Title IX Critics
Thank you to Michael Lynch for an outstanding article ("Title IX's Pyrrhic Victory," April). It conveys better than anything I've read the draconian combination of activism and bureaucracy in pursuit of "equality." I am a former college swimmer, and I have been pained to read in the last few weeks that two more universities, Kansas and Nebraska, are dropping their men's programs. I blame the athletic departments, too, which are eager to use their major sports as cash cows and glorified minor league teams. But Title IX deserves the lion's share of blame.
The irony is that I am a high school government teacher and the head girls swimming-and-diving coach at my school. I have a team of phenomenal young women who excel in the pool and the classroom. However, their opportunity to pursue a sport should not come at the expense of young men who don't fit into a numerical quota. Rather than addressing this issue, supporters of Title IX deflect criticism, instead focusing on the "Title IX babies" that have won Olympic medals.
Robert Black
Canandaigua, NY
If Title IX were applied to other areas as it is to athletics, the following groups could be in trouble:
*Engineering schools: At the University of Arizona in the mid-1980s, the ratio of male to female engineering students was about 10 to 1. I don't think it has changed all that radically in 15 years. Other schools show a similar ratio.
*Women's studies programs: Enough said.
*Nurses at federally funded hospitals: Almost exclusively female.
*The U.S. military: If opportunity means participation in Newspeak, then our Armed Forces might as well go home now.
*DEA agents, federal judges: Mostly male. Let's shut down the war on drugs (not a bad idea) on the basis of Title IX inequities in the drug warrior ranks.
This list could go on indefinitely. I used to think that no one would ever take this or any other issue that far, but all it seems to take is a crackpot judge and a boatload of lawyers with some skewed statistics to send any federally funded organization into chaos.
Andrew Varnava
Ventura, CA
Nicely written article on the Orwellian policy known as Title IX. However, I think the only thing more irrelevant than forced female athletic programs are the high-profile male athletic programs.
Far too much emphasis is placed on sports in this country. Athletes are inappropriately placed on "hero" pedestals by the masses. While at the gym during lunch time on a weekday, I noticed a college basketball game on one of the televisions. The game was in Texas, where it was about 1:30 p.m. Why weren't these players in class?
Male collegiate athletic programs are nothing more than a money mill, and I would love to see them relegated to the extracurricular bin where they belong -- though I would never support a law to affect this change.
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