Title: transcript-082702
Author: Deborah Price
Last saved by: sharon.robinson
Company: Department of Education

Archived Information

                                                                   1

          1  THE SECRETARY'S COMMISSION ON OPPORTUNITY IN ATHLETICS 

          2  

          3              Wyndham Hotel, Atlanta, Georgia

          4  

          5                    August 27, 2002

          6  

          7                  MS. DEBBIE PRICE:  Good morning, 

          8  everyone.  My name is Debbie Price, and I'm the 

          9  executive director for the Commission. 

         10             I have a couple of brief announcements I 

         11  would like to make before we get started.  One is if 

         12  anyone is here that needs an interpreter, we have 

         13  interpretation services, if you could let Tracy -- 

         14  raise your hand, Tracy -- let Tracy know and we'll 

         15  continue to provide those to you today. 

         16             The second, if you could turn off your cell 

         17  phones and beepers, or put them on vibrate, we 

         18  certainly would appreciate it.

         19             And now to begin the meeting, I would like 

         20  to introduce you to Bill Hansen.  Bill is the Deputy 

         21  Secretary for the Department of Education.  He is my 

         22  direct boss, of which I'm very thankful. 

         23             Bill has been a part of previous 

         24  administrations.  He was in the Reagan administration 

         25  at the Department of Education and also in a previous 

                                                                   2

          1  Bush administration. 

          2             I worked in the Senate for several years, 

          3  and when I started doing education issues, my boss 

          4  said, if you need to know anything about education, 

          5  call Bill Hansen.  And that is absolutely true.  He's 

          6  probably the most knowledgeable about education from K 

          7  through 12, postsecondary.  I mean, he has a grasp of 

          8  the topic better than anyone I've ever known, and I am 

          9  very proud to say that I work for him.  And I would 

         10  like to introduce Bill to you right now. 

         11                  MR. BILL HANSEN:  Thank you, Debbie, 

         12  and good morning.  On behalf of the Secretary, I 

         13  welcome all of those in attendance and also all the 

         14  commissioners. 

         15             This is an exciting time for all of us.  

         16  It's back to school time for our nation's youth, and 

         17  I'm getting my six kids back to school.  As I depart 

         18  here, I'll be driving two kids out west to college, and 

         19  two more are starting high school this week, so it's a 

         20  wonderful time for all of us as we go about our work 

         21  and understand how this work impacts our nation's youth 

         22  and each of us individually. 

         23             I do want to welcome the commissioners and 

         24  also make it clear that these individuals have made an 

         25  extensive commitment to this commission.  We're very 

                                                                   3

          1  thankful that they are here today working on this 

          2  important issue.  This is a great call to public 

          3  service, and we do appreciate your time and commitment.  

          4  We know you're all very busy individuals in your 

          5  respective lives, and we appreciate the leadership and 

          6  vision that you're bringing to this commission. 

          7             I would also like to welcome the speakers 

          8  who will be sharing with us this morning their 

          9  experiences and understanding of Title IX.  Most 

         10  importantly, I want to welcome you, the general public, 

         11  who we will also hear from this afternoon.  Thank you 

         12  all for taking the time from your busy schedules to be 

         13  with us in Atlanta. 

         14             I would also like to thank Phillips 

         15  Petroleum for sponsoring this event.  It couldn't have 

         16  been pulled off without their support, and we 

         17  appreciate them. 

         18             The Secretary's Commission on Opportunity in 

         19  Athletics has an important mission, and this Town Hall 

         20  meeting will get it off to a great start. 

         21             I know I speak for Secretary Paige and 

         22  President Bush and his entire administration when I say 

         23  we are adamant in our support for Title IX.  This 

         24  landmark legislation has opened doors of opportunity 

         25  for generations of women and girls to compete, to 

                                                                   4

          1  achieve, and to pursue their American dreams.  There 

          2  should be no question of our commitment to Title IX. 

          3             In large way because of Title IX, it is no 

          4  longer unusual to see women in positions of power and 

          5  influence, including running large companies, ruling 

          6  from the bench, or advising the President of the United 

          7  States.  Women fill key leadership positions throughout 

          8  the administration, including at the Department of 

          9  Education, and, as we will hear today, actively 

         10  participating in sports. 

         11             Without question, America's students do want 

         12  to play sports and be involved in athletics.  Sports 

         13  have been great to our students and to our schools.  

         14  It's a wonderful opportunity to work for Secretary 

         15  Paige, who has extensive experience in athletics as he 

         16  has been a player and a coach and has studied and 

         17  written about sports.  He knows how important athletics 

         18  are for American students.  That's why he's asked for 

         19  the President to put these commissioners on his team.  

         20  That's why the Commission is holding these Town Hall 

         21  meetings. 

         22             Coach Paige and I are very proud of this 

         23  quality team and look forward to working with you in 

         24  the coming months. 

         25             I think it's important for most 

                                                                   5

          1  commissioners and also for the public to also 

          2  understand President Bush's commitment to education in 

          3  general.  The Department of Education really has about 

          4  four fundamental responsibilities.  There are a couple 

          5  of additional ones, but these four areas really 

          6  encompass over 90 percent of the work that we do. 

          7             First is our K through 12 educational 

          8  programs helping the disadvantaged students.  Secondly 

          9  is our higher education programs that open up doors of 

         10  opportunity to 15 million Americans going off to 

         11  college.  The third is our special education program, 

         12  which benefit the lives of millions of special 

         13  education students.  And fourthly is our enforcement of 

         14  the civil rights laws of this country. 

         15             On each of those first three items President 

         16  Bush has had an incredible agenda before him for the 

         17  last 18 months.  We have worked in a bipartisan way in 

         18  pushing landmark legislation through Congress called No 

         19  Child Left Behind, and when the President talks about 

         20  No Child Left Behind, he literally means it.  And this 

         21  is legislation that is truly landmarked, and it's 

         22  changing the lives of millions of American students, 

         23  and mostly disadvantaged students, to help all to have 

         24  the opportunity to achieve. 

         25             And as President Bush I think so eloquently 

                                                                   6

          1  says, we've got to stamp out and stop bigotry of all 

          2  expectations for our students, especially for our lower 

          3  income minority students, to make sure that they are 

          4  held to the same standards and also given the 

          5  opportunities to achieve as all students are.

          6             On special education as well the President 

          7  has called for more money and for more reforms of 

          8  special education.  He's called for budget increases 

          9  that more than the previous eight years have been 

         10  requested.  And he has a commission likewise on special 

         11  education that will be guiding us through the 

         12  reauthorization of the Special Education Act. 

         13             Thirdly is the area of higher education.  We 

         14  are now providing almost five million Pell grants to 

         15  low income students to have access for opportunity for 

         16  college.  This is about one-third of the college adult 

         17  population.  The President also signed a bipartisan 

         18  bill into law in January that offers the lowest 

         19  interest rates of stability for student loans.  They 

         20  are now 4.06 percent and making college more affordable 

         21  for all Americans who want to go on to college. 

         22             The tax cut bill last year also offered 20 

         23  plus billion dollars of incentives and savings 

         24  opportunities for students to be able to go on to 

         25  college. 

                                                                   7

          1             As we enter into this fourth domain, I just 

          2  think it's very clear to understand the President's 

          3  commitment and Secretary Paige's commitment to not 

          4  being shy to reform, but also to make sure that the 

          5  resources and reforms equal better results.  And that 

          6  is what our agenda has been all about for the last 18 

          7  months, and that's why we look forward to our agenda 

          8  moving forward. 

          9             I would like to as we talk about the fourth 

         10  component of the department right now, we really are 

         11  here to focus on Title IX.  It has not just been an 

         12  important civil rights law in our country, but it's 

         13  also been an important educational law. 

         14             For the last 30 years Title IX has opened 

         15  the doors of opportunity for women and girls to 

         16  compete, to achieve, and to pursue their dreams.  This 

         17  law has made our nation richer as well as many of our 

         18  individuals. 

         19             Thanks to the vigorous enforcement of Title 

         20  IX as well as other social trends, more women than ever 

         21  are playing sports, graduating from college, and 

         22  pursuing their dreams. 

         23             President Bush and Secretary Paige fully 

         24  support Title IX and the tremendous opportunities that 

         25  have been followed since its passage. 

                                                                   8

          1             For example, let me just give you a couple 

          2  of statistics.  Many girls and women in sports have 

          3  exploded the size and number at the high school and 

          4  college levels.  In 1971 before Title IX went into 

          5  effect, more than 294,000 girls participated in high 

          6  school sports.  Last year that number exceeded 2.7 

          7  million, an 847 percent increase over the last 30 

          8  years. 

          9             Between 1981 and 1999 the number of college 

         10  women's teams rose by two-thirds, and according to the 

         11  General Accounting Offices, our colleges created nearly 

         12  3,800 new women sports teams, including 846 soccer 

         13  teams, 516 cross country teams, 432 softball teams, 350 

         14  volleyball teams, 304 indoor track teams, and 302 

         15  basketball teams.  Hopefully my four daughters get to 

         16  take place in some of those sports. 

         17             In 1972 when Title IX became law 44 percent 

         18  of all Bachelor's degrees went to women.  Today women 

         19  earn more than half of the Bachelor's degrees in this 

         20  country, 57 percent in the year 2000, and many women 

         21  are pursuing careers that their grandmothers would have 

         22  never dreamed of or considered. 

         23             Clearly the changes brought about by Title 

         24  IX greatly expanded the opportunities for girls and 

         25  women to achieve their greatest potential, and we at 

                                                                   9

          1  the Department of Education are working to build on 

          2  these successes. 

          3             We celebrate not only the success, but also 

          4  the spirit of Title IX, which says "open to all."  

          5  Listen to these key words that are in the heart of 

          6  Title IX, quoting out of the statute, "no person in the 

          7  United States shall on the basis of sex be excluded 

          8  from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be 

          9  subjected to discrimination under any educational 

         10  program or activity receiving federal financial 

         11  assistance.  And it's a wonderful opportunity. 

         12             We happen to have one of the authors of this 

         13  language with us today, Senator Bayh.  We look forward 

         14  to hearing his comments. 

         15             As Title IX reaches this milestone of its 

         16  30th anniversary, it's appropriate to celebrate its 

         17  achievements and to examine its effects and see if 

         18  there are ways to improve it even more.

         19             President Bush said recently that tremendous 

         20  advances have been made in the fight for equality.  We 

         21  must remain diligent in enforcing our nation's laws, 

         22  and we still have work to do in this area.  I'm proud 

         23  to be part of implementing the President's vision of a 

         24  nation where civil rights laws are enforced fairly and 

         25  vigorously.  So the charge being given to the 

                                                                  10

          1  Commission is to gather facts, to listen to Americans, 

          2  and to find out how Title IX sports programs are doing. 

          3             I know each of you are experts in your 

          4  field, but I think it's going to be very important for 

          5  us to also do a lot of listening and to find out what 

          6  we can about these programs. 

