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The war against boys.

Article Excerpt
How Women Beat Men at College Sports

Jessica Gavora reveals why schools must abolish men's teams to comply with Title IX.

COLLEGE SPORTS are required--by Title iX of the 1972 education amendments to the Civil Rights Act of 1964--to provide equal opportunities for men and women. Although enacted as an anti-discrimination statute, Title IX has quietly become a quota system that has decreased sports opportunities for men while demanding endlessly expanding opportunities for women. What's more, the losers from Title IX are not limited to the now familiar angry white male. Pursuit of "gender equity" in college athletics is alienating key parts of the affirmative action constituency--black males and liberal college administrators--while minority women see little benefit. The only clear winners, for the time being, are middle- and upper-class white women.

Because men tend to participate in sports at higher rates than women, university administrators--under pressure both to comply with Title IX and balance their budgets--resort to simply cutting men's athletic slots to avoid the charge that women are "under-represented" in sports. But when men's opportunities are cut in sports such as basketball and football--which have high concentrations of minority athletes--"gender equity" often supplants racial equity, spelling trouble in the world of race and sex bean-counting. Last year the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) voted to cut men's basketball scholarships while leaving women's untouched, raising howls of protest from black coaches. At many universities, non-scholarship slots on large men's basketball, football, and track squads are being trimmed-- taking opportunities for black male athletes with them....

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