Title IX, High Schools and Proportionality

It was a little less than a month ago that we warned our readers about two pieces of legislation making their way through the House and the Senate that the College Sports Council believes will be used as a can opener to bring quotas and proportionality to high school sports.

As it turns out, what we feared the most is already happening in some high schools around the country. Here’s an account from the Denver Post about the effort to create a statewide championship for co-ed bowling in Colorado:

A survey conducted by CHSAA last year showed that 60 percent of its schools supported the addition of the sport. But things hit a snag earlier this year when “co-ed” bowling became six boys on the team and one roster spot for a girl during the sport’s first proposal meeting with CHSAA’s equity committee.

“She would’ve essentially been the token girl on the team,” said CHSAA associate commissioner Rhonda Blanford-Green.

The equity committee shot down the sport at the first meeting, but the new proposal, Blanford-Green said, could see four roster sports for girls and three for boys. It has a much higher chance of succeeding.

It ought to be obvious to everyone that a co-ed bowling team with only one female member out of seven isn’t fair by any stretch of the imagination. Then again, the only reason anyone would propose a seven-member bowling team with a majority of girls would have to be proportionality.

But that’s not all the story revealed …

While we’re on the topic, something to look out for is the lack of growth in girls lacrosse, especially compared to its boys’ counterpart. Since the sports were added in 1998, the number of boys teams has nearly doubled, Blanford-Green said, while the number of girls teams has remained relatively unchanged.

Should that trend continue, CHSAA would consider capping the number of boys teams to stay in compliance with Title IX.

So, in other words, because girls aren’t interested in playing lacrosse, we need to cap the number of boys who are allowed to play?

If the supporters of H.R. 2882 and S. 471 get their way, we ought to expect more of this sort of activity in American high schools.

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