Coeducation and Athletics at Davidson

Title IX of the Educational Amendments of 1972 was enacted in order to prevent sexual discrimination in secondary schools, colleges, and universities.  Title IX states that women and men must have equal opportunities.  Although it says nothing explicitly about athletics, the largest debate over Title IX is in intercollegiate athletics.  Men and women are supposed to be completely equal under Title IX.  This includes having equal participants, scholarships, budgets, and media exposure.  However, there are very few schools in the country that comply with this law. 

The whole idea behind Title IX was to give women more opportunities.  However, adding more women’s teams to equal men’s teams at most schools is too costly.  So, in order to come closer to compliance with Title IX, schools drop men’s teams.  Schools throughout the country have dropped a wide range of sports, from baseball to wrestling to soccer.  Almost no sport is safe.  This is the problem with Title IX.  Many times it ends up hurting men’s sports rather than helping women’s sports.  Many deserving men lose opportunities to play college sports.  This was not the intention of the law. 

 However, Title IX has changed the face of women’s intercollegiate athletics.  Without it there would be far fewer female athletes.  These athletes would not have near the same opportunities as they do today. 

Without Title IX women would never have had the opportunities they have today.  However, men would not have lost their teams and their opportunity to play college sports.