TUESDAY, MAY 9, 1995
"We challenge members of Congress not to punt their responsibility or be sacked by special interest groups that would exclude some sports, particularly football, from consideration in determining sports equity," said NOW Executive Vice President Kim Gandy.
Today's hearings by the House Economic and Education Opportunities Committee are the first volley in a new congressional battle over sports equity for women and girls. NOW and other longtime supporters of Title IX and gender equity are stepping forward to defend the law.
In late 1993, NOW won a landmark settlement in California, NOW v. California State University System, that forced the 20-campus system to comply with the state's 1976 athletic equity laws. Around the same time, NOW's national board of directors passed a resolution calling for revisions in the federal government's Athletic Investigators Manual to close Bush administration loopholes permitting egregious violations of Title IX.
Groups such as the Board of Trustees of the American Football Coaches Association are trying to deny women and girls equal access to organized sports and all of the benefits that go with them. Gandy says their claim that complying with the law jeopardizes smaller men's teams and hurts revenue-producing teams like football is full of holes.
"For every dollar spent for women's sports between 1989 and 1993, there were two dollars spent on men's sports," Gandy said. "Despite the fact that women make up more than 50 percent of the college population, they receive only one-third of the athletic scholarships, one-sixth of recruiting budgets, and one-fifth of overall athletic budgets.
"And not all football programs are revenue producers. In fact, 62 percent of Division I-A teams ran a deficit in 1993. And if football programs which take an average of 60 percent of college athletic budgets are exempt from the calculation of gender equity, women's sports will be severely limited. Women and girls will be left to scramble for a share of the remaining 40 percent, at a high cost to the progress we've made since 1972."
Since Title IX was passed in 1972, sports participation by women and girls has increased from 2 percent to 35 percent today. "When given the opportunity to participate equally, girls and women are interested in sports," she said. "This is not the time for compromise."
Today's hearings will take place in Room 2175 in the Rayburn House OfficeBuilding, starting at 9 a.m.