[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 34 (Tuesday, March 4, 2003)]
[House]
[Pages H1490-H1491]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                TITLE IX

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Osborne) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. OSBORNE. Mr. Speaker, in 1972 Title IX became law. Title IX 
prohibits discrimination in education programs or educational 
activities based on gender. This has resulted in significant gains in 
women athletic participation. It has been a great thing for a great 
many people. From 1972 to 1999, there has been a tenfold increase in 
women's athletic participation at the high school and the college 
level. At the NCAA level, the increase was from 30,000 to 157,000 
athletes, roughly a 500 percent increase.
  However, there is another side, Mr. Speaker, to Title IX. Between 
1985 and 2001, we lost 57,000 male college athletes. During that same 
period, we gained 52,000 female athletes at the college level, almost 
the same in number. Between 1992 and 1999, there were 386 men's 
collegiate teams that were eliminated.

                              {time}  1915

  Mr. Speaker, 171 of those were men's wrestling teams. The most common 
reason given for the elimination of these programs was to comply with 
title IX.
  Recently, the Secretary of Education established a 15-member 
commission to

[[Page H1491]]

establish a study of opportunity in athletics. The purpose was to 
examine title IX and its impact on athletics.
  This committee made 23 recommendations. Many of those recommendations 
were accepted with unanimous consent. However, there were eight 
recommendations that were not unanimous. Some people are now saying 
that since they were not unanimous, they should not be implemented. I 
would like to just retrace four or five of these.
  First, one proposal was that the Secretary of Education be given some 
flexibility in implementing title IX. Currently, if 60 percent of a 
student body is male and 40 percent is female, then that means that 60 
percent of the scholarships should go to males and 40 percent to 
females; and there is only 1 percent variance, so that means 59 percent 
would be the minimum.
  We feel that this is impossible to implement because sometimes 
athletes quit, and sometimes they sign a letter of intent and do not 
show up. So a 1 percent variance is not workable, and the Secretary of 
Education needs variability.
  Secondly, a recommendation was that private funds be able to be used 
if a sport was to be dropped because of noncompliance with title IX. 
For instance, if a wrestling program was about to be dropped because of 
noncompliance, then it would allow people to go out and raise money 
privately to keep that program going. It would not eliminate women's 
sports or women's opportunities; it would simply keep a sport going 
that is rapidly disappearing. That makes sense, but there are those who 
oppose this.
  Another proposal is that slots on team rosters be treated the same as 
actual athletes. For instance, if there were 20 scholarships on the 
women's rowing team available, but only 10 women went out for the 
sport, the question is do you allow that as 20 opportunities, or do you 
say you just count the 10 women? If you just count the 10 women, that 
means you have to get rid of 10 men somewhere because of the slots not 
being occupied. That does not make sense. As long as the opportunity is 
there, we think they should be counted as certainly athletes who are in 
compliance.
  Fourthly is the use of interest surveys to indicate school compliance 
with title IX. This is one of the three major problems in title IX, is 
the interest of the underrepresented sex being met? So the proposal is 
to allow interest surveys to be used, so if, for instance, there is no 
interest in a given school in women's rifle, then we should not have to 
offer women's rifle. That would make sense. But, again, this is being 
opposed by a few people because they feel that somehow this will undo 
title IX.
  Lastly, there is the issue of walk-ons, something I know about to a 
fairly great extent. Currently, walk-ons are excluded because of the 
head counts. So if there were 200 female athletes at a school and 200 
male, and the student body was equally divided 50-50, that would mean 
if you had 100 people who wanted to walk on who were male, who would 
pay their own way to school, pay for some of their own equipment, that 
they would not be allowed out unless there were 100 female walk-ons 
also. Statistical studies show that women simply do not walk on 
anywhere near the same proportion as men, so we have thousands of young 
men everywhere who are excluded from competition because of title IX. 
There will be no more Rudys. There are no more Rudys, in many cases. 
Again, that does not make any sense.
  Mr. Speaker, I had two daughters who competed in athletics. I have 
two granddaughters. I hope they compete as well. I also had a son who 
competed and two grandsons whom I hope will compete. I coached 2,000 
young men. So I am certainly not opposed to female participation. But 
we need to restore fairness and balance to title IX, and I urge my 
colleagues to support a letter we are circulating to this effect.

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