NYT:Title IX Trickles Down to Girls of Gen Z(new phase:lawsuits)

[DeepModem Mom]

Title IX Trickles Down to Girls of Generation Z

By BILL PENNINGTON
Published: June 29, 2004


Russell Johnson, a 45-year-old pipe fitter from the river city of Gadsden, Ala., never intended to be a champion of women's athletic rights....Lauren Cruz, a 15-year-old high school sophomore from Alhambra, Calif., was not steeped in gender-equity statutes, either. "Didn't know much at all," Cruz said.

But Johnson and Cruz are at the forefront of a new phase in the evolution of Title IX; each recently filed a federal lawsuit accusing the local school district of discriminating against the girls' high school softball team. Their lawsuits seek better fields, locker rooms and equipment - facilities and services that would be comparable, they say, to those already afforded the boys' high school baseball teams.

There have been dozens of such suits in recent years nationwide, centered on claims of shoddy, weed-strewn ball fields for girls' teams or inadequate girls' locker rooms - with the vast majority of cases settled in favor of the female athletes.

These suits are often initiated by fathers like Johnson, who are part of what is known as the angry-dad phenomenon among people involved in Title IX matters....

***

While the familiar battles over Title IX take place at colleges and universities, the battleground has been extended to high schools and middle schools. It is not only lawsuits that have become more common. At the federal Department of Education, the agency responsible for enforcing Title IX, the number of complaints involving sex discrimination in high school and even middle school athletics has outpaced those involving colleges by five to one since 2001....


http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/29/sports/othersports/29title.html

[WindRavenX]

1. I played softball...

and let me tell you, we didn't have our own locker rooms (we had to change in the bathrooms, which isn't too bad, but seeing as how the guys had a really nice locker room...), our equipment sucks, our field sucked...the guys had everything.
Granted this was in High School, but still, women in sports are still fighting to get respect and decent equipment.

[Carl21014]

2. It's only just begun!

My daughter plays U-12 Club soccer and I'll tell you that community of parents is very serious about the competition level. It's a large and growing sport, and these parents aren't going to accept anything less than top programs at schools for their daughters.

I think the reason Title IX was needed in the first place was no one(including parents) cared about girl sports. But society has changed and a whole tidal wave of girl atheletes are heading toward High School and college. Even without Title IX schools will be forced to change to accomadate them.

[Tansy_Gold]

4. Without Title IX, there would be no way to force them.

Title IX is the law that allows parents to sue. Without it, there would be no basis for forcing schools to accommodate girls' and women's sports. That's why it's so vitally important that it not be allowed to be overturned by the booshies and their neofeudal allies.

I think it's unrealistic for anyone to think that if title IX suddenly went away, any parent would still have the "right" to sue for equal treatment. No law = no suit.

That people are still having to invoke Title IX and file these suits is the best evidence that our culture has NOT changed sufficiently to let this valuable protection disappear.


Tansy Gold

[LeftHander]

3. Good. Maybe sports will take a back seat

To music, art and science for a change. As budgets get squeezed balancing the boys and girls athletic programs will certainly mean less $$ for the traditional "male" sports.

This is thanks to the "low tax and spend" republicans.

Cut taxes, spend more on handouts to buddies, let schools waste away.

[THUNDER HANDS]

5. the biggest problem with adhering to Title IX

Is that most schools have football programs and there is no comparable women's sport that could met out the same resources.

Baseball = Softball
Soccer = Soccer
Basketball = Basketball
Football = ????

[wildeyed]

6. and then what happens

is the schools cut the funding for the smaller men's sports programs, for instance wrestling, to try to get more in line with title IX. Then the wrestlers, or whoever got cut, are mad at the women's sports. Guess we're not supposed to get mad at the piggy football programs. But really, football is such huge $$$'s for schools at the collegiate level, that may be where allot of the problem lies.

[DeepModem Mom]

9. Thanks for your post, wildeyed, and welcome to DU!

[Tansy_Gold]

12. At many schools, men's football programs COST MORE

than the income received.

It's the accountant in me that rears its ugly head every once in a while, but there have been many analyses of the COSTS of men's football programs, especially at second-tier big schools -- which includes the non-perennial-winners in the big conferences. When one figures in the costs of coaches, facilities, stadiums (stadia?), recruiting, and so on, big sports like basketball and football end up costing the schools money.

For the high-profile schools -- Notre Dame, Duke, Nebraska, Alabama, etc. -- there may be some income. And it's true that tv deals put some money into smaller schools. But the bottom line is that big men's sports are NOT the money-makers the promoters would like the fans to think they are.

Remember -- follow the money. Who benefits from the mantra of "college football makes money"?

[wildeyed]

13. Maybe I'm dense, also new around here

but as an answer to

Remember -- follow the money. Who benefits from the mantra of "college football makes money"? Coaches, sponsors and TV advertisers????

I am really not sure. Like I said, dense. But am I radical in my view that college sports shouldn't make money? I mean the purpose of sports in college is fun for the players and the fans, good health and an opportunity to teach values experientially. The profit motive undermines those goals. Plus, if the sports make money, shouldn't the players be paid? Or at least be allowed to accept product endorsements? I know scholarships are supposed to be their "pay", but I have read that many of the players never graduate.

Off the subject (again), but was I correct in replying to Tansy_Gold's post, or would it have been correct to reply to my original post? Thanks for the info.

[DeepModem Mom]

14. Absolutely correct in "replying" to Tansy_Gold...

since T_G asked the question. (If you change your mind when replying, or decide you've replied to the wrong post, you can always use the "edit" function, erase your subject line with something like, "sorry, mistake," or "ignore," and post again where you'd like. I often absentmindedly reply to the last post in a discussion, instead of going to the top and replying to the original message I meant to reply to.)

[Massacure]

7. The women have volleyball unlike men.

Or at least my school doesn't have mens volleyball.

[TommyO]

8. Well, there's always:

Baseball = Softball
Soccer = Soccer
Basketball = Basketball
Football = Field Hockey?

[DeepModem Mom]

10. Welcome to DU, TommyO! The only athlete my family...

has produced is a field-hockey-playing daughter. Like football, it's a pretty tough sport --

[wildeyed]

11. Field Hockey = Lacrosse

But maybe we could have women's football? I mean women's hockey is an Olympic sport now, so why not women's football? But I would not hold my breath waiting for the schools to fund women's football at and even level to the men's programs.