          7             At these meetings the commissioners will 

          8  hear from the general public as well as experts who 

          9  have distinguished themselves in public service and 

         10  athletics.  Their insights will be invaluable in 

         11  helping us understand the promise and achievements of 

         12  Title IX. 

         13             The Department of Education is fortunate to 

         14  have them serving in these important positions of 

         15  public trust.  And of course we will benefit greatly 

         16  from the perspective again of Senator Bayh, who is one 

         17  of the authors of this landmark legislation. 

         18             All of us are united by our commitment to 

         19  ensuring a fair and equitable plan to every boy and 

         20  girl and every young man and young woman in America.  

         21  It is my belief that an open and candid exchange of 

         22  ideas will benefit this society, especially those young 

         23  people who have made sports an integral part of their 

         24  lives. 

         25             Again, let me clearly state that this 

                                                                  11

          1  administration is firmly committed to the spirit of 

          2  access to sports for all our children.  There can and 

          3  should be no mistake about our intent.  I know that 

          4  Co-Chair, Cynthia Cooper, and Ted Leland will encourage 

          5  a lively discussion and also respectful listening and a 

          6  thoughtful report.

          7             It is my pleasure to introduce them to you 

          8  today.  Cynthia Cooper is currently the Chief Executive 

          9  Officer of the sports marketing company ProHaven.  

         10  Prior to that Cynthia, I think as everybody knows, led 

         11  the Houston Comets to four WNBA championships.  She 

         12  also led the league in scoring as MVP during all four 

         13  of her years.  She also won two Olympic medals and two 

         14  NCAA championships. 

         15             I think Cynthia is truly a hero for many of 

         16  our boys and girls in this country.  She's also a 

         17  writer, a business leader, a singer and, more 

         18  importantly, a mother.  Most of all, she has been an 

         19  aspiring example to all of our nation's youth. 

         20             Ted Leland is the Director of Athletics at 

         21  Stanford University.  During his tenure at the 

         22  university he won 42 national team championships, 

         23  including 20 women's titles.  Indeed, Stanford has 

         24  shown a remarkable competitiveness by winning eight 

         25  straight Sears Directors' Cup championships. 

                                                                  12

          1             Ted is not only a proven winner, he's also a 

          2  strong supporter of women's athletics.  In fact, Sports 

          3  Illustrated For Women twice named Stanford the top 

          4  college for women's athletics in this country.

          5             When they perform well, our nation's schools 

          6  and colleges give our youth the skills and knowledge 

          7  they need to succeed.  The sports teach them lessons 

          8  they probably won't learn in the classrooms, lessons 

          9  like good sportsmanship, a healthy lifestyle, and never 

         10  giving up. 

         11             And I'm also convinced that our athletic and 

         12  sports opportunities also promote patriotism in a lot 

         13  of our country as well as opening up opportunities

         14  for coaching and teaching and mentoring, a very 

         15  important part of our country. 

         16             As Ted and Cynthia know, the greatest 

         17  beneficiaries of college sports are not the All 

         18  Americans, they are not the medalists, they are not 

         19  heroes.  The greatest benefits go to the students who 

         20  discover often for the first time the joys of 

         21  competition, of developing skills and muscles and team 

         22  work. 

         23             All of us want to make sure that high school 

         24  and college athletics are accessible and full 

         25  opportunity for everyone.  The only barriers in 

                                                                  13

          1  athletics would be the records waiting to be broken. 

          2             Now I would like to turn the discussion over 

          3  to our Co-Chair, Ted Leland.

          4             MR. TED LELAND:  Well, thank you, Bill, for 

          5  taking the time to give such a thorough introduction 

          6  and sort of a kick-off for us. 

          7             Good morning everyone.  I want to thank you 

          8  everybody for coming.  Welcome to this first meeting, a 

          9  public hearing on the Secretary of Education's 

         10  Commissions on Equal Opportunity in Athletics. 

         11             My name, as was said, is Ted Leland.  I'm 

         12  the Director of Athletics and Recreation at Stanford, 

         13  and along with Cynthia to my right, we are Co-Chairs of 

         14  this commission.

         15             On June 27th of 2002 the U.S. secretary of 

         16  Education, Rod Paige, appointed a commission to examine 

         17  ways to strengthen the enforcement and expand 

         18  opportunities to ensure fairness for all college and 

         19  interscholastic athletes.  Our goal is to gather facts, 

         20  to listen to what the American people have to say, and 

         21  find out how Title IX is serving our citizens. 

         22             This is indeed a prestigious panel, and I'm 

         23  proud to serve, along with Cynthia, as one of its 

         24  Co-Chairs. 

         25             Before Cynthia and I make short opening 

                                                                  14

          1  statements, I would like each member of the Commission 

          2  to briefly introduce him or herselves.  And start here 

          3  to the right.

          4                  MR. BRIAN JONES:  I am Brian Jones.  

          5  I'm General Counsel of the U.S. department of Education 

          6  and an ex officio member of the Commission, and I'm 

          7  thrilled to be here. 

          8                  MR. GERRY REYNOLDS:  Good morning.  My 

          9  name is Gerry Reynolds.  I serve as the Assistant 

         10  Secretary for civil rights for the Department of 

         11  Education.  The Office of Civil Rights is charged with 

         12  enforcing all civil rights laws, including Title IX. 

         13             This series of Town Hall meetings is 

         14  extremely important.  It will give us an opportunity to 

         15  listen to experts in the field, to listen to 

         16  administrators, athletes, coaches.  We need to hear 

         17  this.  We need to find ways to strengthen Title IX to 

         18  make sure that the progress that we've made over the 

         19  last 30 years remains and that we build upon it. 

         20                  MR. BOB BOWLSBY:  My name is Bob 

         21  Bowlsby.  I'm Director of Athletics at the University 

         22  of Iowa.

         23                  MS. JULIE FOUDY:  My name is Julie 

         24  Foudy.  I am currently with the U.S. women's national 

         25  team, am captain of the U.S. women's national team, and 

                                                                  15

          1  with the San Diego Spirit, the soccer team out in 

          2  California, and still playing, so I'm a current athlete 

          3  and, like Gerry said, eager to hear the different 

          4  opinions and ideas from administrators and ex athletes 

          5  as well. 

          6                  MR. GENE DeFILIPPO:  I'm Gene 

          7  DeFilippo, the director of athletics at Boston College. 

          8                  MS. CARY GROFF:  Good morning, I am 

          9  Cary Groff, director of athletics at Northern Illinois 

         10  University. 

         11                  MR. PERCY BATES:  My name is Percy 

         12  Bates.  I'm the Athletic Director at the University of 

         13  Michigan. 

         14                  MS. MUFFET McGRAW:  My name is Muffet 

         15  McGraw.  I'm entering my seventeenth season as the head 

         16  women's basketball coach at the University of Notre 

         17  Dame.

         18                  MR. TOM GRIFFIN:  I'm Tom Griffin, the 

         19  General Counsel at Brigham Young University. 

         20                  MS. RITA SIMON:  I'm Rita Simon.  I'm a 

         21  university Professor in the School of Public Affairs 

         22  and the Washington College of Law at American 

         23  University, and I'm looking forward to learning a lot 

         24  this morning. 

         25                  MS. DEBORAH YOW:  Good morning, I'm 

                                                                  16

          1  Debbie Yow, Director of Athletics at the University of 

          2  Maryland.

          3                  MR. GRAHAM SPANIER:  I'm Graham 

          4  Spanier, President of Penn State University. 

          5                  MS. SALLY STROUP:  I'm Sally Stroup.  

          6  I'm the Assistant Secretary for Post Secondary 

          7  Education at the U.S. Department of Education. 

          8                  MR. TOM LELAND:  Thank you.  Over the 

          9  next six months we will hold four Town Hall public 

         10  hearings to collect information, analyze issues and 

         11  obtain broad public input into this issue. 

         12             The Secretary has asked us to look at seven 

         13  specific areas to address.  One, are Title IX standards 

         14  for assessing equal opportunity in athletics working to 

         15  promote opportunities for male and female athletes?  

         16  Two, is there adequate Title IX guidance that enables 

         17  colleges and school districts to know what is expected 

         18  of them and to plan for an athletic program that 

         19  effectively meets the needs and interests of their 

         20  students?  Three, is further guidance or other steps 

         21  needed at the junior or senior high school levels where 

         22  the availability or absence of opportunities will 

         23  critically affect the perspective interests and 

         24  abilities of student athletes when they reach college 

         25  age?  How should activities such as cheerleading or 

                                                                  17

          1  bowling factor into the analysis of equitable 

          2  opportunities?  How do revenue producing and large 

          3  roster teams affect equal opportunity in athletics?  In 

          4  what ways do opportunities in other sports venues such 

          5  as Olympics, professional leagues, and community 

          6  recreational programs interact with the obligations of 

          7  colleges and school districts to provide equal 

          8  opportunity?  And seven, apart from Title IX 

          9  enforcement, are there other efforts to promote equal 

         10  athletic opportunities for male and females, such as 

         11  public and private partnerships, to support the efforts 

         12  of school districts in colleges in the local area? 

         13             Permit me to emphasize that the job of this 

         14  commission is primarily to listen, especially today.  

         15  We will listen to the experts, we will listen to the 

         16  public, we will look at research, we will talk to 

         17  athletes, students, coaches, administrators, educators, 

         18  parents, and others who have information and 

         19  perspectives about Title IX. 

         20             I should say that we are excited about our 

         21  mission.  I am excited about my fellow commissioners.  

         22  We've got great staff support.  I'm really glad to be 

         23  here.  As a personal aside, I should say that my 

         24  daughter is a college athlete, and when I was asked by 

         25  the Secretary to chair this commission, of course I was 

                                                                  18

          1  sort of excited and proud and my wife called up my 

          2  daughter, who was away at college, and said, gee, 

          3  Mandy, you should be proud of your father, he's just 

          4  been nominated as Chairman of this commission and they 

          5  are going to study Title IX, and my daughter's response 

          6  was, well, tell dad that's great, but my friends and I 

          7  are watching him. 

          8             So I understand that our deliberations are 

          9  important and that there are lots and lots of people 

         10  who have been affected positively by Title IX, and 

         11  we're just excited about the challenge. 

         12             Now let me turn it over to Cynthia for a 

         13  short statement.

         14                  MS. CYNTHIA COOPER:  Thank you, Ted.  

         15  Good morning everyone.  As Ted noted, Title IX has 

         16  brought enormous benefits to our society.  Millions of 

         17  American girls and boys, women and men have benefited 

         18  from the law.  Despite the benefits of Title IX, it is 

         19  time to revisit the law. 

         20             The 30th anniversary of the law provides us 

         21  with an opportunity to conduct a national dialogue 

         22  about Title IX.  As Secretary Paige recently remarked, 

         23  with the help of this commission, we will learn how we 

         24  can do a better job of enforcing a law that represents 

         25  hope for so many Americans. 

                                                                  19

          1             As we begin that task today, our Town Hall 

          2  hearing in Atlanta will set the table for the 

          3  Commission's work.  We will hear about the history and 

          4  the background of Title IX as well as many current 

          5  issues regarding the law and its enforcement. 

          6             I want to thank each panelist who has 

          7  traveled here to provide testimony.  I also want to 

          8  thank each and every member of the public who is here 

          9  with us.  We will receive your input this afternoon and 

         10  again tomorrow. 

