JJC Dropped the Ball on Title IX
Joliet Junior College’s (JJC) board voted yesterday to cut its 61-year-old football program for two reasons: budget considerations and Title IX proportionality. At the expense of the boys with no college football future, JJC officials and local newspapers claim victory for gender equity and student athletes who participate in other sports programs. More specifically:
As part of Title IX rules, colleges and universities must ensure there is equity among men’s and women’s sports programs. King said the savings would likely go toward supporting other sports programs.
The football team made the school’s sports program lopsided in favor of male athletes, which went against Title IX requirements, King added. Title IX was enacted in 1972 to eliminate sexual discrimination in educational programs.
Before the football program was cut, there were more than twice as many male athletes as female athletes at JJC, said JJC spokeswoman Kelly Rohder. With the program’s elimination, the numbers are roughly equal, Rohder said.
Really? What exactly do “roughly equal numbers” achieve when that requires eliminating plenty of opportunities for certain male athletes? Using proportionality to implement Title IX only encourages discrimination on the basis of gender, which is the exact opposite intention of the law.