Larry Winer wrote:
 
> you need the bodies to put a competitive product on the field- it is the
> reason that the Ivies went to spring football
 
Yes, but why must all of the bodies get scholarships?  Many college sports manage
to be competitive without that largesse.
 
> as far as I am concerned the less government control and micromangement of
> our society the better- American women certainly know how to get a university
> to address their concerns- go to schools that offer the sports they want and
> the marketplace witll dictate more sports- assuming there is a real
> marketplace for more womens sports
 
Most of the schools affected by Title IX *are* government institutions.  By
definition, a public university is going to be controlled and micromanaged by the
government.
 
What Title IX says is that public bodies (almost all private universities are
covered by a definitional sleight-of-hand that I confess to being slightly
suspicious of, namely that they accept federal grant money) must provide equal
opportunity to both sexes unless they have a compelling reason not to do so.  As
I said earlier, athletic departments might well be able to show a compelling
reason, if they weren't so busy trying to deny that they're in it to make money
and that the athletes are employees.  The technical term for this is, "Hoist by
their own petard."
 
> even the women concede that Title IX has resulted in the elimination of mens'
> non-revenue teams- Providence baseball; Notre Dame wrestling; etc - it is a
> fact- in an ideal world that would not happen- but this is reality- there
> will always be more male athletes than female athletes unless we have a total
> change in  western society- that's just the way it is- you can't dictate
> quotas anymore than you can say MIT should admit enough women engineers to
> equal the males- does not work
 
The reason MIT doesn't have to admit equal numbers of males and females is that
they can demonstrate a compelling reason not to, namely that they are imposing
certain standards of admission.  So long as athletic departments are trying to
maintain the fiction that what they are doing is providing an important part of
the educational experiencefor their students, they can't show any compelling
reason to prefer male athletes to female ones.  Ergo, they have to provide the
resources equally.  If they were willing to claim that the audience, and the
dollars that they bring, were, in fact, their primary objective, they'd have a
case.  But they can't have it both ways.
 
J. Michael Neal
 
HOCKEY-L is for discussion of college ice hockey;  send information to
[log in to unmask], The College Hockey Information List.