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<H5>April 12, 2005</H5><NYT_KICKER><FONT color=#666666
size=-1><STRONG>EDITORIAL</STRONG></FONT> </NYT_KICKER><NYT_HEADLINE
version="1.0" type=" ">
<H2>A New Attack on Women's Sports</H2></NYT_HEADLINE><NYT_BYLINE version="1.0"
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<P>The Bush administration has mounted a surreptitious new attack on Title IX,
the 33-year-old law that has exponentially expanded the participation of girls
and women in sports.</P>
<P>Last month, a memo went up on an Education Department Web site that was
billed as a "clarification" of Title IX regulations. But the memo amounted to a
major weakening of the criteria used to determine compliance with the rule that
all schools receiving public funds provide equal sports opportunities for men
and women. Under the new guidelines, on campuses where the proportion of female
athletes falls notably below the proportion of women in the student body, and
sports programs for women are not expanding, a college will still be able to
show it is "fully and effectively" obeying the law by doing an online survey
that shows women have no unmet sports interests. The department says that if the
rate of response is low - as it is with most such surveys - that will be
interpreted as a lack of interest.</P>
<P>Currently, such surveys are just one factor used on the college level to
gauge interest in women's sports, along with more accurate measures, like
participation rates in "feeder" high schools or recreational leagues, and the
opinions of coaches and administrators. There is no similar burden on male
athletes to register their interest, and surveys are a poor predictor of
behavior if sports opportunities are afforded equally. The president of the
National Collegiate Athletic Association, Myles Brand, worries that this
loophole "will likely stymie the growth of women's athletics and could reverse
the progress made over the last three decades."</P>
<P>This harmful change, made without public notice or debate, marks a dismaying
turnaround. Two years ago, the administration rejected a set of hobbling
proposals to alter the criteria for Title IX compliance, including a change
similar to the one it has now quietly instituted. Still, there is cause for
hope. The Bush administration supported the Supreme Court's important ruling in
March extending Title IX's coverage to whistle-blowers who complain about a
school's treatment of female athletes. A public outcry may yet persuade the
administration to withdraw the new
regulation.</P></NYT_TEXT></FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>