         11             We now open the first hearing of the 

         12  Secretary's Commission on Opportunity in Athletics.  

         13  And I would like to ask panel one to come forward, 

         14  please.  And I'll apologize in advance for 

         15  mispronouncing anyone's name.

         16             The Honorable Birch Bayh.  Birch Bayh is a 

         17  former member of the United States Senate.

         18                  SENATOR BIRCH BAYH:  The clumsy one. 

         19                  MS. CYNTHIA COOPER:  We forgive you.  

         20  Where he was privileged to serve his home state of 

         21  Indiana and to be a part of historic legislation 

         22  affecting the American Presidency and the individual 

         23  rights of women, minorities, and youth.

         24             Currently, Senator Bayh is a partner in a 

         25  distinguished Washington, D.C. law firm.  Senator Bayh 

                                                                  20

          1  continues to work on behalf of his long-held passions 

          2  of education, citizen rights, and the fight against 

          3  bias, bigotry and racism in America. 

          4             Senator Bayh was the author of the 

          5  legislation we are discussing today, Title IX to the 

          6  Higher Education Act, which mandates equal opportunity 

          7  of women students and faculty. 

          8             Today's rise of women in all academic 

          9  disciplines in school sports and the Olympics is a 

         10  direct outgrowth of this landmark legislation. 

         11             Since leaving the Senate, Senator Bayh has 

         12  continued his commitment to public policy.  He is the 

         13  founding Chairman of the National Institute Against 

         14  Prejudice and Violence, a nonprofit, first of its kind 

         15  organization dedicated to studying prejudice and hate 

         16  crimes in America.

         17             Senator Bayh. 

         18                  SENATOR BAYH:  I'm not at all nervous 

         19  here.  Having been blessed by having two families, the 

         20  younger of which when he was growing up and we were 

         21  sitting around the dinner table or breakfast table, 

         22  when the sound of something being spilled was heard, 

         23  his mother always looked at his father, and it usually 

         24  was yours truly, so forgive me for this clumsy entrance 

         25  this morning, and thanks to all of you and your 

                                                                  21

          1  thoughtful introduction. 

          2             I appreciate the opportunity to share some 

          3  thoughts with you this morning on the implementation 

          4  and progress thereof of the legislation we call Title 

          5  IX.  And permit me, if I may, in time you'll understand 

          6  this.  Let me emphasize my role of legislative intent. 

          7             Just what did members of the House and 

          8  Senate mean when they wrote that one sentence, which 

          9  now is Title IX, which has had such a profound impact? 

         10             As I listened to Secretary Hansen's 

         11  comments, I thought the Commission could write its 

         12  report today and go home because of the way you really 

         13  covered the field there.  But let me tell you what was 

         14  in my mind when we passed this legislation 30 years 

         15  ago.  And I think it's only fair to say that we're all 

         16  affected by our own personal experiences, so let me 

         17  share with you just a couple of quick ones.

         18             My father coached four sports at Indiana 

         19  State and then moved his family in the mid-30s, I'm 

         20  dating myself here, to accept the position as Director 

         21  of Physical Education for the District of Columbia in 

         22  the public school system.  He spent 55 years in public 

         23  education.  And I remember as a small boy, I don't 

         24  remember how old but I couldn't have been very old, 

         25  listening to him tell us at the breakfast table that 

                                                                  22

          1  that morning he was going to testify before Congress 

          2  and he was going to ask them to appropriate money so 

          3  that girls in the Washington D.C. public school system 

          4  could have physical education. 

          5             He was going to tell them that little girls 

          6  needed strong bodies to carry their minds around just 

          7  like little boys.  And you know, that theory is true 

          8  today for girls and young women of all ages and really 

          9  is sort of a bedrock of Title IX if you stop to think 

         10  about it with all the publicity that it's gotten.

         11             Later on I had my first experience with how 

         12  the system discriminated against young women when I was 

         13  struck, or stricken as the case may be, by a lightning 

         14  bolt in the form of a 19-year-old daughter leave home 

         15  going to Oklahoma. 

         16             She was a straight A student in high school, 

         17  had been President of the student body, was elected 

         18  Governor of the Oklahoma girl's team, and elected 

         19  President of the girls' station. 

         20             Her girlhood dream was to be able to go on 

         21  and attend the University of Virginia, but when the 

         22  time came, she was told girls need not apply.  So when 

         23  she hit me, she was about to become a sophomore at what 

         24  was then Oklahoma A & M.  In a matter of months I had 

         25  steered her off to western Indiana to attend Indiana 

                                                                  23

          1  State and help me run a cows, hogs, corn, and soy beans 

          2  farm. 

          3             We spent 26 wonderful years together, and 

          4  through that whole period of time I think we were both 

          5  committed to do everything we could in our own small 

          6  way to deal with discrimination. 

          7             I think it's fair to say an observation of 

          8  everything that has been said here this morning, not 

          9  just my opinion, that Title IX is really the most 

         10  significant contribution to the equality of women, or 

         11  one of the most significant contributions to the 

         12  equality of women since the 19th amendment to the 

         13  Constitution. 

         14             It indeed did open up the door for 

         15  opportunity.  And, Director Hansen, in your speech you 

         16  showed just how wide and a lot of specificity.  But 

         17  despite all the doors of opportunity that have been 

         18  opened by Title IX, and the progress surely seems to be 

         19  made in bringing out discrimination against women 

         20  students, Title IX is at this very moment under serious 

         21  attack. 

         22             Title IX required quotas for women, 

         23  particularly in athletics, and some of the most 

         24  vigorous critics say some other things about Title IX 

         25  and people that support Title IX that I just as soon 

                                                                  24

          1  not be hearing this morning. 

          2             You on the Commission all have had a chance 

          3  to read Title IX.  You don't have to be a genius, you 

          4  just have to be able to understand English to 

          5  understand what we meant when we passed that 

          6  legislation. 

          7             The word quota does not appear.  The 

          8  compelling thrust is there shall be no discrimination 

          9  in our system's education system on the basis of sex, 

         10  plain and simple.  What we were really looking for was 

         11  equal opportunity, equal opportunity for young women 

         12  and for girls in the educational system of the United 

         13  States of America.  Equality of opportunity.  Equality.  

         14  That shouldn't really be a controversial subject in a 

         15  nation now for 200 years has prided itself in equal 

         16  justice.  And that's what Title IX was intended to do.

         17             I think in fairness, much of this opposition 

         18  results from a lack of understanding, of knowledge of 

         19  what Title IX does and what it doesn't do.  Let's look 

         20  at some of these facts very quickly.  As I said 

         21  previously, it does not require quotas, as each of the 

         22  eight U.S. appellate courts have held when they had 

         23  cases brought before them.  In fact, a school can 

         24  comply with Title IX, as you've noted from reading the 

         25  regulations for Title IX, by just merely making 

                                                                  25

          1  progress in expanding opportunities for female athletes 

          2  or by accommodating the interests of female students at 

          3  that school, whatever the number of opportunities may 

          4  be. 

          5             Much of the recent furor is due to the very 

          6  unfortunate misperception that Title IX forces schools 

          7  to terminate men's teams, like wrestling.  Let me make 

          8  the record clear.  And I think I can speak without 

          9  contravention of any of the others who were involved in 

         10  this effort. 

         11             The authors of Title IX had no intention 

         12  whatsoever of taking away opportunities for young men.  

         13  Our goal is to provide more opportunities for young 

         14  women.  And in most instances fortunately, not 

         15  surprisingly, but fortunately that's been the case. 

         16             The detractors ignore the fact that 72 

         17  percent of all our nation's institutions of higher 

         18  education, 72 percent have added teams for women 

         19  without cutting the first men's team, men opportunity 

         20  or men sports.  In fact, men's budget and participation 

         21  and opportunities in sports have increased overall 

         22  during the period of Title IX. 

         23             There have been enormous growth in men's 

         24  opportunities, such as in baseball, for example, which 

         25  if you just look at the raw numbers there to see how 

                                                                  26

          1  the increase has taken place, in 1982 there were 642 

          2  NCAA member schools that had baseball teams.  Today 857 

          3  have baseball teams.  That's a 30 percent increase of 

          4  opportunity for men, and more power to them.  A similar 

          5  story can be told about additional opportunities for 

          6  men to play soccer. 

          7             So Title IX wasn't designed in any way, nor 

          8  I believe overall has had the impact of decreasing 

          9  men's opportunities.

         10             It's not female athletes who are crowding 

         11  out wrestlers, it's the more popular men's programs 

         12  that continue to dominate sports budgets, leaving 

         13  women's and other men's teams with only a small share 

         14  of the pie.  And some of you who are athletic directors 

         15  are painfully aware of the kind of task that that 

         16  provides for you. 

         17             But fortunately many dedicated and creative 

         18  school administrators, some of you here, have 

         19  established programs which, like football, create many 

         20  slots for women.  I hate to pick one example, but 

         21  there's one that just is too good to pass by, and 

         22  that's Washington State, where they offer a rowing 

         23  program for women, and they have exactly the same 

         24  number of women on the water as there are men on the 

         25  turf on the football team. 

                                                                  27

          1             Other new teams have been created, and in 

          2  many instances women's teams have become profit centers 

          3  when they are adequately and properly promoted.  In 

          4  addition, alumni and other sources of support have been 

          5  developed.  A quick flashback to the Title IX era will 

          6  show just what the task is, what we were confronted 

          7  with. 

          8             Secretary Hansen hit the nail on the head 

          9  when he looked at what was happening then and what is 

         10  happening now.  But we were looking at a situation 

         11  where 1 percent of the varsity college level athletes 

         12  and 2 percent of the budget went to women. 

         13             Today the number of college level 

         14  participants has ballooned.  As you pointed out, there 

         15  were somewhere around 32,000, I think, participants in 

         16  '72.  Today it's up to 150,000.  And at the high school 

         17  level, which I think really is the sign of the future, 

         18  we've gone from 300,000 in 1972 to almost 2,800,000 

         19  girls who are participating in our junior high schools 

         20  and high schools. 

         21             So please don't listen to those people who 

         22  will tell you that women and girls aren't interested in 

         23  playing, they are.  As Kevin Costner said in Field of 

         24  Dreams, build it and they shall come.

         25             Let me emphasize one other fact that you 

                                                                  28

          1  touched on, Secretary Hansen, which I think is really 

          2  more important than all the numbers, and that is today, 

          3  primarily because of Title IX, we have young women who, 

          4  together with their male peers, now enjoy the attendant 

          5  benefits of increased health, self-esteem, academic 

          6  performance, leadership skills, team work, as well as 

          7  decreased drug use, smoking, and teen pregnancy.

          8             They learn a different way of life.  They 

          9  have the opportunity to establish for themselves 

         10  personal values that will serve them in a different way 

         11  in the future. 

         12             On the world stage we have taken a great 

         13  deal of pride, we all have; female Olympians, World Cup 

         14  soccer champions.  At home we've seen better sports 

         15  coverage of women's NCAA basketball teams.  And 

         16  contrary to some who say no one will pay to see women 

         17  play, they are packing them in at schools like Perdue, 

         18  and I must say Notre Dame, Tennessee, Connecticut and 

         19  others where women's basketball is taken seriously, and 

         20  the job is done of promoting women's basketball the 

         21  same as men's basketball. 

