Title IX has its drawbacks
The other day I decided to look at the athletics page for recent events to attend, and I noticed the men’s sports had fewer teams than the women’s.
A question crossed my mind: why?
The answer: Title IX.
Mubarik Musa, a sophomore at USD who participates in both cross-country and track said “the school is trying to have compatible programs for the men and for the women so that one doesn’t neglect the female population. Title IX is the great equalizer between the men and the women.”
Indeed, the idea for Title IX was to provide equal opportunity in every aspect for women and men (courses offered, equipment given, medical care offered, ect.) when it was created in 1972.
It has three ways of accomplishing this: proportionality (the percentage of girls who attend the school have the same percentage of opportunity in sports), progress (in order to make up for the days when girls had fewer opportunities, schools added new sports for girls on a regular basis) and satisfied interests (schools have to regularly ask the underrepresented sex which sports they desire and add teams according to their interests), according to the article “Gender Equity Practicing” found on www.ncaa.org.
Title IX may have initially asked for women to simply have equality with men, but as women outnumber men in college enrollment and their presence becomes more prominent in schools, does it really account for equality or women superiority?
As Ashley Streich, a sophomore at USD said, Title IX is “really confusing, because I feel like it is fair but at the same time it’s unfair to the guys who want to play other sports. There’s always going to be a little inequality, and this just seems to be equality overload.”
I am just as in agreement with women’s rights as the next person, but I do believe in fair opportunity for men as well. As time goes forth, men have faced more challenges as women have exceeded standards in education.
I truly find it a waste that we have the facilities for sports such as tennis, soccer and volleyball, yet we do not utilize the places to their full potential due to Title IX. By updating Title IX, I bet the University of South Dakota could draw in more men interested in other sports and opportunities, which could equal out the girl-boy ratio.
Am I expecting anything to change at USD? No, nothing is as clear-cut as I wish it could be as extra teams take money, time and dedication to put together. Also, it is the federal government’s mandate, which isn’t something one college can control.
I know one thing for sure: Things will never be fair unless people put their minds together to make a decision on what equality actually means.
