A 2007 study by the College Sports Council confirmed the decline in men’s athletics. From 1981 to 2005 the number of male athletes per school dropped 6% and the number of men’s teams per school dropped 17%. During the same period, women’s sports thrived, with both the number of athletes per school and number of teams per school rising 34%.
Defenders of the Title IX status quo will often say that Title IX does not require that any school cut a team—those decisions are made locally by individual schools. But that logic fails to consider the incentive structure that Title IX enforcement regimes have created for schools. Athletic directors don’t make their program decisions in a bubble; they make their decision within the Title IX rubric and are always concerned with compliance. Proportionality has created an environment where, unfortunately, taking away opportunities from men is the path of least resistance. One should not be surprised when schools choose to cut programs—it is a direct result of framework that Title IX has placed on schools.
It is mind boggling why some politicians would want to expand such a flawed system to the high school level. They’ve seen proportionality in action. They should know the havoc it would bring to high school athletics. If anything, the results would be more pronounced, as many more students compete in high school athletics than do at the collegiate level. While opportunities for both sexes abound, more boys play high school sports than girls. Unfortunately, that reality does not mesh with the numerical demands of proportionality.
Certainly, we should all be concerned with equity issues in education. But there is a difference between creating a level playing field for both sexes and getting caught up in a rigid numbers game. The High School Sports Information Collection Act, sadly, falls into the later camp.