         22             If you tried to find a ticket to the 

         23  Mystic's first playoff game in the WNBA here last week, 

         24  you were out of luck.  It was packed to the ceiling.  

         25  And so has been the case time after time where women 

                                                                  29

          1  draw good crowds the same as men.  But despite the 

          2  progress, let me say quickly that Title IX's vision is 

          3  far from complete. 

          4             Women are 53 percent of the student body in 

          5  Division 1 colleges, but are only 41 percent of the 

          6  athletes and receive only 36 percent of athletic 

          7  operating budgets.  All too many schools fail to 

          8  provide women with their fair share of athletic 

          9  scholarships.  And the same disparity exists 

         10  unfortunately at the high school level. 

         11             Tragically, the attacks on Title IX has 

         12  diverted attention from the law's dramatic improvement 

         13  in academic opportunities for women students.  And 

         14  perhaps that's really not your wishing here, but I 

         15  think it's the foundation on which we are governing our 

         16  institution of higher learning. 

         17             Prior to Title IX, many of our nation's 

         18  colleges and universities simply excluded women 

         19  outright.  As I pointed out in my personal experience, 

         20  some would give -- I think it was law schools that 

         21  would give 10 to 15 just sort of tokens.  And many 

         22  required women applicants to have significantly higher 

         23  grades and SAT scores, and so it went on. 

         24             Women and students received only half as 

         25  many scholarships, and they were worth half as much, 

                                                                  30

          1  and there were some major scholarship programs, like 

          2  the Rhodes programs, where women need not apply. 

          3             And I should incidently add that at that 

          4  time only 18 percent of the faculty in higher education 

          5  were women.  30 years later women students represent 

          6  over half of all undergraduates, preparing themselves 

          7  for the future.  They compete for financial and other 

          8  types of aid whether they're single, married, parents, 

          9  or part-time students.  And women constitute 37 percent 

         10  of all faculty. 

         11             We must not overlook the tremendous strides 

         12  that women and girls have made in education.  At the 

         13  same time, we must not allow a mistakenly drawn debate 

         14  to threaten progress that still needs to be achieved to 

         15  reach true equality in our nation's classrooms and our 

         16  playing fields.

         17             Chairman Leland mentioned those seven 

         18  questions that were the challenge of Secretary Paige.  

         19  Permit me to be audacious enough to add one more 

         20  question that you ought to ask.  Not just this panel, 

         21  but I think we need to ask society and we need to ask 

         22  as family members do we wish less opportunity for our 

         23  daughters than for our sons? 

         24             Thank you. 

         25                  MS. CYNTHIA COOPER:  Beverly Ledbetter.  

                                                                  31

          1  Beverly Ledbetter currently serves as Vice President 

          2  and General Counsel at Brown University in Providence, 

          3  Rhode Island.  She has earned a B.S. in chemistry from 

          4  Howard University and a J.D. in law from the University 

          5  of Colorado. 

          6             She has also attended Harvard University's 

          7  Institute for Education Management.  She serves on the 

          8  Board of Directors of the National Association of 

          9  College and University Business Officers, the Civil 

         10  Justice Advisory Group for the U.S. district Court for 

         11  the District of Rhode Island, and is a faculty member 

         12  for Harvard University's management development program 

         13  and Institute for School of Law.  I'm getting through 

         14  this.

         15             In addition, Beverly was President of the 

         16  National Association of College -- it's a whole page.  

         17  You've done way too much. 

         18             In addition, Beverly was President of the 

         19  National Association of College and University 

         20  Attorneys, served as General Counsel and member of the 

         21  Executive Committee of the Rhode Island Black Lawyers 

         22  Association, was delegate to the Rhode Island and 

         23  American Bar Association, and was a member of the 

         24  National Collegiate Athletic Association Committee on 

         25  Infractions. 

                                                                  32

          1             Beverly, please. 

          2                  MS. BEVERLY LEDBETTER:  Now we're going 

          3  to talk about the one thing I wasn't able to do.  It's 

          4  my honor to appear before you today.  Although I am the 

          5  latest addition to this panel, I hope that my comments 

          6  are timely. 

          7             We have all learned that we should keep it 

          8  simple.  My plea today is not only to keep it simple, 

          9  fair and equitable, but to also make it reasonable, 

         10  rational, and flexible.

         11             Those who make or enact the rules must 

         12  remember to keep them reasonable, the guidelines must 

         13  be rational, and those who apply should be able to 

         14  count on them being flexible.

         15             It has been more than five years since Cohen 

         16  V. Brown, yet public discourse still sounds oddly 

         17  familiar and unchanged.  The advocates, the 

         18  complainers, the defenders of nonrevenue sports, the 

         19  haters of football, the blamers of Title IX, they are 

         20  still shouting, still talking. 

         21             Perhaps it is because the situation at Brown 

         22  was so different from that of the average college.  It 

         23  is difficult to generalize.  They are, for example, no 

         24  athletic scholarships at stake.  The ivy league doesn't 

         25  allow them.  There was the unusual size of the women's 

                                                                  33

          1  program prior to the suit, and prior to the suit, Brown 

          2  already had one of the nations's broadest varsity 

          3  programs for women. 

          4             And finally, Brown was able to resolve its 

          5  proportionality requirements by simply restructuring 

          6  its program without deleting men's teams.  Or perhaps 

          7  it was the odd sensation that after all the dust of the 

          8  trial had settled, the central issue, proportionality, 

          9  is still with us.  As it stands, the law eliminates the 

         10  actual interest and ability of students as a factor in 

         11  the design of varsity programs. 

         12             Institutions are responsible for the raw 

         13  universe of people, not the universe of students who 

         14  have the varsity ability and interest, but the 

         15  university of all students, whether or not they care to 

         16  be involved in varsity athletics. 

         17             Ironically, as interest in women's sports 

         18  grows and as more college aged women are interested and 

         19  able to compete at an intercollegiate level, Title IX 

         20  may well be functioning as a ceiling. 

         21             A compliant program that would normally seek 

         22  to accommodate the increased interest and abilities of 

         23  its female students, all compliance limits to its 

         24  expansion beyond the gender ratio that obtains in the 

         25  entire undergraduate student body. 

                                                                  34

          1             There will be no serious proponents of 

          2  eliminating or in any way addressing Title IX in such a 

          3  way that it does not provide additional opportunities 

          4  for women.  Colleges and universities are committed to 

          5  that; as we have heard today, the U.S. Government is 

          6  committed to that; and we as the citizenry of the 

          7  United States are committed to that. 

          8             However, it is worth noting that we live in 

          9  different universes and that there are things that we 

         10  must note about the way we operate differently. 

         11             Colleges do not select from their applicant 

         12  pool on the basis of gender alone or even gender and 

         13  race or ethnicity.  Admission itself is a complex art 

         14  that encompasses recognition of and attention to 

         15  scholastic achievement, career interest across a 

         16  spectrum of available fields of study, and diversity 

         17  that includes geographic cultural representation and 

         18  socioeconomic status. 

         19             Few schools have the luxury of expanding any 

         20  special group without first reflecting on their own 

         21  existing resources to accommodate the group, including 

         22  their fiscal and facilities.

         23             Advanced planning is not just an important 

         24  element of change, it is a critical component.  It just 

         25  simply isn't true in all aspects that if you build it, 

                                                                  35

          1  they will come.  It is true that if you build it, they 

          2  will come, but the question is in what numbers? 

          3             The screenings for higher education have not 

          4  been hit in many cases, and yet we are committed to 

          5  continuing to build it and continuing to encourage them 

          6  to come. 

          7             Scheduling volleyball games for a stadium 

          8  will not fill the stadium, televising the swimming 

          9  meets won't tilt the Nielsen ratings, and adding 

         10  significant numbers of women's teams has not 

         11  automatically generated the interest and participation 

         12  that we had all hoped and prayed for. 

         13             This, of course, does not mean that we 

         14  should in any way not provide substantial and increased 

         15  opportunities for women to compete at the highest 

         16  possible level in intercollegiate athletics.  That is 

         17  in fact the thrust of Title IX and should in fact be 

         18  both its promise and our hope. 

         19             Similarly, we should provide both women and 

         20  men the opportunity for club sports or recreational 

         21  activities outside the bounds of team or individual 

         22  competition. 

         23             Our efforts to date to seek common sense 

         24  reasonable and rational regulations and guidelines 

         25  still leaves much to be desired.  For instance, the 

                                                                  36

          1  decision to require schools to disclose information 

          2  about athletic programs, participation levels and 

          3  expenditures provided little insight into the actual 

          4  factors that go into decision making with respect to 

          5  the offering of our support for athletic teams. 

          6             While schools were required to reveal 

          7  expenditures by team and by gender, there was much 

          8  opposition to any placing of a line in the disclosure 

          9  forms for per capita expenses by gender. 

         10             Per capita costs should be as relevant as 

         11  per team costs, and yet neither accurately reflects 

         12  whether or not schools or teams are having their needs 

         13  met.  This can only be done by building the budget for 

         14  the team with adequate inclusions for equipment, 

         15  uniforms, travel, et cetera, and all the other 

         16  components that are necessary to run an athletic 

         17  program, unlike the early and perhaps some of the 

         18  ongoing propositions for Title IX and by Title IX 

         19  advocates, to split university financial expenditures 

         20  evenly, 50/50, at an institution with 50 percent women 

         21  and 50 percent men.  These analyses have been designed 

         22  to show how women's teams fare in the overall 

         23  allocation of financial resources, but unlike a 50/50 

         24  proposition, the inclusion of a per capita analysis 

         25  shows the amount spent on each man compared to the 

                                                                  37

          1  amount spent on each woman.

          2             In the first instance the school with a ten 

          3  million dollar budget for funding of athletic teams 

          4  would be required to spend five million dollars on 

          5  women's teams and five million dollars on men's teams 

          6  regardless of the relative needs of the team.

          7             A per capita analysis, however, might point 

          8  out that a men's team with 30 members might have a per 

          9  capita expense less than a women's team with 10 

         10  members, or vice-versa.

         11             What we really need are regulations that are 

         12  reasonable, rational, and flexible.  I urge this 

         13  commission to look at and to consider regulations and 

         14  guidelines that are both fair and equitable, rational, 

         15  meaning that they are related to meaningful measures, 

         16  including the relevant student populations, flexible, 

         17  allowing for expansion and contraction over time, 

         18  allowing for regional and geographic differences, 

         19  taking into account availability of physical resources 

         20  as well as fiscal resources. 

         21             I urge you to adopt regulations and 

         22  guidelines or to propose or suggest regulations and 

         23  guidelines that are realistic, that recognize and make 

         24  allowances for differences of rates of competition for 

         25  team sports versus individual competition sports, that 

                                                                  38

          1  recognize and make allowances for revenue versus 

          2  nonrevenue sports, for to do otherwise could seriously 

          3  jeopardize a valuable source of revenue for 

          4  substantially a few sports, if not all sports, and thus 

          5  allows institutions who are fortunate enough to be the 

          6  beneficiaries of such income. 

