Title IX and Amateur Wrestling
By: Rich Robins, ESQ. (inspired by Dale Anderson, ESQ.)
 -This new, evolving Title IX page is "NEVER NOT UNDER CONSTRUCTION."-
Several FEEDBACK options are linked below.

        According to the INTERMAT, thanks to hundreds of phone calls and letters the University of Massachusetts: Lowell and the University of Massachusetts: Bridgewater were just spared from the Title IX guillotine.   Nevertheless, the onslaught against wrestling is far from over. Indeed, Norma Cantu and the other Title IX social engineers at the U.S. Dept. of Education are doing great harm to the NCAA athletics movement.  These D.C. bureaucrats' fairly recent clarification (i.e. dictation) regarding the otherwise noble Title IX of the 1972 Higher Education Act:

1) Ignores the 1972 congressional intent, which was to provide equal opportunity for both men and women who wish to participate in college athletics by expanding opportunities for females but NOT by destroying  the athletic opportunities of males, especially of those in sports like wrestling (which tend to lack a female equivalent). 

2) Still allows the Federal Government to negotiate the destruction of male NCAA sports programs in order to achieve a 50/50 male/female athletics PARTICIPATION quota - in lieu of merely increasing female opportunities.  Question, though: If there are ALREADY about 7,000 male teams and 7,000 female teams at the college level, and males walk-on at twice the percentage of females, why don't females choose to first fill the existing rosters before allowing some N.O.W. members to ask for STILL MORE teams to be established at the expense of male walk-ons?

3) Calls for a continued use of primarily quotas to determine if a college (and soon even a high school) is in violation of Title IX.  Such a quota is not determined according to female interest, nor by the fact that, of the high school seniors who choose to participate in varsity athletics, 64% are male and 36% are female. This quota is based merely on the percentage of each gender in a college's (and soon a high school's) student body.   

4) TOTALLY IGNORES:
    a) Recent Supreme Court decisions that say arbitrary quotas  are not sufficient to prove the existence of discrimination.  Indeed, why should school enrollment ratios be used as the primary test for discrimination, instead of participation ratios? Females have spent lots of money conducting lots of Title IX studies but not one shows that there is any relationship between a school's enrollment ratios and its participation ratios.   The most obvious reason why there is no relationship is because almost all athletes, even at the Division III level are recruited from the high school ranks.  Should men's opportunities be eliminated just because they're more than twice as likely to walk-on to college teams?   If somebody can truly demonstrate a relationship between these two ratios, then PLEASE show us the study.   Otherwise, though, isn't the test unconstitutional?  Hopefully the Ivy League's Brown University will take its recent, hotly-contested Cohen case to the U.S. Supreme Court level.  

    b) Requests by Deputy Whip Congressman Dennis Hastert (IL) to:
        1) Count unused roster spots on female teams as participation opportunities for women    when complying with Cantu's quota.
        2) Specify acceptable surveys to measure the athletic interests and abilities on a campus.
   
