It's the 25th anniversary of Title IX

I'm not sure that athletics at Oberlin would be much different without Title IX. First of all, it would've been difficult if not impossible for a school with Oberlin's avowed philosophical bent to ignore gender equity even without enabling legislation. Second, the trend toward the women having the only successful teams at Oberlin is not really a product of Title IX. The talent pool of high school student-athletes with the academic credentials to get accepted at Oberlin is shrinking among males and growing among females. And Oberlin must compete in the shrinking male athlete pool with schools with long traditions of winning programs, like Amherst, Williams, Brandeis, etc. If you were a male student-athlete accepted at both Williams and Oberlin, which would you pick: A school whose teams consider a .500 season a major victory - or one that year-in and year-out has one of the top programs across the board in the country? With the female student-athlete pool expanding, there is more talent to go around period - and successful programs (which the men don't have) attract talent.

One negative effect of Title IX has been the driving out of women coaches. Before Title IX, when women's coaches made inferior salaries, men didn't want to coach women. When salaries equalized, coaching women became a viable alternative, at least financially, for male coaches who couldn't land jobs coaching men. And they were often given the jobs over qualified female candidates because a resume that included coaching men was considered by Athletic Directors (mostly men) as a stronger set of credentials. So Title IX may have helped female student-athletes, but it was a major blow to female coaches.

I had a sister who went to high school and never got to play sports because the opportunities that Title IX brought were not there. The most successful teams in Oberlin are women's teams. The policy is that resources must be proportional to students. Oberlin has more female students than males. Some people out there could make the argument that women's sports takes money away from men. The resources which were just for men, are now for women, also. There are women who participate in sports their entire lives. Oberlin has had some really good women athletes. An example of this is Ann Gilbert.

Without Title IX, women's athletics would not have gotten to the same point. Maybe some day we will reach the point where punitive measures aren't necessary, but we are not there yet. But Oberlin is probably closer than most schools to reaching the point. Women's sports in Oberlin testify to this. Women's sports are doing very well.

When I first started to learn about Title IX I breathed an immediate sigh of relief and triumph, thinking of my high school girls basketball team with the winning record and a city title. Despite our athletic success, we received negligible support from the school. Our uniforms had been discarded by the boys team more than two decades before we got the honor of trotting down the court in the remnants. Our parents had to buy a plethora of fund-raising items, from subs to cookies, to shod our fancy feet. Our court time was limited to what remained when the boys finished practicing. Granted, they needed all the help they could get with their dismal record, but late nights practicing dribbling techniques in the hallway made me bitter about our separate and unequal treatment. Luckily, our coach was all heart. He bought us dinner after victories and his wife baked treats for our van rides. But I was still enraged that the school bought meals for the boys team as they traveled in style to tournaments we could only dream about.

Unfortunately, there are no perfect answers to problems based in social stigmas, such as our cultural perception of the purpose and place of women in athletics. Although Title IX has increased the quality of women's athletic programs, two major problems now stand out. First of all, enforcing this title has not necessarily had entirely positive results for athletic programs. Attempting to make men's and women's athletic programs equal has resulted in some cases of reducing the quality of men's programs rather than increasing the quality of women's. This negative result not only serves as bad press for support of women's athletics, it is a step backwards for athletic programs in general. Secondly, although there has been a significant increase in the number of high school girls participating in athletics (from 294,000 to 2 million between 1972 and 1982) and women in college level sports (from 32,000 to 150,000), these numbers are still far behind the participation of boys and men and females only receive 25percent of athletic expenditures.

Obviously, there is a need for action to raise the quality of women's athletics in order to create a society that offers the benefit of athletics equally to both men and women. It is equally clear that Title IX cannot stand alone as the answer to gender discrimination in athletics. Although the rules have certainly changed, so must our attitudes. We must require the institutions we support to respect both sexes participation equally. In turn, we must try to be fair and encouraging of all who wish to find the opportunity to enjoy the benefits of sports. Whatever social norms that discourage women from participating in sports must be challenged. It will be equally important not to resort to reverse discrimination by diminishing the opportunities for boys and men in sports. It will be a time consuming and imperfect process, but these are not reasons to quit. Our focus must be on the act of continuing to create opportunities for young people in this country to test themselves and their dreams and to find the substance of which they are made.

I don't really have the experience to know how Title IX works in Oberlin's system. Women's sports at Oberlin college would probably be different. It seems that the powerful people are the people behind the men's programs, like football. I don't know who would really advocate for the women.

Not having Title IX would definitely change women's sports as a whole. Oberlin is pretty progressive. A lot of places wouldn't even consider women's sports, especially high schools.

I think Title IX's impact was huge. It was passed in 1972. There have been radical increases in women's and girls' participations in women's sports. Many new women's sports were added because of this. The main point is that women's roles in sports increased greatly, but the leadership roles in athletics for women declined relatively for women over the years. Leadership roles meaning coaches and athletic directors.

Women's athletics would not be the same without Title IX. Title IX has been hugely important. It's opened up scholarships, financial support and many opportunities for women.

Title IX had a tremendous impact. It's revolutionized sports. It's changed the way women's sports are looked at. It's long overdue. Women used to play half-court basketball because it was thought that they could not run the whole court. It was really a paternalistic way of looking at basketball. You need only to take a look at Division I women's basketball to see the difference. There is probably no other single event that has revolutionized sports as much. Title IX changed personnel, budget, and facilities. An example of this is Philips Gym which is pre-Title IX. They've had to accommodate women's teams now.

We needed Title IX to revolutionize women's sports. We needed Title IX to do the kinds of things that we have done with women's athletics. Title IX made us rethink the budget priorities.