          7             I am not one such institution.  To use 

          8  university or other resources to support nonrevenue and 

          9  emerging sports, I want you to recognize that teams 

         10  have natural limits and universities have natural 

         11  limits on their athletic programs that interested 

         12  schools are often impacted by factors unrelated to the 

         13  school's good faith efforts to promote interest in 

         14  certain sports, to recognize and accept that spectator 

         15  interest and dollar support play a legitimate role but 

         16  should not play the dominant role in the choice of and 

         17  support for institutional athletic offerings. 

         18             They are not legitimate considerations and 

         19  should not influence the availability of opportunities 

         20  for play on any team for provisions for the sport and 

         21  welfare of individual students, including training, 

         22  medical attention, marketing, or general sports 

         23  information. 

         24             We must have regulations and guidelines that 

         25  are equitable and provide for equitable treatment and 

                                                                  39

          1  considerations, not equal.  Outcomes do not necessarily 

          2  paint the real picture with respect to the integrity of 

          3  a university's athletic program. 

          4             Information sought from institutions must 

          5  focus more on the relevance of costs used to build the 

          6  budgets rather than the comparison by teams of 

          7  expenditures. 

          8             We must utilize not only overall 

          9  expenditures and expenditures by team, but also per 

         10  capita expenditures and go beyond that in analyzing 

         11  what makes both reasonable. 

         12             And finally we must preserve institutional 

         13  autonomy.  Universities must have full discretion and 

         14  responsibility to determine the breadth and scope of 

         15  their athletic offerings just as they do for their 

         16  academic programs.  Small, private, large public 

         17  community colleges, rural and urban community colleges 

         18  will all differ in their approach, and yet all can have 

         19  legitimate programs with integrity.

         20             To achieve this, it is certainly necessary 

         21  to modify or at least clarify the three-part test that 

         22  you are looking at.  And I will have comments on that 

         23  at a later point in time when we are asked questions.  

         24  It is, however, appropriate that we revisit the issue 

         25  and the provisions relating to substantial 

                                                                  40

          1  proportionality. 

          2             Statistical disparity, if used, must be 

          3  correlating to the relevant populations; the relevant 

          4  populations, not the enrollment by gender.  If the rule 

          5  of proportionality is to stand, we must give it a 

          6  rational basis. 

          7             The history of continuing expansion must 

          8  move away from an analysis that mimics the political 

          9  priorities, such as, what have you done for me lately?  

         10  We must be able to accommodate viable sports and allow 

         11  the provision to measure interest in both women's and 

         12  men's sports to determine if universities are meeting 

         13  their obligations equitably. 

         14             It has been appropriately determined in 

         15  court cases outside the athletic context that 

         16  evidentiary standards that infer discrimination based 

         17  on statistical comparisons, which include a pool of 

         18  persons who are not interested in the opportunities, 

         19  may be tantamount to preferential treatment. 

         20             We should be careful to avoid this while 

         21  still maintaining our objective of providing women with 

         22  more and better opportunities.  Of course colleges and 

         23  universities can and should do better.  They must adopt 

         24  standards for setting their priorities, and they must 

         25  make those standards known. 

                                                                  41

          1             Whatever is decided, neither colleges and 

          2  universities or their student athletes or their student 

          3  bodies should be subject to the whims of shifting 

          4  regulatory schemes.  The umbrella is large enough and 

          5  should always be large enough to allow threatened men's 

          6  teams, including wrestling and swimming, emerging 

          7  women's teams, and yes, even football, to coexist 

          8  within an athletic environment that is ethical, 

          9  reasonable, rational and flexible and yet embraces 

         10  institutional autonomy. 

         11             This is your task.  It is our hope.  Thank 

         12  you very much.

         13                  MS. CYNTHIA COOPER:  Thank you.  Marcia 

         14  Greenberger.  Marcia Greenberger is founder and 

         15  Co-President of the National Women's Law Center in 

         16  Washington, D.C.  Yes, it's your turn. 

         17             Marcia has been involved extensively in 

         18  issues pertaining to sex discrimination and the law and 

         19  has participated in the development of key legislative 

         20  initiatives and litigation protecting women's rights, 

         21  particularly in the areas of education, employment and 

         22  health. 

         23             Marcia established herself as a Director of 

         24  the Women's Rights Project of the Center for Law and 

         25  Social Policy, which then became the National Women's 

                                                                  42

          1  Law Center in 1981.  Her professional honors include 

          2  the women's lawyer of the year award by the D.C. 

          3  women's Bar Association in 1996. 

          4             In addition, she received a Presidential 

          5  appointment to the National Skill Standards Board and 

          6  is also a member of the Executive Committee of the 

          7  leadership Conference on Civil Rights. 

          8             She is a member of the American Law 

          9  Institute and the American Bar Association Council of 

         10  the Individual Rights and Responsibilities Section. 

         11             Marcia. 

         12                  MS. MARCIA GREENBERGER:  Thank you very 

         13  much, and thank you to the Commission for giving me 

         14  this opportunity to appear before you here today. 

         15             I'm very grateful for the chance to speak to 

         16  you about such an important issue as Title IX and the 

         17  way it has been interpreted and enforced since its 

         18  passage in 1972.

         19             I began working on the issue of women's 

         20  rights right after the passage of Title IX in 1972, and 

         21  I am very much a grateful beneficiary of that statute, 

         22  not for my own self and my own educational experiences 

         23  because I went through college and law school pre 1972 

         24  days, but for my daughter's opportunities to play.  And 

         25  it has made an enormous difference in their lives as 

                                                                  43

          1  well as the lives of so many other young women.  And as 

          2  they grow and mature, as Senator Bayh pointed out so 

          3  eloquently, in their future lives, their very health, 

          4  their professional opportunities, the benefits of 

          5  athletic participation really can't be debated anymore 

          6  than the way they were in 1972 when Title IX was 

          7  passed. 

          8             I remember very distinctly being attacked by 

          9  those who claimed that supporters of Title IX were 

         10  really trying to hurt women because women's 

         11  participation in athletics was hurtful to them.  It was 

         12  hurtful to them physically, it would interfere with 

         13  their ability to bear children, it would mean that they 

         14  would lose their femininity, it would ruin their 

         15  ability to get along with people.  Those kinds of 

         16  arguments are hopefully behind us. 

         17             And every person who has spoken today has 

         18  talked about the enormous benefits of athletic 

         19  opportunities for women, and isn't that a great 

         20  achievement after 30 years.

         21             It's also, though, so important to recognize 

         22  that Title IX and the simple statement of principle 

         23  that Senator Bayh so brilliantly described and 

         24  gratefully engineered through passage, that simple 

         25  words of support for that principle have to be 

                                                                  44

          1  translated into concrete actions, into specific 

          2  policies, into specific regulations, into specific 

          3  actions that colleges, universities, public schools at 

          4  the elementary and secondary level have to take.

          5             When Title IX was passed, these colleges, 

          6  universities and schools said they couldn't understand 

          7  what those simple words meant.  It needed to be 

          8  translated into specifics.  We still hear that cry 

          9  today, and one of the questions that the Commission has 

         10  put before it is whether even now today there's enough 

         11  guidance for schools to know what their actual 

         12  obligations are.

         13             So simply saying that everyone supports 

         14  Title IX can mask an enormous variation in obligations, 

         15  in responsibilities, and I don't know very many people 

         16  who would claim that without Title IX, without the 

         17  regulations that were issued in 1975, without the 

         18  policies that were issued in 1979, without the court 

         19  decisions that have upheld those policies in case after 

         20  case after case. 

         21             So we now do have an established body of 

         22  law, an established set of principles, that without 

         23  that clarity we wouldn't have had the progress that we 

         24  are all so proud of today.

         25             So I want to start my remarks by urging you 

                                                                  45

          1  all to think very carefully about your critical charge, 

          2  because what you represent is the beginning of a 

          3  process that has never happened since Title IX was 

          4  passed in 1972.  And that's a public stated official 

          5  process of considering the possibility of changing 

          6  these long-standing policies, these long-standing 

          7  principles that have been fought out in the courts that 

          8  have been explicated, described, presented in detail, 

          9  so that there is as much as there can be the kind of 

         10  parameters and certainty that now schools are beginning 

         11  to depend upon, that women athletes can see that they 

         12  have a right to expect, and we are now beginning to see 

         13  the kind of real progress after so many of these 

         14  challenges. 

         15             So to suggest changing, to suggest new 

         16  principles, can carry with it enormous costs, 

         17  uncertainties, dislocations.  Ms. Ledbetter very 

         18  properly talked about equitable, reasonable, rational, 

         19  and flexible.  Those are the very ways that Congress, 

         20  when it has been approached to try to change these 

         21  Title IX policies, has said they are actually operating 

         22  in fact.  These are the very ways that the courts have 

         23  said these regulations and policies are operating as a 

         24  matter of law and in fact.  They are designed and do 

         25  give schools flexibility, they are reasonable and 

                                                                  46

          1  rational, and they provide for equal opportunity. 

          2             Let me turn for a few minutes to a 

          3  description of some of the core aspects of the policies 

          4  that have been the subject of debate.  One in 

          5  particular, the three-part test that was referenced, 

          6  that determines the ability of women to seek an 

          7  expansion of their right to be able to participate in 

          8  intercollegiate athletics. 

          9             And we've heard references certainly outside 

         10  this hearing and in it to the idea that Title IX is a 

         11  quota bill or has operated in a quota fashion.  That's 

         12  a charge that has been rejected by all the courts that 

         13  have heard it, and these are all courts that have said 

         14  they would not tolerate quotas, that quotas are 

         15  illegal. 

         16             And let's talk a little bit about how 

         17  intercollegiate athletics and athletics at the high 

         18  school level and below really work.  And it's not like 

         19  other areas of our society.  It is the schools that 

         20  decide, and Title IX allows the schools to decide that 

         21  they're going to set up teams that only women can 

         22  participate in or only men can participate in. 

         23             So it's the schools that might have jobs.  

         24  We don't have jobs that are for mostly only women or 

         25  only men, but here we have basketball teams for women, 

                                                                  47

          1  basketball teams for men, football only women, football 

          2  only men. 

          3             I must admit in a Title IX case at one point 

          4  a university claimed that actually their football team 

          5  was open to women, and the fact that it was descriptive 

          6  in their catalog as a male sport was just a description 

          7  that happened to come out for it, but it was really a 

          8  coed team.  The judge did not accept that argument, I 

          9  must admit, softball for women, football for men. 

         10             So in the context that you're considering 

         11  here, the schools decide how many teams they are going 

         12  to offer that they will let women participate in, how 

         13  many slots that those teams will have.  They are 

         14  picking the absolute numbers of how many women can 

         15  apply and how many men can apply and participate, and 

         16  therefore, that's very different than most areas. 

         17             It is really the schools that are setting 

         18  out those arbitrary limits, and what Title IX is saying 

         19  in participation terms is how do we decide whether or 

         20  not those schools' limits are fair and equitable?  

