The fairness factor
Title IX meant more opportunity for female athletes. But should male athletes have to pay?
Going backward? Yet the fear of many advocates for women's athletics is that fiddling with proportionality might lead to a return of the bad old days when women's teams were an afterthought. Anita DeFrantz, president of the Amateur Athletic Foundation of Los Angeles and the first U.S. woman to serve on the International Olympic Committee, argues that survey data are often meaningless in creating athletic opportunities for women. DeFrantz went to Connecticut College in 1973 on an academic scholarship. One day during her sophomore year she saw the rowing coach carrying a boat across campus. He encouraged her to join the team because she was tall and strong. She did, and three years later, she was an Olympic bronze medalist. "If I had taken an interest test my freshman year," says DeFrantz, "I would not have even known that rowing existed."
Even some of those who oppose the proportionality test say they worry about what would replace it. "As a female who definitely benefited personally and professionally from Title IX, I'm torn," says Terry Crawford, a former track athlete and now director of the track and field teams at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo. "It's inappropriate to limit the opportunity of male athletes just to give women athletes opportunity. But I am concerned about giving universities an out not to keep improving their women's programs." Until someone figures out how to reconcile those conflicts, everyone's likely to be paddling upstream.
How they stack up
Gender equity examines progress in providing athletic opportunities for women. It is computed using data from the Equity in Athletics Disclosure Act. The first list measures the percentage of women in a school's athlete population. The second list ranks the difference between the percentage of female athletes and their percentage of the student body; a negative number indicates a lower percentage of female athletes than the percentage of female students.
Schools Percent. Difference
Athletes w/ student
Female body
TOP
1. Drexel University (PA 43.9 +5.3
2. Georgia Institute of Technology 33.7 +5.1
3. Murray State University (KY) 59.5 +2.3
Tennessee Technological
University 48.2 +2.3
5. University of Cincinnati 49.8 +2.1
6. Wright State University (OH) 57.5 +1.9
7. Bradley University (IL) 54.8 +1.6
8. Kansas State University 48.3 +1.2
9. Texas A&M University-College
Station 49.1 +0.5
10.Purdue University-West
Lafayette (IN) 42.0 +0.4
11.San Diego State University 56.8 +0.2
12.Central Connecticut State
University 50.2 +0.1
13.University of Dayton (OH) 52.2 - 0.2
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor 50.3 - 0.2
15.Dartmouth College (NH) 48.1 - 0.3
University of Maryland-College
Park 48.8 - 0.3
University of Maryland-Eastern
Shore 57.9 - 0.3
18.University of Richmond (VA) 51.0 - 0.4
19.University of Wisconsin-Madison 52.6 - 0.7
20.Montana State University-Bozeman 44.8 - 0.8
BOTTOM
296.Charleston Southern University
(SC) 35.0 -23.8
University of New Mexico 32.5 -23.8
Western Kentucky University 32.6 -23.8
299.Butler University (IN) 38.6 -23.9
300.Furman University (SC) 32.0 -24.0
301.Grambling State University (LA) 33.8 -24.1
302.Chicago State University 46.6 -24.4
Norfolk State University (VA) 39.0 -24.4
304.Alcorn State University (MS) 35.6 -24.5
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