THE IMPORTANCE OF TITLE IX
THE IMPORTANCE OF TITLE IX
Since Title IX has been enacted, it has required that men and women have equal opportunities to participate in sports. Also, if the college offers scholarships for athletics, it is required that men and women get the scholarship dollars proportional to their participation. Title IX also requires that they treat men and women athletes with the same equipment and supplies as well as scheduling of games, practice times, travel and daily allowances, access to coaches, tutoring, locker rooms, and medical and training facilities. Basically, anything male athletes have access to Title IX requires women athletes to have access to the same things. Although Title IX doesn’t just pertain to athletics, that is the area it has had the most impact since its enactment in 1972. Title IX has come a long way to help athletics change for the better; there have still been some incidents where schools still struggle coming to terms with Title IX. In 2009 at Quinnipiac University in Connecticut, one such incident occurred. Quinnipiac’s volleyball coach filed a Title IX lawsuit because the school had decided to cut the thriving volleyball program at the college. The lawsuit exposed that the college purposely undermined Title IX by creating opportunities for men athletes at the college that women did not have access to. As part of the lawsuit, the university was required to provide additional scholarships, coaching positions, increased compensation for coaches of women’s teams, athletic facility improvement and renovations, and finally better treatment of women athletes (Zengaro).
Title IX has been a great thing for athletics, and it has benefited hundreds of thousands of women since 1971. It has changed the attitudes that many people have towards women's sports and women athletes. Even though it may seem like it, adding more women's collegiate athletics will not cut down the number of men's collegiate athletics. When Title IX was signed into law, only around 30,000 women participated in college athletics and as of 2014 200,000 women participated in college athletics. This is almost seven times as many women participating in college athletics as in 1971 when the law was passed (Blasberg).
Back in the day before Title IX was enacted into law, women had to play only half-court basketball and were only allowed 3 dribbles. While playing basketball, many women had to wear dresses as their uniforms. This law made up of a mere 37 words has given women many new opportunities to play sports. Title IX had helped bring the number of women high school athletes from 290,000 in 1971 to 3.2 million in 2012. Women and girls being able to participate in athletics leads to higher graduation rates, lower rates of smoking and teen pregnancy, and better body image. Giving women the opportunity to play sports benefits them in the long run. Today, girls are more respected as athletes than ever before. There are still many ways that we can help build more respect for women athletes, but women’s sports has come very far from 1972 when Title IX was enacted into law (Vredenburgh).