I’ve been watching the debate over potential changes to Title IX with interest. If you’re not a sports fan, you probably don’t know that Title IX is a gender equity law that requires “substantial proportionality” between the percentage of females at a school and the percentage of female athletes at a school. In other words, if a school is 50% female, then 50% of the athletes at the school should be female. The upside is huge — since the law was passed in 1972, women’s participation in athletics has grown literally exponentially. The downside is that some schools have achieved proportionality by cutting minor men’s sports, like wrestling, gymnastics, and swimming. As far as I’m concerned, the bottom line is that no changes to Title IX will raise athletic budgets, so if the men’s programs that have been cut are restored, then other programs will be cut to make up the difference, and in all likelihood, they’ll be women’s sports. I’m really not sure what the answer is here, but proportionality seems like a fair requirement to me.

I comment further here.