Federal Government Considers Major Changes to Enforcement of Title IX By WELCH SUGGS
The Bush administration is considering suspending or significantly revising federal regulations governing gender equity in sports, according to sources close to federal civil-rights agencies. An announcement could come as early as Wednesday, when the U.S. Department of Justice must file a response to a lawsuit filed against the Department of Education by the National Wrestling Coaches Association and other groups.
The coaches argue that, in monitoring the conduct of athletics departments, the Education Department uses a "quota system" to enforce Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, which bars sex discrimination at educational institutions that receive federal funds. The regulations provide three options for complying with the federal law: A college must have roughly the same proportion of women among its varsity athletes as it has in its undergraduate student body; it must have a "history and continuing practice" of expanding opportunities for women in sports; or it must demonstrate that it is "fully and effectively accommodating the interests and abilities" of women on its campus.
Courts and athletics directors have said that meeting the first test, known as "substantial proportionality," is a safe harbor for colleges to avoid lawsuits by female athletes and investigations by the Education Department's Office for Civil Rights. However, substantial proportionality amounts to a quota limiting the number of male athletes, the wrestling coaches argue, because some colleges have capped men's rosters and dropped men's teams instead of expanding opportunities for women. The most popular sports to drop have been gymnastics, swimming, tennis, track and field, and wrestling.
The wrestling coaches' association, along with groups representing track and field and swimming coaches, sued in March to stop the Education Department from enforcing the substantial-proportionality test. The Justice Department was supposed to file its response to the suit last week, but a last-minute addition of another college-sports advocacy group as a plaintiff in the lawsuit gave the department until May 29.
The Bush administration is said to be divided on how to revise Title IX regulations, and women's-sports activists and education analysts have speculated that the Justice Department will announce in legal documents related to the case that the Education Department will suspend enforcement of Title IX in college sports pending a review of the regulations. A spokesman for the Justice Department was not aware of the lawsuit, and one from the Education Department did not return a telephone call Monday.
Michael Moyer, executive director of the wrestling coaches' association, said he had not heard specifically what the Justice Department would announce, but agreed that a suspension would be a major victory.
"We're prepared to do whatever it takes to eliminate the gender quota from the interpretation" of Title IX, he said. "We completely embrace Title IX, and we want to restore it to its original intent. There shouldn't be any gender discrimination, period, regardless of gender, and there's serious discrimination going on against men, as evidenced by roster-management practices and the complete elimination of men's teams."
Norma V. Cantú, the assistant secretary for civil rights in the Education Department of President Bill Clinton, said it would be highly unusual for the department to cease enforcement of a broad array of civil-rights laws.
"They've never done it before," said Ms. Cantú, now a visiting professor at the University of Texas at Austin's School of Law. "This would be the first administration to just freeze things."
Advocates of women's sports predicted serious political consequences for the Bush administration and other Republicans if they did anything that might be perceived as hurting women's sports.
"There are a whole bunch of soccer moms who are going to be a little upset," said Donna A. Lopiano, director of the Women's Sports Foundation. "This generation of women, for the first time, they're hearing that they shouldn't be equal -- that's going to be the message. I don't think that's going to resonate."
Sheldon E. Steinbach, general counsel for the American Council on Education, said he thought that colleges would respond to such a move in much the same way they did in 1984, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Title IX applied only to specific programs that received federal funds directly, rather than to all programs at an institution that received federal funds for any of its programs. In 1987, Congress passed a law that undercut the Supreme Court's ruling.
"Even if it's suspended, schools will observe the spirit of the law as their commitment to gender equity in athletics," Mr. Steinbach said. "It's been 30 years now, and the enormous gains that have been made to achieve equality in the treatment of men's and women's athletics has been extraordinary. No school I know of is looking for any loophole in order to erode the progress that has been made."