      Essentially, here is what would need to happen before colleges could obtain the "proportionality" Bill Clinton's employees fairly recently began requiring between men's and women's athletics programs at the college level....In the wake of budget cuts, proportionality with the 14 female sports (and their corresponding 110,000 participants) would essentially have to be obtained by eliminating the following MALE programs: Gymnastics (500 participants), Wrestling (6,500), Fencing (800), Lacrosse (5,000), Swimming (7,500), Soccer (15,000), Track O (16,000), Track I (18,000), Ice Hockey (3,500) and Volleyball (1,000). Eliminating these men's programs would leave five male sports (Baseball, Tennis, Golf, Basketball and Football) along with a little over 100,000 male participants.   Presently there are about 190,000 male athletes and 110,000 female athletes. If these numbers have to be the same under the Ed. Dept.'s new proportionality quota interpretation of Title IX, how do college wrestling's 6,000 participants get spared from extinction?   Even men's baseball (Wisconsin, and Colgate), football (San Francisco State, etc.) and swimming (UCLA) have suffered the same destiny as many wrestling programs (which tend to lack a female equivalent).  
       I'm very much a feminist, but I nevertheless disagree with some women's callous "OH WELL!!!" reply.   Even the feminist academician Camille Paglia fairly recently stated at a Princeton sports debate that the Ed. Dept.'s latest efforts are a misguided interpretation of feminism. "It does not do feminism any good to create this kind of backlash. Women's liberation cannot be achieved upon the smoking ruins of men's traditions."  Nevertheless, some still reply with question begging (i.e. assuming what they're trying to prove) by saying existing (but un-used) places on female rosters would be occupied IF only women had more role models.   An interesting assertion......
      Sufficient seeds have already been sewn to ensure the appropriate level of prosperity of women's athletics. IF women REALLY WANT such programs to do well, they possess the power to actively control their destiny.   First, equity between the quantity of roster opportunities ALREADY exists.   The potential financial support is there, too. In fact, today nearly half the U.S. businesses are owned by women, and the rate of female ownership is growing 3 times faster than male ownership (Source: John Naisbitt, author of best sellers such as Megatrends 2000 and Global Paradox).  These impressive, energetic and non-fatalistic female entrepreneurs are productive individuals who tend to view micro-managing civil rights efforts not only as degrading to women, but also as tax-wasting, bureaucratic self-perpetuation.  Impressively enough, they also couldn't care less about the rather irrelevant "glass ceiling" that the D.C. bureaucrats cite when trying to keep the tax dollars flowing  into their parasitic paycheck fund. The significance of this pet "glass ceiling" is greatly diminished by the fact that the Fortune 500 accounts for far less than a mere 10% of the U.S.A.'s Gross Domestic Product. Over 90% of the U.S. GDP is located OUTSIDE of the Fortune 500, and female-owned businesses are already doing their part to put the Fortune 500 in its less-prominent place (without demeaning and divisive quotas, too).  
       The U.S.A.'s recent Olympic success demonstrates just how much parity between men's and women's athletics already exists. In Atlanta, women accomplished a GREAT deal to help the U.S. pull ahead of the rest of the entire world.  This is the case despite the fact that even today in the divisive "politically correct" era which has also encouraged women to ignore virtually all gender barriers, 64% of the HIGH SCHOOL seniors who CHOOSE to participate in varsity athletics are male, while merely 36% are female.  Men still "walk-on" to college sports teams at over twice the rate as women.  Does Bill Clinton's Ed. Dept. think the "Nature versus Nurture" debate has suddenly been resolved, or something?  Does anyone really think that further social engineering by Bill Clinton's self-perpetuating bureaucracy will produce anything other than a net loss in the amateur sports movement?   
       Expect no e-mail reply from Ms. Cantu, as most people at the U.S. Dept. of "Education" still haven't bothered to figure out the technicalities of how to send e-mails to the outside world that currently still $upport$ it.  Instead, everybody PLEASE contact your local member of Congress  and persuasively ask for their position regarding Norma Cantu's  new school enrollment ratio-based quota approach to Title IX.   Interestingly enough, the Ed. Dept.'s micro-managing helped the opposition party Republicans maintain control of the House and the rest of Congress for the first time in nearly a century.     
      Also, please periodically visit the INTERMAT's substantial TITLE IX section, and keep in mind that the impressive lawyer spearheading wrestling's legal defense is: Dale Anderson.  As Dale has recently stated, now is the best time to contact your local member of Congress regarding this urgent issue.  It's all recently exacerbated by problems with Portland State University's, and Syracuse's wrestling teams (along with nearly hundreds of other college wrestling programs already dropped since Title IX was first implemented in 1972).  Indeed, in the early 1970s there were nearly 9,000 wrestlers on 400 college teams, according to an Associated Press article. Since then the sport has declined steadily to last year's 6,345  wrestlers on 257 teams, according to the NCAA.   This is the case despite the health of high school wrestling. Today more than 220,000 high school wrestlers compete on 8,500 teams. That's an increase of almost 2,000 high schools from the early 1970s, according to the National Federation of State High School Associations. Of those wrestlers, 1,000 are female.
        We really would be wise to SUPPORT WOMEN'S WRESTLING PROGRAMS AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE (especially at the University of Minnesota: Morris).  Nothing would be better than to have more women willing to identify with our loyalty to humanity's oldest (and best?) sport. However, please keep in mind that female wrestling programs likely won't reach the level of participation and female-interest that would be required before we could finally salvage and replenish jeopardized (and already destroyed) men's wrestling programs.    We should nevertheless try, though, and expressions of our moral support are deserved by (at least) the impressive female wrestler and open-minded former woman's wrestling coach named Robin Mathy, M.A., available at: mathyrm@CAA.MRS.UMN.EDU.   Also, major points should go to any of the participating universities mentioned in the Intermat's new U.S. Women's Freestyle Wrestling University Nationals RESULTS.   Praise is deserved each time we notice a significant female wrestling breakthrough such as that of  Collegiate's female 119 pounder (Sunny Clemons) who just became the first female ever to win a match in the Virginia Independent High School states.    
         Meanwhile, back to the quotas issue, please keep in mind that capping rosters of the equilibrium-tilting sport of men's football  would merely prompt affected coaches to simply dump ambitious walk-ons.  Not one penny would consequently be exchanged for the females.   Would anyone care to dispute any of these claims?   Robin might, but she's worth listening to on this an all other related issues.     Unlike apparently many other NOW members, Robin has the sport's best interest at heart (and for BOTH genders, which is GREAT).  
         Any victim of gang violence can attest to the dangers that can result from eliminating youth sports programs, but now there's serious talk of doing so even at the high school level, in the name of Title IX.   Bill Clinton's not up for re-election, but Al Gore would like to get your votes and win Clinton's throne in another 3 years.  Al Gore's impressive, but is understandably afraid to make waves with his current boss, even though Bill Clinton is reportedly the only U.S. president EVER to win two consecutive terms without ever winning even as much as 50% of the overall votes in either election (43% in '92, and 49% in '96).  Al Gore has a staff that really does read AND somehow appropriately reply to e-mails addressed to the Vice President.  Please ask these people for a reasonable justification of the new school enrollment ratio-based quota approach to Title IX.  And please periodically re-visit this interactive plea, for updates and modifications resulting from much-welcomed feedback.  

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