How Does Taylor Get Around Title IX?

[clinttjohnson]

Taylor has 9 men's sports and 8 women's sports. How do they get around Title IX? Taylor also has football, which gives males a wider chance to participate, because more guys can play it.

[knaveljm]

Title IX has a number of prongs associated with it: Along with opportunities for men vs. women athletes, it also involves female coaches/administrators in comparison to men, and financial spending for male/female teams. As well, it's not a case of having a 50/50 split but having a ratio within 1-2 percentage points of the ratio of males/females in your student body. So, if you have 60% male student body, you can have something like 58-62% male student-athletes. Also, all you have to show is that you are making progress towards that end. You don't have to necessarily be there but you have to be making strides to get there. Not sure what Taylor's student body ratio is but that could have something to do with it.

I'm not the Title IX expert here but I have enough background with it to muddle through.

[knaveljm]

Although, on the other hand, Taylor's Right To Know form on its website shows a pretty lopsided story: www.taylor.edu/community/offices/instresearch/pdf/2007_athletics_U.pdf

[foresterpride]

I'm not an expert, but I didn't think private institutions were obligated to comply, yet most try to. Also, Title XI doesn't specifically single out athletics, Taylor maybe incorporating all student activities into its compliance matrix... As with everything, its how you look at it.

Just a thought.

[knaveljm]

Private institutions that accept Federal Funding still must adhere to Title IX policies and almost all do accept federal dollars (think Federal aids, grants, and work study). I'm not sure how Title IX is applied to other areas of collegiate life, but I can tell you that athletics IS an entity unto itself. A university can not use intramurals or other types of student opportunities to "balance out" intercollegiate athletics.

But, Title IX enforcement is in a very gray area and, as I said, as long as a school is showing improvement towards getting into compliance with Title IX, the government has historically not punished an institution.

[knaveljm]

Funny that this subject came up today. I serve on the senior staff group that reviews/updates our Title IX/Minority compliance on a regular basis and just received our 38-page spreadsheet that outlines each piece of compliance on these subjects for our next meeting. There are a WHOLE lot of issues that come into play in regards to Title IX beyond simply male/female student-athlete ratio. Just looking at the number of male student-athletes compared to female student-athletes at a given institution is way too simplistic to make a judgement on whether a school is in compliance with Title IX or not.

[foresterpride]

"Private institutions that accept Federal Funding still must adhere to Title IX policies and almost all do accept federal dollars (think Federal aids, grants, and work study). "

I've heard this argue before. But when I was in a Title IX discussion at a small private school, this didn't seem to be an issue... It appears private institutions have alot of loopholes to avoid complying with Title IX. One like you mentioned, another student interest, I think another might be providing alternative opportunities, and "departmental groupings".

But you are right, very gray.

Let us know if you find out anything interesting.

[huntington fan]

The reality is that if someone sued Taylor on this they might have a tough time defending themselves. While it's true that there are a variety of factors, they don't all count the same, and the ratio found in the general student body is supposed to be reflected in the opportunities available in intercollegiate athletics. It may not always make sense, but then you have to remember that bureaucrats are running this thing. There are plenty of horror stories out there, especially at Division I, about universities eliminating "minor" sports for men to get in compliance with Title IX, despite obvious differences in the level of interest. Brown University is one particular example of this, where they wiped out men's sports that had plenty of guys wanting to participate while the women's sports' coaches were beating the bushes to try to fill their rosters. Just because you have lots of females on a campus doesn't mean you automatically have lots who want to be on an intercollegiate athletic team, and this tends to be truer for women than for men on university campuses. But, that doesn't matter to Title IX enforcers, who would rather do away with opportunties for male athletes, thus creating "equity," than to allow what they call "discrimination." All you would need for Taylor, and probably a lot of other MCC schools, to get in trouble on Title IX is for one disgruntled female athlete to get lawyered up.