         21  Well, the first part of the test, the so-called 

         22  proportionality part, says a very common sense thing.  

         23  If a school has 50 percent of its students female and 

         24  it gives 50 percent of its participation opportunites 

         25  to women, it can be in compliance with Title IX. 

                                                                  48

          1             Would anyone want to withhold the 

          2  flexibility of a school to be able to offer that 

          3  proportionality of opportunities for women? 

          4             The idea that that first prong of the test 

          5  should be eliminated goes against the very concept of 

          6  flexibility and the very concept of an expectation of 

          7  fairness.  Why wouldn't it be okay for a school to give 

          8  the same number of opportunities for women to 

          9  participate as men as it has in the student body?  And 

         10  for those who say that shouldn't be an option for the 

         11  schools, what they are really saying is it has to be 

         12  unfair because young women are not as interested in 

         13  playing athletics as young men and therefore -- 

         14             (Fire alarm).

         15                  (Brief recess).

         16                  MR. TED LELAND:  We're ready to resume. 

         17                  MS. MARCIA GREENBERGER:  I wanted to 

         18  discuss a little bit about the three-part test that I 

         19  had discussed before the bell went off and was 

         20  discussing the fact that many of those who have 

         21  attacked this first prong and really saying that 

         22  schools shouldn't, it seems to be allowed to provide 

         23  the same number of opportunities in proportion to the 

         24  student population that they have with women and men, 

         25  have to at the end of the day be saying that women 

                                                                  49

          1  aren't as interested in playing and therefore they 

          2  don't deserve the same opportunity as the men.

          3             Well, again, that's been a charge since 

          4  Title IX was passed.  And it had been argued not only, 

          5  of course, that it was going to hurt women to play, but 

          6  also that the number of women who were playing in 1972 

          7  reflected their interests, and that women didn't want 

          8  to play any more than they were.  And then when their 

          9  numbers went up 10 percent, 20 percent, 30 percent 

         10  participation in athletics at each junction, the 

         11  argument was, well, that's the natural stopping point, 

         12  that's as interested as women are in playing. 

         13             Now there are about 41 percent of student 

         14  athletes and schools are setting out slots for them to 

         15  compete in.  It's the schools that are setting up those 

         16  opportunities at 41 percent.  And it also is something 

         17  important to keep in mind with respect to this interest 

         18  that, as has been pointed out, with 2.7 million high 

         19  school girls playing sports and about 200,000 

         20  intercollegiate opportunities for women to play sports, 

         21  the idea that 2.7 plus million high school students, 

         22  female students, wouldn't in larger than 41 percent 

         23  numbers be interested in playing. 

         24             The 200,000 sports opportunities that 

         25  schools allow them to play is preposterous on its face, 

                                                                  50

          1  and that's really what those courts, when they were 

          2  looking at these decisions, said.

          3             And when they talked about school's 

          4  arguments that women aren't interested in playing, they 

          5  said the schools are engaging in the old stereotype, 

          6  the very stereotypes that Title IX was passed, as 

          7  Senator Bayh pointed out, to dispel that Title IX makes 

          8  illegal, and that this three-part test is not only a 

          9  reasonable way of interpreting Title IX, but it goes to 

         10  the essence, and the importance of the equality mandate 

         11  of Title IX to have these opportunities spelled out in 

         12  this way.

         13             The second part of the test is the most 

         14  flexible part of a civil rights test that I must say I 

         15  have seen in looking at employment discrimination law 

         16  or any law that deals with discrimination.  After that 

         17  part, a school can be in compliance with Title IX if it 

         18  shows that it's making progress, it has a history and 

         19  continuing practice of making progress towards reaching 

         20  -- imagine if a woman were coming in and if her 

         21  employer agreed that he was paying her less than her 

         22  male co-worker but said don't worry, every year I'm 

         23  going to increase your salary by a dollar an hour, and 

         24  in five years, maybe ten, in five years I'm going to 

         25  try to get you up to equal pay with your male 

                                                                  51

          1  co-worker.  I'm going to keep raising it year after 

          2  year until I get you to quality of pay.  That employer 

          3  would be laughed out of court. 

          4             When we're talking about flexibility, this 

          5  three-part test and its second part allows schools to 

          6  say they are going to be phasing in equal opportunity 

          7  over time, and so young women are going to have to wait 

          8  over the years as these schools come into compliance; 

          9  that, to me, is the definition of flexibility.

         10             And the third part of the test is that even 

         11  if a school isn't given a proportionate number of 

         12  opportunities to its female students as to its male 

         13  students to play, even if it isn't making progress 

         14  towards equality in a continuing way, it can still be 

         15  in compliance with Title IX if it can show that it is 

         16  fully and effectively meeting the interests and 

         17  abilities of its female students.  That, too, is the 

         18  essence of flexibility. 

         19             So what that third part of the test is 

         20  saying is that it's really true that women aren't as 

         21  interested in playing and the school cannot provide an 

         22  equal number of opportunities in its student body with 

         23  respect to the female students that it has, then it can 

         24  be in compliance with Title IX nonetheless.  That is 

         25  where the interest perspective comes in, to that third 

                                                                  52

          1  prong of the test.

          2             Well, the problem for opponents of Title IX 

          3  is that when schools have tried to argue and others 

          4  have tried to argue in many instances that women in 

          5  their campuses are not as interested in playing, they 

          6  haven't been able to convince people that that's the 

          7  case for obvious reasons.  Even in Brown there were 

          8  obviously a number women to be playing to meet -- and 

          9  interested and meeting the proportionality test.  And 

         10  Brown University had actually cut two women's teams 

         11  that were championship teams, in fact.  So they were as 

         12  interested in playing.

         13             Well, here we have this three-part test as 

         14  flexible on its face as it's possible to imagine a 

         15  civil rights statute to be.  Is there something about 

         16  the way it's been enforced that somehow makes it less 

         17  flexible in fact than it appears on the face of it?  

         18  Again, the facts show that flexibility.  In fact, 

         19  during the period of time in the late '90s when the 

         20  three-part test was clarified by the policy 

         21  clarification in 1996, the majority of schools whose 

         22  programs were reviewed by the Office For Civil Rights 

         23  were found in compliance not under the proportionality 

         24  prong, but under the interest prong, that they were 

         25  effectively meeting the interests and abilities of 

                                                                  53

          1  their female students, even though they weren't 

          2  providing the same proportion of opportunities and even 

          3  though they weren't showing a history of continued 

          4  experience.

          5             So schools whose programs have been reviewed 

          6  by the Office For Civil Rights most recently have been 

          7  most likely found in compliance under prong three, this 

          8  interest test.  And I must say, not having had an 

          9  opportunity to look at the facts that those schools 

         10  provided, it would be important I think for this 

         11  commission to see whether or not there was actually too 

         12  much flexibility in the way the Office For Civil Rights 

         13  was interpreting and applying this three-part test and 

         14  what in fact was the real justification of these 

         15  schools for showing that their female students weren't 

         16  interested enough in playing that those schools did not 

         17  have to provide them a proportionate number of 

         18  opportunities to play. 

         19             I think it would be very important for this 

         20  commission to look at the showings actually made by 

         21  those schools, but on the face of it, the Office For 

         22  Civil Rights has been enforcing this three-part test in 

         23  an extraordinary flexible way.

         24             I want to make one other comment with 

         25  respect to flexibility, and that is what happens when 

                                                                  54

          1  schools have had a program as has obviously been the 

          2  case in the history of our country, an intercollegiate 

          3  athletics program or an athletics program at the high 

          4  school level or below, historically all male teams, or 

          5  virtually all male teams, that is the way life was pre 

          6  1972.

          7             How does a country that wants to open up 

          8  opportunities for women do it?  As Senator Bayh says, 

          9  everybody would like that to be done, but finding new 

         10  resources in order to expand and find new opportunities 

         11  for women and young girls and add those opportunities 

         12  to the ones that are existing for young men, and that 

         13  is the way it has happened for the last 30 years. 

         14             The General Accounting Office study shows 

         15  that, NCAA statistics shows that overall men's 

         16  participation has gone up.  Of course, women's 

         17  participation has gone up more because it had been 

         18  closed out.  So obviously it had to come out more.

         19             But looking at that hallmark of flexibility, 

         20  those policies have said that schools have the 

         21  flexibility to come into compliance without only adding 

         22  women's opportunities.  If they must, they have the 

         23  flexibility to cut back on some of the men's 

         24  opportunities.  That is not flexibility that women's 

         25  rights advocates urged, that was the flexibility that 

                                                                  55

          1  was urged by schools and that the development in its 

          2  test and policies responded to.  And the courts in 

          3  reviewing this policy and deciding what the remedies 

          4  should be also said in the interest of flexibility, in 

          5  the interest of respecting schools' own decision making 

          6  authority, in the interest of trying to allow for some 

          7  kind of accommodation of this, this moral imperative or 

          8  this legal imperative for quality, obviously it isn't 

          9  acceptable to tell women just wait, accept third class 

         10  status until schools can decide they have enough money 

         11  to add programs for you.  That can't be right, if 

         12  schools have limited funds, it could be that women just 

         13  have to wait in the corner quietly until schools decide 

         14  it's their turn for more of a chance to play.

         15             Does a school have the flexibility to cut 

         16  some of the resources it's putting into men's teams if 

         17  that is necessary?  The Department of Education's 

         18  policies has given the schools back flexibility.  If 

         19  the Department of Education wants to review its 

         20  regulations, its policies, and say schools must add 

         21  resources to bring women up to men and take that 

         22  flexibility away from schools, to do some cutting if 

         23  they decide that that's necessary, I assure you that 

         24  advocates for women's athletic opportunities would be 

         25  supportive of that. 

                                                                  56

          1             It is the schools themselves who have had 

          2  the ear of the Department of Education and insisted on 

          3  the flexibility to be able to cut resources going to 

          4  men's teams if that's what they choose to do.  It is a 

          5  fortunate thing that most colleges and universities, 

          6  including Brown, have not chosen to do that.  It is in 

          7  the interest of fairness, in the interest of what is 

          8  best for our country, that in fact colleges and 

          9  universities and schools below have tried and in fact 

         10  have succeeded largely in expanding male athletic 

         11  opportunities and women's athletic opportunities, and 

         12  so Title IX has been an extraordinary success story in 

         13  that respect.

         14             I want to finally say that it's especially 

         15  wonderful to have this first hearing both in Atlanta 

         16  because I was reminded, of course, of the Olympics, and 

         17  one of the questions of the Commission is looking at 

         18  the effect of Title IX on other kinds of athletic 

         19  forums, including the Olympics.  And because of Title 

         20  IX, as has been pointed out, women in this country have 

         21  been able to show the extraordinary skill and talent 

         22  demonstrated to the Commission members here before the 

         23  world at large. 

         24             And after all, in the Olympic games in 1996 

         25  in Atlanta Title IX was a hero for what it meant for 

                                                                  57

          1  women's participation in gold medals in those team 

          2  sports.

