Ex-members of Title IX panel urge schools not to use surveys
By Erik Brady
10/18/2005
USA TODAY

A letter sent to college administrators this month by six former members of a presidential commission on Title IX asks schools to ignore a new method for determining compliance with the law. The Department of Education issued a clarification letter in March that allows schools to use interest surveys alone to determine if they are meeting the athletic interests and abilities of women on campus.

Critics say the e-mail surveys allow schools an easy out because a non-response can be interpreted as non-interest. The Department of Education says schools that use the surveys correctly may well find they have an obligation to add sports for women under Title IX, which bans sex discrimination at schools receiving federal funds.

The sentiment expressed in the Oct. 11 letter is not new; the NCAA executive council passed a resolution in April asking member schools not to use surveys. But the letter is important because it shows some former commissioners feel their service was for naught. The clarification letter “has made me feel our time on the commission was not well spent,” Nevada athletics director Cary Groth says. “What did we do all that work for, if this is the end result?”

Groth says she called outgoing Stanford athletics director Ted Leland and they came up with the idea to send a letter to administrators at NCAA and NAIA schools across the country asking them not to use the March guidance. Leland was co-chair of the 15-member Commission on Opportunity in Athletics that was named by the Bush administration in 2002 and that met in 2002 and 2003.

Groth says she and Leland sent copies to other former commissioners to see if they wanted to sign the letter. Four others did: Notre Dame women's basketball coach Muffet McGraw, Michigan faculty athletic representative Percy Bates, former U.S. women's soccer captain Julie Foudy and former Olympic swimmer Donna de Varona.

Iowa athletics director Bob Bowlsby says he decided not to sign. “I'm keeping my powder dry,” he says. “Reasonable people can disagree” on the use of surveys. Maryland athletics director Deborah Yow says she does not recall receiving the letter to sign. She says she probably did receive it but has not yet had time to read it because of more important business. She declined to say if she would have signed it if she had seen it sooner.

“That was a long time ago,” she says of her time on the commission. “I've moved on.”

The letter cites a unanimous recommendation passed by the commission that says any “substantive adjustments to current enforcement of Title IX should be developed through the normal federal rulemaking process.”

The letter goes on to say the Department of Education ignored that recommendation when it issued its March clarification “without benefit of public notice or comment.” It says the guidance has “the potential of undermining the goal of providing equal opportunity.”

Susan Aspey, spokeswoman for the Department of Education, wrote in an e-mail: “The guidance is simply that — guidance. Schools can choose to use the model survey or not, it's their choice.”

It is unclear how many schools are using the new surveys to determine if they pass the third part of Title IX's so-called three-part test. Schools are in compliance with the participation requirements of Title IX if they pass any one of the tests:

•Test 1: A school's male and female athletes are substantially proportionate to enrollment.

•Test 2: A school has a history and continuing practice of expanding opportunities for women.

•Test 3: A school can demonstrate the interests and abilities of women have been fully and effectively accommodated. This is where the March clarification comes in. Schools that use the model survey and say they find no interest in adding sports are presumed to be in compliance.

The New Interpretation of Title IX

Ted Witulski
NCEP Manager
USA Wrestling

In March of 2005 supporters of Olympic sports received a glimmer of hope from the Department of Education. Though it wasn’t the hoped for total elimination of proportionality as a “test” that many in the wrestling community have worked for, the new interpretation clearly stated that schools could use surveys to prove that they were meeting the needs and interests of the under-represented gender.

This was clearly stated deviation from Norma Cantu’s interpretation of Title IX that decreed proportionality was the only “safe harbor” for schools, and later that schools had to meet strict proportionality---staying within in 1% of proportion of enrollment to athlete participation.

Now if colleges survey the school’s students and the survey shows that the under-represented gender does not have as strong an interest in athletic participation than the school can use that as evidence that it meets the requirements of Title IX.

So, there is a glimmer of hope. Could we return wrestling back to Syracuse? What about Kansas State or Colorado or even Washington at the Division One level? Or, dare to dream actually getting a new program started at the Division One level in Texas?

Schools must be encouraged to use surveys to protect against a wrong-headed interpretation of Title IX. As a coach, being educated and actively involved in this issue is important. Right now, there are many young wrestlers at the high school level that aren’t receiving scholarships to get an education because Title IX’s misinterpretation nearly destroyed wrestling along with other Olympic sports.

We have a glimmer of hope. We can get these programs back and start new ones, but your involvement is absolutely necessary. Teach your team about Title IX. Let others now how to get involved and lead by example on this issue.