Daniel C. Swinton and Professor Barbara Lockhart: Physical Education; Dr. Richard Kimball: History
Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 has helped educational institutions throughout the country draw closer to gender equity in all facets of education. Much of Title IX is accepted and praised, but a hotly debated area having to do with interpreting and implementing the law, is intercollegiate athletics. The court’s interpretations require proportionality and progress in complying with Title IX and many schools — in fact, the vast majority — continue to struggle to meet the law’s demands. Brigham Young University is among them and in the past ten years, the school’s athletic department has undergone a number of changes in an attempt to comply.
Indeed, the results at BYU are impressive and encouraging, as women’s soccer and softball have been added, scholarships are more equal, access to facilities and finances are much more equitable, and more women than ever before are participating in intercollegiate athletics.
Brigham Young University currently has one of the top women’s athletic programs in the nation, and much of the growth and success the women’s program has seen, have come about since Title IX’s inception. Indeed BYU serves as an interesting case study of Title IX’s effects on collegiate athletic programs. When inspected more closely, Title IX has led to some unintended, though often very positive, effects. Indeed, BYU’s reaction to Title IX not only changed its intercollegiate athletics departments and athlete participation, but also reflects those changes at other Division I colleges and universities nationwide.
Sadly, controversy clouds some of these effects as men’s wrestling and gymnastics have suffered a decline correlating to compliance with Title IX. For some, the little cloud obscures the big mountain of progress and the statement this progress makes about gender equity. Yet as BYU’s experiences show, the blame does not lie with Title IX; the blame lies with a school’s administrative priorities and their interpretations of the law.
This study of BYU’s Athletic Department gives us a glimpse into the process and the progress that Title IX can bring to women’s intercollegiate athletics. The road to compliance is lengthy, expensive, and filled with emotion, yet it is also filled with the spirit of equality upon which the nation stands. Title IX has helped level the playing field between genders. While the law has a few weaknesses, its presence aids discriminated and underrepresented genders in educational institutions across the nation.
My research consisted of wading through thirty years of journal articles, books, and newspaper articles dealing with Title IX in general as well as those dealing specifically with Title IX as it pertains to BYU. I also interviewed a number of athletic administrators who have played an integral role in integrating Title IX in BYU’s athletic department. After eighteen months of research and writing, I have completed the project and it is currently is being bound and placed in the Harold B. Lee Library. The plan is to shorten a few areas and submit my findings and research to physical education and higher education journals for further publication.
It was difficult to wade through the biases and emotions inherent in the articles and writings surrounding Title IX as many have very strong feelings about the amendment’s implementation. I had to focus on the facts, not the widespread emotion that Title IX engenders and endeavored to present those facts with as little bias as possible. Those who read my paper will have to judge how successful such efforts have been.
Title IX encompasses all facets of education from kindergarten through doctoral programs at the university. Any part of education that receives federal funding is under Title IX’s jurisdiction, yet my research only covered the impact in one university’s athletic program. Other areas impacted by Title IX at BYU have not been studied. While a couple of studies have been performed on a similar scale to my project at other schools, or focused on an entire athletic conference, many schools have faced unique situations and each has had its own struggles to comply with Title IX. Many of these could be insightful studies and a compilation of them could prove invaluable in determining Title IX’s impact on athletic programs nationwide.