Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 states: "No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance."
One or more of the following three prongs must be satisfied in order to be in compliance with Title IX:
Prong 1: Participation opportunities must be provided in a manner that is substantially proportionate to the student enrollment.
Prong 2: The institution must show a continual expansion of opportunities for the underrepresented sex
Prong 3: The institution must fully and effectively accommodate the interests and abilities of the underrepresented sex.
Athletic opportunities for women have increased greatly since the implementation of Title IX. One issue that pops up often is the disproportionately high size of football teams in comparison to other teams. While a university may appear to have an equal number of teams, the players on a football team could equal the number of players on 4 or 5 women's teams. The number of athletes participating must be taken into account and not just the number of teams.
Another issue is the idea that men's teams are cut in order to bring institutions into compliance with Title IX as opposed to adding women's teams to accomplish the same objective. However, a study conducted by the US General Accounting Office found that the majority of schools do not cut men's teams in order to increase female participation. The reasons for cutting teams are typically focused around budget and interest concerns.
Sport Law Related Article of the Week:
This article discusses the problems Cal is facing in cutting some of its teams due to budget shortfalls. In addition to public outcry at the loss of teams, there is the issue of falling out of compliance with Title IX. Cal had been relying on the "interests and abilities" prong of the test to satisfy Title IX. However, if it cuts a women's team it cannot claim this. As a result Cal will be out of compliance with Title IX because the proportionality prong is currently nowhere near being fulfilled and it will not have a history of expansion.
I found this part to be very interesting:
"Until now, Cal had been fulfilling Title IX requirements by asserting that it met the “interests and abilities” of its female students, one of three so-called prongs that institutions can choose to comply with the law. When a university cuts even one women’s team, it can no longer rely on that claim, nor can it argue that it has a history of expanding opportunities for women, which is another option for compliance. Now, Cal has effectively backed itself into a corner and is left with only the third option — proving that female participation in athletics is proportionate to female undergraduate enrollment in the university.
By that measure, Cal falls considerably short. Just 40 percent of the 965 participants on the university’s varsity teams were women in the 2009-10 academic year; its overall student enrollment was 53 percent female. To comply with Title IX, officials have said they plan to trim male rosters while expanding the size of female teams, a practice known in college athletics as roster management."
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