Good News for Women: Court Affirms Dismissal of Wrestlers' Challenge to Title IX

by NOW Staff

In a victory for women's rights, a Washington D.C. federal appeals court last week upheld the dismissal of a lawsuit alleging that Title IX, the law that requires federally funded schools and colleges to provide equal educational opportunities to girls and women, threatens collegiate male sports teams.

The lawsuit, filed by the National Wrestling Coaches Association, claimed that Title IX policies require "quotas" for female athletes that have resulted in discrimination against male athletes.

In a 2-to-1 decision on May 14, the three- judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled the lawsuit failed to show that Title IX directly caused a reduction in men's sports, and said the suit should be litigated against individual colleges that eliminated men's sports, not against the federal government.

Feminist leaders cheered the ruling, noting that women's participation in sports has increased more than 400 percent at the college level and more than 800 percent at the high school level since Title IX's passage in 1972.

"The wrestlers' case was on thin ice from the beginning," said NOW President Kim Gandy, "because the evidence showed that more wrestling teams were cut during 1984-1988 (the four years that Title IX was inoperable because of a Supreme Court decision) than in any other four year period, demonstrating that Title IX was not the cause of the cuts."

"Title IX is, and has always been, about giving women and girls an equal chance," concluded Gandy.