The implementation of title ix and the facts about discrimination in college sport

ALLAN BAKKE AND EQUAL OPPORTUNITY

In 1973 Allan Bakke, a 33 year-old Caucasian male named applied for admission to the University Of California Medical School at Davis; his application was rejected.

In 1974 Bakke filed a further application and was again denied admission, even though his test scores and grades were considerably higher than various minorities that were granted admission under a special program. This special program stated that sixteen out of each one hundred possible places for students in the medical program were set aside solely for minorities, while the other eighty four places were for anyone who qualified, including minorities. Bakke believed that he would surely have received one of those sixteen places. What happened to Bakke was in fact reverse discrimination. Bakke believed that his rejections were in direct violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th amendment, as a consequence he initiated action against the University of California Regents in the Superior Court of California. That court ruled that “the admissions program violated his rights under the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment” The clause reads as follows: “…No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor without due process of the law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”
In 1972 an amendment was passed in the US Constitution, granting equal rights in colleges.

Title IX, as it is referred to, reads:

“No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, or denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any educational program or activity receiving federal assistance” (Title IX: Facts and Myths).
At this point in history, college sports for males began to change. More drastically, the change has come in the last ten years.

Title IX does not only deal with sports, however, that seems to be the hardest place to control it. Any school receiving federal funds must give women an equal chance to participate in athletics.

The title also requires schools to treat men and women equally when it comes to scholarships, coaches, facilities, and equipment (What is Title IX?). When Title IX was introduced, it was intended to make men and women equals. Title IX is agreeable on paper. In other words, when it is written out on paper, the ideas of Title IX are equal and contain unlimited opportunity for both men and women to succeed in college athletics. However, the unlimited opportunity has so far sided with women. While it is essential to bring women up to speed with men, it is unacceptable to reduce the number of male participants to achieve equality.

It is fact that male athletics generates more money then female athletics. It is also fact that male athletics have been around for a much longer time. In the late 1800’s the NBA (National Basketball Association) was founded. Now there are 29 teams who play an average 74 games per season, this does not include if a team makes it to the playoffs.

On the other end of that, the WNBA (Women’s National Basketball Association) was founded in 1996 and started play in 1997. The league started with eight teams, and has now grown to 16 teams. The women play 30 game seasons, not including playoffs (Rouse, WNBA Expansion Team Progression). According to the Team Marketing Report, an average ticket costs $51.02 per person for an NBA game, and on average, a person will spend $72.53 at a game, for food and drink, a souvenir, etc. Where as, the average ticket price for a person at a WNBA game is $13 (Rascher, What is the Size of the Sports Industry?). Obviously there is a big difference in men and women’s sports, just based on the fact that men’s sports have been around longer. People are willing to pay the higher prices to see male sports.

This article is in seven parts. This is part two.

Part 1 Women enjoy a distinct advantage over men in college athletics.
Part 3 Football seems to be the issue when dealing with scholarships. A school is permitted 85 scholarships for football.
Part 4 When Title IX was created it was crafted with intent to make it easy for schools to comply with its guidelines.
Part 5 For the first time since 1968, the USA freestyle wrestlers failed to win a single gold medal.
Part 6 Every college is required to have a designated Title IX coordinator.
Part 7 Over 110,000 women participated in intercollegiate sports. Where as in 1971 just about 25,000 participated.