of sports, I'm advocating getting rid of the programs that make students basically professional atheletes with a college education hobby.
you are either advocating against a straw man made of stereotypes and ignorance, against letting people choose how to spend their time, or against some absurdly small fraction of football and basketball teams, I haven't figured out which yet (but I'm leaning towards one of the first two)
If you want to take part in only semi-competitive sports, go to a DIII school.
Sports should dictate academic decisions?
As the cornellian notes, students already choose schools for much stupider reasons than sports. And it should be noted that many exceptional schools are, in fact, DIII in the NCAA. Such as, for example, my current school and my alma mater.
most school already do have club teams. I fail to see how getting rid of varsity sports in favor of only clubs will increase participation. All you will do is push all the people who should be on varsity (this implies both skill and mind set) to the clubs where they will dominate everyone else, who will get sick of being crushed and leave, and the club system will die.
I wonder if "club" here isn't being used in a more European sense, in which there are separate local athletic clubs that function more or less the way that varsity teams do (playing other club teams from other areas, etc.), without being affiliated with the university. At least, that's the impression I got of the European system from some conversations with French and German post-docs about college athletics in the US.
Personally, I think that sort of system could easily work, and would eliminate some of the worst hypocrisy of the current college athletic system, but it's not the sort of thing you could easily establish. By some accident of history, we have a system in which athletic teams are very closely tied to educational institutions, and we're more or less stuck with it.