By Gary Abbott, USA Wrestling

New Year is a great time to reflect on the past, and make plans for the future. Often, people take stock of their lives and make a new “to do” list for the year ahead. For the wrestling community, it is a perfect time to discuss something that is often very unpleasant and even distasteful. It is time to get the entire wrestling community talking Title IX again.
WAKE UP!!!
Did that get your attention? When it comes to debate concerning the Title IX issue, things seemed to have gotten very quiet in recent years. Those of us in the wrestling community, as well as in many other sports affected by this law, seemed to have lost a bit of intensity when it comes to battling for Title IX reform. We need to regain our fighting spirit.
The fact remains that the interpretation and enforcement of Title IX remains a serious threat to wrestling and all Olympic sports programs. As long as proportionality continues to be used as a mechanism for compliance with Title IX, college sports teams will continue to get eliminated. This is not a theory. This is a fact.
Proportionality has not changed one bit. It remains a strict gender quota, which provides a reason for many colleges to take away opportunity.
What has changed in the last few years is that this topic seems to have slipped from the radar screen. Not only is the general public in the dark concerning Title IX, but even those with the most at stake, young athletes and their families, have lost sight of its importance. This is dangerous. In fact, at this time, it is more important that we put the spotlight on Title IX than ever before. It is time to turn up the heat on this issue once again.
The truth is that Title IX reform is not a political issue. It is a fairness issue, a question of doing the right thing for the right reasons. It does not matter what your party affiliation is, or if you are considered a conservative or a liberal. Proportionality as used for Title IX compliance is wrong.
However, we can not be naïve about Title IX. There certainly are politics involved in the issue. If the entire wrestling community, along with our sisters and brothers in other sports, do not have the courage and stamina to participate in the public debate about Title IX, then we will lose that debate by default.
In the early years of the George W. Bush Administration, Title IX emerged as a public issue. The celebration of the 30th anniversary of Title IX by the gender quota groups, as well as the lawsuits filed by the National Wrestling Coaches Association (NWCA), helped bring the topic into the national news. The creation of the Commission on Opportunities in Athletics and its public hearings about Title IX, kept it in the news. This brought great attention to the law, especially some of the problems with its interpretation.
Since then, the debate has gotten quiet, probably too quiet. The result of the Commission hearings was disappointing for those seeking change. Education Secretary Rod Paige threw out all of the recommendations by the Commission except those approved unanimously, basically giving veto power to the quota advocates, who were a minority of those on the commission. To follow that up, Paige provided a weak new policy interpretation from the Office of Civil Rights (OCR) without substantive changes. It was no surprise that Title IX did not become an issue during the 2004 presidential election or the 2006 congressional elections.
During the second term of the Bush Administration, the OCR issued a new interpretation that was encouraging to those seeking reform. An interest survey was developed which dealt with prong three of Title IX enforcement, the “interest and abilities” test, providing a way for colleges to better measure this option for compliance. However, immediately upon its release, the NCAA, led by its president Myles Brand, came out against this survey and urged its member institutions not to use it. This new tool provided by the OCR is available, but there is no evidence that anybody is actually using it very much.
One thing that became apparent during the heated years of the Title IX debate was the wrestling community was willing to stand up and fight this issue. College administrators, regardless of where they stood on the Title IX issue, learned that wrestling was willing to stand up for itself. Dropping a wrestling team would result in a loud, public battle that was sometimes not worth it. Because of this perhaps, there were a few seasons where wrestling did not lose many college teams. In fact, with the addition of new wrestling teams at the NAIA level and among other small schools, wrestling was actually growing a bit rather than shrinking on the college level. Title IX talk within wrestling was reduced to a murmur for awhile.
Guess what? The wrestling community can no longer be silent and inactive.
Last year was very much a shocker for college wrestling. It was bad when two colleges in the East with traditionally strong wrestling traditions — Slippery Rock and Montclair State — dropped the sport. The public battle to save these programs fell short. It got worse last June, when after classes had ended for the year and recruiting had already finished, Div. I power Fresno State suddenly dropped its wrestling program. The reaction “in the Valley” to this decision was swift and heated, yet the Fresno State administration survived the pounding and stuck with its decision.
This year has been marked by another major blow not only to wrestling, as well as to all college sports programs. James Madison University, a Div. I program in the Colonial Athletic Association, announced that it was dropping a whopping 10 sports programs, including seven men’s teams and three women’s team. The shock waves of that decision continue today, as JMU students and alumni are waging a fierce battle to save those programs and get the university to reverse its decision.
On the governmental front, things have also changed considerably. The recent Congressional election has changed the landscape in Washington, D.C., as the Democratic Party has taken over the majority control of both the Senate and the House of Representatives. One important result of the election is that wrestling coach and Title IX reform leader Dennis Hastert will no longer serve as the Speaker of the House of Representatives.
Exactly what will happen concerning Title IX in the new Congress is hard to predict and is yet to be seen. However, the victory by the Democrats will embolden some of the gender quota special interest groups to start pushing for favors from the new leadership in Washington. You can expect that organizations such as the Women’s Sports Foundation and the National Law Center will become much more active and influential on Capitol Hill. You can expect Title IX to come into play again within the legislative branch.
AWAKE YET?
What can be done? Talk it up. Bring Title IX back into the center of discussion within wrestling and the Olympic family. Educate coaches, parents and athletes about the issues. Argue the issues on our bulletin boards and chat rooms. Write letters to newspapers about the problems with proportionality. Remember that one of the reasons that W.I.N. Magazine was founded was to provide leadership in the Title IX debate. Become a Title IX expert.
Get involved in a passionate way once again. Join USA Wrestling, the NWCA, the College Sports Council and all groups within wrestling to work as a team on solving the problem. Now is the time for action.
(Gary Abbott is the Director of Special Projects for USA Wrestling. He has worked with USA Wrestling since 1988 directing the organization’s communications activities. Among Abbott’s special project assignments are Title IX and women’s wrestling development. He was named W.I.N.’s Journalist of the Year in 2002.)