ChrisDe: wakizashi: If women's sports are so important for physical health, how come so many that play are still so fat?

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I venture a guess that participating in sports doesn't automatically make one skinny.

Someday he'll look back on that as the time he was still in shape.

Sudo_Make_Me_A_Sandwich: I mean, really, should we stop funding remedial math education because those kids are never going get a chance to design a space shuttle? We don't pick just the best kids to study math because it's extremely useful. Likewise, participation in a sport is extremely useful.

According to Title IX, we should cut funding for remedial math education simply because remedial classes drastically outnumber higher level classes. We should offer an equal number of each. That is the only way to be fair.

A Fark Handle: umad: Sudo_Make_Me_A_Sandwich: I mean, really, should we stop funding remedial math education because those kids are never going get a chance to design a space shuttle? We don't pick just the best kids to study math because it's extremely useful. Likewise, participation in a sport is extremely useful.

According to Title IX, we should cut funding for remedial math education simply because remedial classes drastically outnumber higher level classes. We should offer an equal number of each. That is the only way to be fair.

actually no. first, title ix doesn't say anything must be cut. that's just the excuse that bloated college administrations use to justify threatening to cut a sport, to generate alumni support/donations to save the sport, and thus leaving more of the discretionary dollars in future athletics' budgets available to to support larger administrators' salaries. second, if you follow the analogy title ix supports the funding of remedial math classes even though we know those kids may barely be able to count to potato. though they are not great at math we as a society realize that one shouldn't be denied the opportunity to study math just because long division is tough. third, your understanding of title ix and its requirements is poor. just read this thread and you might learn that absolute balance is not the only way to meet title ix requirements.

/and again, i would be ok with exempting football.

I'm fully aware of how it is supposed to work. You as much as admitted that it doesn't work that way either with your slashie. As long as football is not exempt, the only way to make opportunities "proportionate" is to cut men's sports. Title IX doesn't explicitly say anything must be cut, it is just implied.

roncofooddehydrator: You don't have to make opportunities proportionate. I'm not sure how much clearer they can make it when they say there is a three prong test. Proportionality is only one of the prongs. Most schools DON'T meet the requirements through proportionality. Most of them meet the requirements through the third prong, which is interests and ability.

Proportionality is actually two of the prongs while the third prong only accommodates the interests of the underrepresented sex. The interests and abilities of men are not taken into account for any of the prongs, so not surprisingly, men end up discriminated against. I guess some people are just more equal than others.

Theaetetus: Actually, you can achieve Title IX compliance just as easily (if not more so) by providing additional opportunities. I.e. rather than cutting men's sports, add more women's sports. Compliance, bam.

Right, they just need to add five women's teams to cancel out the football team. Since it is so farking easy, I wonder why nobody has gone this route?

Here's the problem with Title IX, and it's a very obvious yet completely overlooked problem: Women's participation in sports is disproportionate to men's. It just is. Simply put, more women would rather study and learn to get ahead than men.

I'm not using anything scientific here, but say, hypothetically, you have a 4,000 student body with a ratio of about 2400 women to 1600 men. In most schools, there's probably at least the same if not more men who would want to participate in sports. However, since the school ratio is 3:2 for women, Title IX will actually say that you should have three women's scholarships and sport roster spots for every two men's. It's actually discriminating against the men because even if there were exactly 240 men and 240 women that wanted to play, they'll say that due to proportionality, there should only be 160 roster spots for the men because of the school's proportions.

My college lost several sports in the past fifteen years because of proportions like this. Most schools, sorry to say, will actually do the exact same thing. It's cheaper to cut sports than try to add unprofitable ones in the face of Title IX compliance. That is why I think it needs to be tweaked.

\in case you're wondering, in my college's case, the AD who thought this, and then expanded the sports facilities massively? Former Big East commissioner John Marinatto. That's why I cheered when he "resigned" from his post.

A Fark Handle: i just answered your question. ncaa scholarship limits.

I think we are closer to agreeing on Title IX than we think. It would be a fine piece of legislation if football was exempt and scholarship limits were eliminated.

And if my Aunt had balls she would be my uncle.

I benefited immensely from Title IX, my college was foaming at the mouth to add women's field hockey as a varsity sport so my club lacrosse team had to be elevated to varsity status to keep an equal number of men's sports.