          3             It's also true that in Atlanta the newspaper 

          4  did a series of investigations of what was happening in 

          5  the high schools around the state just a few years ago 

          6  and found extraordinary discrimination in the resources 

          7  going into high school sports in favor of the male 

          8  sports, to the point that the Georgia legislature 

          9  passed a law specifically beefing up their state 

         10  protections against sex discrimination in high school 

         11  athletics and requiring serious disclosure of the kind 

         12  of support that is going into high school athletics in 

         13  Georgia, expose in Pittsburgh and other places around 

         14  the country show that the discrimination that was the 

         15  reason that Title IX was passed has not been fully 

         16  eradicated even at the 30th anniversary of Title IX.

         17             The final reason that it seems too wonderful 

         18  to be in Atlanta right today is that, of course, over 

         19  this past weekend Atlanta hosted an important soccer 

         20  tournament.  In coming from Washington, D.C., it's 

         21  often viewed as a seat of national power, of course, 

         22  but it's also a city where people live, and I couldn't 

         23  help but bring just as a final note our hometown 

         24  newspaper, the Washington Post, which on the front page 

         25  for the last three days in the top of the fold, the 

                                                                  58

          1  lead story for three days in a row had to do with 

          2  women's sports. 

          3             The Washington Mystics and the Freedom bid 

          4  for titles on Saturday's paper.  In Sunday's paper what 

          5  happened unfortunately to the Freedom, and on Monday's 

          6  paper what happened unfortunately after a fabulous 

          7  season to the Mystics in New York. 

          8             I assure you that not only when Title IX was 

          9  passed would people have never predicted that we would 

         10  see that kind of coverage of women's professional 

         11  sports, let alone any professional sports for women, 

         12  but people are still predicting, despite our 30 years 

         13  of history, that women can be as interested in playing, 

         14  people won't watch them as much, they can't benefit as 

         15  much from athletic opportunity as men, because the 

         16  facts are so much on our side now because the law as 

         17  written now is so flexible and has been upheld even 

         18  with this flexibility because it has made the 

         19  difference.

         20             I urge you to encourage the Department of 

         21  Education to keep the policies that are now clarified, 

         22  interpreted, supported by the courts, in place.  And 

         23  finally, I would urge that you urge the Department of 

         24  Education to enhance its enforcement.  The Department 

         25  of Education has responded to complaints of 

                                                                  59

          1  discrimination in athletics.  It has rarely, if ever, 

          2  conducted its own compliance reviews based upon the 

          3  public available data to go out and look at the range 

          4  of problems across the country.  Of course it should be 

          5  investigating those complaints, but with all of the 

          6  clear discrimination that is still going on, whether in 

          7  scholarships, whether in recruiting, whether in 

          8  budgets, which are still a small fraction of the 

          9  budgets going to men's sports, the Department of 

         10  Education's enforcement has been extremely limited. 

         11             The cases are the cases that have had to be 

         12  brought by individual athletes who are not in a 

         13  position generally to bear the cost of those lawsuits, 

         14  so what we need on the 30th anniversary of Title IX is 

         15  much more vigorous enforcement of Title IX at the 

         16  collegiate level, where as was found in Atlanta and as 

         17  was found across the country in many other cases.  And 

         18  we have reports, and I would submit a report from the 

         19  National Law Center, for the purposes of the record.  

         20  We still see far too much discrimination and not enough 

         21  attention and not enough of a public spotlight on the 

         22  problems that still need to be addressed.

         23             Thank you.

         24                  MS. CYNTHIA COOPER:  Thank you, Marcia.  

         25  We're kind of running a little over, so we're going to 

                                                                  60

          1  limit the question and answer sessions to 14 minutes.  

          2  So I want to open up for questions now. 

          3                  MR. PERCY BATES:  Ms. Ledbetter, would 

          4  you talk a little bit more about what you meant by 

          5  flexibility? 

          6                  MS. BEVERLY LEDBETTER:  Surely.  I 

          7  don't have my notes in front of me, but by flexibility, 

          8  I mean that the institution must have -- and it also 

          9  relates to autonomy -- the institution must have the 

         10  flexibility of designing its own program in accordance 

         11  with its available resources, the resources that are 

         12  both fiscal and those that are facilities. 

         13             I think that that in and of itself brings 

         14  some institutions in conflict with prong three, or what 

         15  we call the third part of the test, which is the 

         16  accommodation of viable sports.

         17             Some institutions really have limited fiscal 

         18  resources, and these are very, very difficult.  

         19  Sometimes they are dependent on outside financial 

         20  contributions, donations, alumni, or donor support, fan 

         21  participation.  And one of the things that I said is 

         22  that an institution ought to be allowed to use those 

         23  resources to the maximum benefit of the institution, 

         24  which may mean that the resources that support one 

         25  sport may allow an institution to free up resources 

                                                                  61

          1  that support other sports. 

          2             I also meant by flexibility the fact that 

          3  there shouldn't be a requirement that a school continue 

          4  to offer sports when it is in fact retrenching with 

          5  respect to academic programs.  I think after all, we 

          6  have to recognize that the primary responsibility of an 

          7  institution is its academic core, not its athletic 

          8  core.  And as important as that is, that is a part of 

          9  the learning opportunities just as not to offer any 

         10  sports or any extracurricular activities, it ought to 

         11  have the opportunity to explain those. 

         12             And so when I mean flexibility, I mean 

         13  flexibility across all three parts of the test. 

         14             Thank you. 

         15                  MR. GENE DeFILIPPO:  Thank you.  Gene 

         16  Filippo from Boston College.  Like so many of the 

         17  commissioners, our colleagues have called us, have 

         18  written us, communicated to us written questions, 

         19  concerns, issues that they have that they would like us 

         20  to ask questions about, that they would like us to seek 

         21  information about.

         22             One of the questions that keeps coming up 

         23  continually for me from those of my colleagues and 

         24  others is -- this is for all three of you -- is there 

         25  the guidance necessary for institutions to show that 

                                                                  62

          1  they are in compliance using parts two and three of the 

          2  test? 

          3             Examples, what does expanding opportunities 

          4  mean?  Does it mean the addition of a sport per year, 

          5  over a three-year period, over a five-year period?  

          6  What does it mean?  When is an institution meeting the 

          7  interests and abilities for participation? 

          8             There are many schools in the northeast, for 

          9  example, that are situated in ivy leagues.  They have 

         10  between 30 and 40 sports programs.  They are 

         11  nonscholarshipped.  When do you have to have 40 sports 

         12  to be able to compete with the equestrians, the 

         13  fencing, the sailing, and skiing?  At what point is 

         14  there the guidance necessary in prong three for us to 

         15  know that we're in compliance? 

         16                  MS. MARCIA GREENBERGER:  I'm happy to 

         17  at least begin.  I think that certainly since Title IX 

         18  was enacted in 1972, schools have been asking for 

         19  guidance.  And obviously that guidance has continued to 

         20  come with more and more specificity.  But at the end of 

         21  the day there has to be as a matter of common sense 

         22  looking fact by fact at the specifics of a particular 

         23  school. 

         24             In response to the need for more guidance, 

         25  in 1996 the Department of Education issued more policy 

                                                                  63

          1  clarification and responded to those very questions for 

          2  part two and part three of the test and gave some 

          3  specific examples of what it would accept and different 

          4  hypotheticals of what it would accept for part two and 

          5  part three. 

          6             So in answer to your specific question about 

          7  what does it mean to have a history of continuing 

          8  practice of expanding opportunities?  Does it mean 

          9  having a team every year?  That '96 policy 

         10  clarification says no, it does not mean that and gives 

         11  one example of a school that might have added teams 

         12  every few years after surveying the interests of high 

         13  school students, what other schools were providing, and 

         14  the like. 

         15             It gave an example of another school that 

         16  had actually cut a team, a women's team, by adding a 

         17  bigger women's team at the same time and then added 

         18  every few years other women's teams as yet a different 

         19  fact pattern, but one that could meet that second test.  

         20  And it provided other actual examples as well.

         21             So there is a lot of guidance.  It also 

         22  would be important, and I suspect if this commission 

         23  asked, it would find that the Office For Civil Rights 

         24  regional offices are available to answer questions.  

         25  That is the way it is with every enforcement agency, 

                                                                  64

          1  with every law that has to be enforced, with everybody 

          2  who is wondering whether or not their practices may 

          3  fit. 

          4             So, too, with respect to meeting the 

          5  interests of the students in prong three.  You said the 

          6  ivy league provides a lot of athletic opportunities.  

          7  Does another college that actually provides scholarships to its 

          8  athletes have to provide 40 teams?  It isn't that they 

          9  have to provide 40 teams because the ivy league 

         10  provides 40 teams.  Title IX doesn't say that at all. 

         11             What Title IX is saying, again, to go back, 

         12  and let that be your important point of flexibility, is 

         13  schools don't have to provide an athletic program at 

         14  all.  Title IX doesn't say there has to be one.  

         15  Schools can decide the size of the athletic program.  

         16  They don't have to invest in a big athletic program.  

         17  If they want to invest more on the academic side of 

         18  things, Title IX doesn't say they can't do that.

         19             However, if a college is providing a lot of 

         20  opportunities to its male athletes and fewer to its 

         21  female athletes and then claiming there isn't enough 

         22  interest among female athletes to give them the same 

         23  opportunities as it gives its now students, while 

         24  schools down the road are providing a lot of teams for 

         25  women and have no problems filling those teams, then 

                                                                  65

          1  and only then would that school have to answer to why 

          2  it is in fact meeting the interests and abilities of 

          3  and fully accommodating the interests and abilities of 

          4  its female students when it's giving them less 

          5  opportunities to play than it's giving its male 

          6  students.  It doesn't have to give them 40 teams.  But 

          7  if it's giving men a lot of opportunities it isn't 

          8  giving the women and there are a lot of teams that it 

          9  could be fielding for its women students and it isn't, 

         10  then appropriately so, the school is going to have a 

         11  hard time claiming to be meeting the interests and 

         12  abilities of its female students.

         13                  MS. BEVERLY LEDBETTER:  Very briefly, I 

         14  think that while the question begs entry into another 

         15  area, that is that if you have schools that already 

         16  have significant offerings in terms of women's teams, 

         17  perhaps even more teams than men's teams, and you are 

         18  now confronted and the focus is on you for compliance 

         19  and you are not proportional, where do you go on your 

         20  two and three and how do you set reasonable standards 

         21  for determining whether that school has expanded its 

         22  women's opportunities? 

         23             They are already there, so they may not have 

         24  happened in the last four, five, six, seven or even ten 

         25  years.  Do you or are you penalized for having had an 

                                                                  66

          1  early compliance program where you offered these 

          2  opportunities that are comparable to or greater than 

          3  other schools at a very early point in time?  That 

          4  would be prong two.  So I think that's why you've asked 

          5  for guidance under prong two, to clarify that guidance. 

          6             And under prong three, you're already at 

          7  that natural limit, some limit for your facilities for 

          8  your resources.  How do you then continue to add teams 

          9  when you know that you cannot continue to do so without 

         10  growing that athletic pie at the same time that you may 

         11  be reducing the academic offerings? 

         12             And I think those are considerations that 

         13  are worthy of your attention. 

