The Price of Honesty
Yesterday, I shared a link to a column by Wendy Parker where she called for a total revamp of Title IX enforcement that was published over at Blue Star Basketball. As for the aftermath, The Title IX Blog, Women’s Hoops, Swish Appeal and They’re Playing Basketballcame after Parker with knives sharpened.
It seems like I’ve angered more than a few folks about what I wrote above, which is no surprise. Also not surprising is that they’ve chosen to repeat ideological talking points among themselves rather than respond directly here. Of course, there’s no way to comment on either of their blogs [Ed: refers to Title IX Blog and Women’s Hoops — See the CSC’s take on their reluctance to engage in honest debate, here]; commenting is disabled. They don’t want a dialogue with those who have a different point of view, accusing them instead of not being in possession of the facts.
The push for proportionality I referred to was not about the original regulatory implementation, as Erin Buzuvis at the Title IX blog contends, but by Bill Clinton’s civil rights officer in the Department of Education in 1996. Norma Cantú declared proportionality the only “safe harbor” for schools to comply with Title IX, which thrilled women’s sports activists. But athletics directors and university presidents rightly translated that to mean: Get the numbers right, or risk getting sued.
The compliance game changed irrevocably with Cantú’s clarification. Title IX activists will never admit they don’t trust the other two tests, as they are written very nebulously, while proportionality is just the opposite. Those vast discrepancies alone are reason enough to revise the regulations.
Buzuvis finally states that anyone who cites the age of Title IX wants to repeal the law. That is patently false, she knows it, but she and her advocates carry on with such rhetoric. A hell of a lot of great things have happened for women in education and athletics in the past four decades, and it’s time that the law reflects where they are now, not in 1972. The activists are in a time warp, desperate to paint the plight of women in sports as a still-bleak one that requires their perpetual “mythbusting” efforts. As well as their perpetual indignance.
As for the reaction that Parker got, I’m not terribly surprised. Once you disagree with the gender quota crowd, even once, they’ll never forgive and they’ll never forget.