The official student newspaper of University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire since 1923.

The Spectator

The official student newspaper of University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire since 1923.

The Spectator

The official student newspaper of University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire since 1923.

The Spectator

    Rosenberry Crunch: Schools getting around Title IX

    Title IX is a pretty contentious subject with most people. Maybe this isn’t Team Edward/Jacob, but it still gets people riled-up.

    It’s not just an issue at Division 1 schools, because even at this university we have seen it prevent the baseball team from becoming a university-sponsored program, in part due to Title IX.

    Though I can understand being upset over how it limits some men’s programs, I think that some sort of correction is needed.

    It is a corrective measure, but a warranted one. The problem is that even with this law in place, universities are still finding ways to circumvent the law.

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    The New York Times just printed a story about how colleges are getting around Title IX and it is pretty ridiculous stuff.

    The article said that at the University of South Florida, they have a 71-woman cross-country team where the majority of the runners never compete. In fact, they have some women listed who didn’t even know they were on the team.

    They even have one student who quit the track team, but the next year she was still listed as a runner. Maybe they are using a different dictionary than me or something, I dunno.
    The Times also reported that Texas A&M, the team that just won a women’s basketball national championship, lists 32 players involved with the team, but 14 of them are actually men. Wait, so was “Juwanna Mann” a foreshadowing of things to come or just a bad movie?

    OK, it’s definitely both, but what the hell, A&M?

    Finally, the New York Times article found that Marshall University (W. Va.) apparently has three walk-ons on their women’s tennis team and they do not allow the same thing on the men’s. I’m really hoping they put signs up in the dorms that said “Anybody for tennis?”

    I think a troubling aspect is that Donna Shalala, who is the president of the University of Miami and the owner of a tremendous name, said in the article that padding your numbers is a well-known thing.

    Not only that, but the Department of Education also said that men who practice with women, which isn’t completely uncommon, should be counted … as women.

    Apparently, many teams are doing nothing wrong, but are just finding loopholes.

    Hopefully my head isn’t the only one that just exploded. This is insane. It’s almost as crazy as “The Paul Rieser Show” ever being real. I cannot understand how this is acceptable.

    We need change. We definitely do. There are more women in college compared to men, but this isn’t reflected in sports.

    If universities can get away with this, we have serious problems. I almost feel that this is too obvious to point out, but apparently that obviousness is lost on many people and organizations.

    This law should not count any men as women. This seems to make almost too much sense to me. There are so many problems and issues in this world. Counting men as women CANNOT be one of them. How can there be change if this is allowed?

    The New York Times did a poll with CBS that shows most people believe Title IX has been helpful, and I agree. I think that without it, the numbers-gap between men and women would be much higher.

    However, remedies such as closing the men = women loophole need to be made. God, that’s a ridiculous thing to type. It would be less ridiculous to say that you just saw a unicorn bathing a cat.

    If we want equality, we need to have laws and regulations with more strength. Title IX needs to be fixed or edited in some way. Granted, this will be hard since Republicans and Democrats cannot agree on anything because it will mean the destruction of the world or something.

    However, noting that this is a problem is a very agreeable problem. But then again, it should never have been one in the first place.

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    Rosenberry Crunch: Schools getting around Title IX