U.S. Women Shine at Olympics, Thanks to Title IX

By Casey Shevin, NOW Government Relations Intern, and Jan Erickson, NOW Government Relations Director

The 257 women athletes from the United States did not disappoint at the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens. The female Olympians earned medals in more than 40 events, significantly aiding the U.S. in becoming the highest ranking Olympic team with 103 total medals.

As with other medal-winning performances at past Olympics, the female athletes of the 2004 Olympics owe their shining accomplishments in large part to Title IX, the federal Education Act Amendments of 1972 that promote opportunities for women in education and level both the athletic and academic fields.

This year, 19-year-old Mariel Zagunis upset the competition to take home the women's gold medal in fencing for the first time in 100 years. Female athletes dominated team sporting events, capturing the gold in basketball, softball, beach volleyball and soccer, even though the U.S. media focused excessive attention on the surprising failure of the men's basketball team.

Sixteen year-old gymnast Carly Patterson stood on the gold medal platform as the women's all-around champion; it was only the second time a woman from the U.S. has earned that medal.

Natalie Coughlin quietly won five Olympic medals for the U.S. swimming team at Athens this year, though most of the spotlight was reserved for her male counterpart, Michael Phelps, who, although he won eight medals in total, did not beat Mark Spitz's record of seven gold medals at one Olympics.

Someone did tie Spitz, though: Swimmer Jenny Thompson won her 11th Olympic medal, bringing her career total to equal the record shared by Spitz, shooter Carl Osburn and swimmer Matt Biondi for the most overall Olympic medals ever won by a U.S. athlete. According to usolympicteam.com, Thompson has earned eight gold medals, two silver medals and a bronze medal over a span of four Olympiads, and she anchored the U.S. 4x100 meter freestyle relay team to three gold medals and three world records in 1992, 1996 and 2000.

Title IX is Key to Women Athletes' Success

The success of the U.S. women in Athens is all the more important in light of recent efforts to undermine Title IX. In 2002, the Bush administration appointed a heavily biased Title IX panel, the inaccurately-named Secretary's Commission on Opportunity in Athletics, which proposed changes in implementation of Title IX that would undermine girls' and women's opportunities for athletic participation, and which failed to recognize the continuing discrimination women athletes face.

The Save Title IX Campaign estimated that the commission's proposals would have cost high school girls 305,000 participation opportunities; college women would have missed out on 50,000 participation opportunities and $122 million in athletic scholarships.

Two commission members, Julie Foudy, captain of the 2004 gold medal winning U.S. National Women's Soccer team, and Donna de Varona, also an Olympic gold medalist, refused to sign the final report and instead offered a minority opinion criticizing many of the majority report's recommendations and the process by which the recommendations were developed. Foudy and de Varona recommended that Title IX "be preserved without change."

Three of the commission's recommendations concerned permitting schools to count the number of female and male students in new ways, which would leave room for fraud. For example, the commission recommended that schools predetermine the number of spots allocated for women and men on athletic teams, which would make it legal for schools to slack on the recruitment of female athletes and yet report more spots as being filled by women than actually are occupied.

Another recommendation would allow schools to use interest surveys to determine the allocation of funds for men's and women's sporting programs. However, interest surveys commonly reflect attitudes shaped by the discrimination women and girls experience in athletics and are not accurate indicators of how women will respond to an unfettered opportunity to participate in sports.

This recommendation is currently being implemented, despite the Bush administration's public statement that it would leave Title IX alone—a statement made only after women's groups, including NOW, organized a huge public outcry against weakening Title IX.

Despite the common misconception, Title IX does not mandate that institutions offer mirror-image men's and women's programs. Title IX simply requires schools allocate participation opportunities in a non-discriminatory fashion. A school can meet any one of three tests, including whether male and female athletes are substantially proportionate to their presence in the student population or that a school has a history and continuing effort of expanding opportunities for the under-represented sex (whether female or male) or that a school's athletic program fully and effectively accommodates the interests and abilities of the underrepresented sex.

Women's rights leaders contend that the federal government has never adequately enforced Title IX—in either athletics or academics.

"The sad truth is that despite three decades of Title IX, women athletes continue to get fewer teams, fewer scholarships and lower budgets," said NOW President Kim Gandy. "Each year, male athletes receive $133 million or 36% more than female athletes in college athletic scholarships at NCAA member institutions. Women coaches receive even worse treatment."

"Title IX is, and has always been, about giving women and girls an equal chance," Gandy continued. "The stellar performances of the women of the U.S. Olympic team show that when girls and women have access to a level playing field, anything is possible."

For more information:

Don't Weaken Title IX!
http://www.now.org/issues/title_ix/101802facts.html

Title IX Advocates Will Now Focus on Enforcement
http://www.now.org/eNews/aug2003/080603titleix.html