Women's Athletics and the Elimination of Men's Sports Programs: A Reevaluation

Don Sabo (1998) distributed surveys to 902 colleges and universities in order to assess the impact on so-called gender equity that may have been imparted by the implementation of Title IX of the Education Amendment of 1972. The purpose of Title IX was to equalize opportunities between the sexes for participation in collegiate athletics, in effect, by requiring member schools to proportionalize the quantity of offerings for men and women against enrollments. Sabo (1998) cites political columnist George Will as representative of a doubtful perspective on the outcomes of the legislation: "Title IX is having the perverse effect of destroying opportunities for men" (Will 1997). Sabo's conclusion, based on his inspection of 637 questionnaires, was that "the evidence does not support the contention that the growth of women's opportunities in college athletics was accompanied by the widespread elimination of men's sports" (p. 30). Simple inspection and reexamination of Sabo's data suggest otherwise.