Title IX Cuts Sting for Wrestlers

Not everyone views Title IX so keenly, especially former wrestlers and swimmers who have been forced to accept that regulations of a law that’s supposed to protect them from gender discrimination has caused them to stop playing sports precisely because of their gender.

The Record, a local paper in North Jersey, documents some of the harms faced by some former student athletes at a variety of colleges and universities:

Title IX has been called many things in the past 40 years including important, groundbreaking and a success.

Craig Spencer calls it something else.

“It’s reverse discrimination, that’s what it is.”

Spencer was the wrestling coach at Kean University for seven years and is now an assistant at West Milford after long stints at Pequannock and Lakeland.

For all of the good Title IX has done, it has its detractors and they’re not shy about vocalizing their concerns that the law that mandates equal opportunity for men’s and women’s athletics has crippled their sports and limited female opportunity.

Talk to any local wrestling coach and they will say that it has killed the sport on the college level and is threatening to do the same in high schools.

“The harm it has done to college athletics, to the Olympic-type sports like swimming, wrestling and gymnastics … ” said Spencer. “It’s hurt even women.”

Click here to see what other schools have been impacted by Title IX enforcement.