         14                  MS. RITA SIMON:  When schools indicate 

         15  that their women are not participating in high enough 

         16  numbers or in accordance with their percentages of 

         17  students on campus, are universities or colleges 

         18  expected to explain how they found out that women 

         19  students are not interested?  Are colleges expected to 

         20  produce data, information to show that they have had a 

         21  program in which they have tried to interest women 

         22  students in athletics?  Are they expected to show how 

         23  they measured the fact that women students are not as 

         24  interested?  Or does one simply take the word of the 

         25  college that, well, only 25 percent of the women are 

                                                                  67

          1  interested?  Or do they show fully well that we've had 

          2  publicity programs, we've gone into the dorms and 

          3  talked with women students?  What kinds of things are 

          4  colleges expected to show? 

          5                  MS. BEVERLY LEDBETTER:  Under no 

          6  circumstances should we simply take the word of a 

          7  college or a university. 

          8                  MS. RITA SIMON:  But do we? 

          9                  MS. BEVERLY LEDBETTER:  No, I don't 

         10  think we do.  And part of the problem that we have, 

         11  which I think Ms. Greenberger correctly focused on, is 

         12  that we have a lot of the enforcement of Title IX in 

         13  courts.  And I don't believe that it is necessarily 

         14  true that courts have found a proper measure of how you 

         15  determine interest. 

         16             Surveys would certainly be one of the ways 

         17  that universities would advocate, and the question is 

         18  do you survey the current student body or do you survey 

         19  the prospective student body?  In fact, the SAT 

         20  provides a measure of surveying for the prospective 

         21  student body, and universities and colleges have 

         22  attempted to survey their current student bodies.  But 

         23  remember that student body every four years changes and 

         24  so you have to look at that, and schools should be 

         25  required to show.  But I don't think we should accept 

                                                                  68

          1  that women are not interested.  The question is do we 

          2  have enough interest in the competitive or 

          3  intercollegiate sports to reach a proportionality 

          4  standard; and if so, what proportionalty standard 

          5  should we use as a measure? 

          6             We are advocating that the measure should be 

          7  with regard to the interest and abilities of the 

          8  student population that is interested in participating. 

          9                  SENATOR BAYH:  May I respond to a 

         10  question?  I think you expressed very well the deep 

         11  quandary that we must face with Title IX.  And here 

         12  again, I can only speak to what I believe in my heart 

         13  and mind of all of us that were involved in Title IX at 

         14  the time, and I think it's even more relevant today 

         15  than when we passed it. 

         16             When we passed it, we didn't expect Moses 

         17  striking the rod and turning it into water.  We knew it 

         18  would take time.  Social change does take time.  And 

         19  thus, the flexibility I think is good.  And I firmly 

         20  believe in institutional integrity, but I think 

         21  institutions in this country exist within a framework 

         22  of basic U.S. law, which equality of opportunity is a 

         23  fundamental part.  And so I think it's up to each 

         24  institution to make that determination within its 

         25  resources, but those institutions that just sit there 

                                                                  69

          1  and say, by darn, this is the way it's going to be, 

          2  it's always been that way and we're not going to 

          3  change, they are in trouble. 

          4             As long as they are making progress, it's 

          5  sort of like you will know it when you see it, and 

          6  you'll know it when you don't see it. 

          7             I want to say thank you for bringing those 

          8  public and press clippings because I've got to tell 

          9  you, I think there's been a whole sea of change in 

         10  public perception as far as the place of women in the 

         11  sports world. 

         12             At the time we passed Title IX, there was -- 

         13  I think we were facing with that title, and I happened 

         14  to have been involved in the sponsor of the equal 

         15  rights amendment.  We were faced with a situation where 

         16  women were treated more severely and punished more 

         17  severely for committing the same crime that a man 

         18  committed because a woman shouldn't do that kind of 

         19  thing. 

         20             Women weren't getting equal pay for equal 

         21  work.  There were a whole litany of things, and Title 

         22  IX fell short because at that time I think the state 

         23  legislatures got the message and they changed a lot of 

         24  the state laws, and it wasn't necessary to come back 

         25  and make the same changes at the national level.  But 

                                                                  70

          1  in the area of education we thought in Congress there 

          2  needed to be a uniform national policy, because the 

          3  education of our boys and girls and young men and women 

          4  is the most important thing. 

          5             I couldn't argue at all.  I thought the most 

          6  important gain of Title IX would be academic because a 

          7  large percentage of our student body is not qualified 

          8  to participate in athletics.  And we've made enormous 

          9  progress there.  And at the time it was just a stage.  

         10  Some of those law schools, by gosh, you couldn't get 

         11  in, or if you got in and got out, the law firms 

         12  wouldn't accept you. 

         13             And I realized I thought we had really 

         14  arrived, and I remember picking up the newspaper, the 

         15  Washington Post, and the headlines of the sports page 

         16  contained the headline University of Maryland beat the 

         17  University of Virginia, and I said that can't be the 

         18  case, they just played last week.  And suddenly I 

         19  realized here was a headline on the Washington Post 

         20  sports page about a women's game. 

         21             So I think more and more the place of women, 

         22  varsity women, what women get out of it as well as what 

         23  society gets out of it, I see change as a part of it.  

         24  I think you on this commission will recognize it, and I 

         25  think you'll be wise enough to do the right thing or 

                                                                  71

          1  not to do the wrong thing. 

          2             And forgive me, I can't help but think 

          3  philosophically as it affects people because I've been 

          4  fortunate to spend a lot of dealings with that kind of 

          5  thing. 

          6             Thank you.  Excuse me if I've cut somebody 

          7  off. 

          8                  MR. GRAHAM SPANIER:  Senator Bayh, if I 

          9  could ask you for one further comment.  You've spoken 

         10  very eloquently and persuasively about the 

         11  establishment of Title IX and the success that it has 

         12  had. 

         13             I suspect that most of the angst that exists 

         14  today is not about Title IX as it was when you 

         15  sponsored it.  And we'll probably hear in subsequent 

         16  testimony that the angst centers more around the 1979 

         17  policy interpretation and the 1996 letter of 

         18  clarification. 

         19             And I'm wondering from your perspective, are 

         20  you entirely comfortable with how these policies and 

         21  regulations have evolved with the legislation or would 

         22  you believe that this commission should be looking at 

         23  the nuances of those interpretations and taking a fresh 

         24  look in 2002 about whether there might be some changes; 

         25  or conversely, whether maybe it's dangerous to get into 

                                                                  72

          1  that zone and just follow from where we had been? 

          2                  SENATOR BAYH:  Well, President Spanier, 

          3  first of all, I assume that other people believe in 

          4  institutional control over some affairs, and I believe 

          5  in it as well.  I think all of us agree that that has 

          6  to be within certain limits that are publicly accepted.  

          7  And within that institutional structure you have the 

          8  responsibility it seems to me to apportion resources in 

          9  a way that ultimately reaches equality. 

         10             I mean, it's been 31 years and the number is 

         11  41 percent.  And it's a minuscule percent of people 

         12  that have been affected adversely.  I mean, here you 

         13  got 72 percent of the institutions can read Title IX's 

         14  existent regulations and letter ruling.  Why is it 

         15  impossible for them not to help devote creativity in 

         16  the minds of others in those small proportion of cases 

         17  that had to take a different course than just to 

         18  provide more opportunity for women? 

         19             I don't know if I answered your question or 

         20  not, but I think we're on pretty solid ground now.  I 

         21  think if all the athletic directors (INAUDIBLE) seat of 

         22  their pants, but he sort of played that role at Indiana 

         23  State one time.  But if all the athletic directors got 

         24  together in one room and figured out, okay, how do we 

         25  solve this problem, not how we can get around the 

                                                                  73

          1  requirements, I think you would be amazed. 

          2             And I frankly believe that most athletic 

          3  directors, even those that had to face the tough choice 

          4  of doing what I would prefer them not to do, I think 

          5  that even they wanted to find a way to meet the 

          6  standard so that they can comply and continue toward 

          7  their own equality. 

          8             Maybe I'm wrong about that.  It's dangerous 

          9  ground for me. 

         10                  MS. MARCIA GREENBERGER:  I wonder if I 

         11  could also respond to your question just for a minute 

         12  and talk again about this flexibility issue, because 

         13  it's very instructive that when cuts for men's teams 

         14  are made, there is an assumption amongst some that it 

         15  was because of Title IX that those cuts were made. 

         16             I heard the charges with some schools, 

         17  especially with respect to wrestling, and have been 

         18  told by administrators involved in the decision it 

         19  wasn't because of Title IX that particular teams were 

         20  cut, it was because of budget limitations.  But when 

         21  decisions have to be made, and it isn't a question of 

         22  attacking football or disliking football, but when 

         23  decisions have to be made about where limited funds 

         24  should go, if a school decides it wants to build a new 

         25  or enhance its football stadium, at the same time that 

                                                                  74

          1  it cuts a men's team and doesn't cut any women's teams, 

          2  is that because of Title IX?  Is it Title IX's fault?  

          3  Or is it the school's decision to build the football 

          4  stadium or to pay an enhanced signing bonus for a coach 

          5  or to charter planes or pay for first class hotels for 

          6  football players the night before a home game? 

          7             We're not talking about pointing fingers of 

          8  blame or attacking football, but these budget 

          9  decisions, Title IX is giving the schools the 

         10  flexibility to make, and, as Ms. Ledbetter said, giving 

         11  schools the flexibility to decide which teams they want 

         12  to invest in and whether they want to invest heavily in 

         13  some teams as opposed to others for whatever their 

         14  reasons, for donor reasons because they hope some day 

         15  maybe they'll not only generate revenue but heaping 

         16  maybe a profit, but most teams don't; their donor 

         17  contributions, whatever their reasons are, Title IX 

         18  says schools have the flexibility to invest in those 

         19  teams. 

         20             There are the men's teams, there are the 

         21  football and basketball.  In Division 1-A over 70 

         22  percent of male budgets are going to football and 

         23  basketball. 

         24             Why is the question posed that when women's 

         25  teams have 36 percent of the operating budgets, it's 

                                                                  75

          1  Title IX's fault when a cut to a men's team takes 

          2  place?  And why is the question never raised about the 

          3  fact that some women's teams are cut, too? 

          4             Women's gymnastics, for example, has 

          5  experienced cuts over the years, not because of Title 

          6  IX obviously, but because of changing priorities of 

          7  those schools as to which teams they are going to 

          8  invest in. 

          9             Title IX doesn't tell schools they have to 

         10  have teams, it doesn't tell schools which teams they 

         11  have to have, but as Senator Bayh says, it does tell 

         12  schools that they can't discriminate.

         13             So I question the very pointing of a finger 

         14  when schools are balancing their fiscal needs and are 

         15  deciding to invest in some male teams in contrast to 

         16  others, why that decision becomes a Title IX problem. 

         17                  MR. TED LELAND:  Excuse me, I'm 

         18  certainly compelled by the eloquence and the passion 

         19  that we have, but we also have an agenda we've agreed 

         20  to and a certain time frame, so let Cynthia and I step 

         21  in now.  Even though there are still some more 

         22  questions, I think we're going to have to pass on those 

         23  right now and move on to our next group of panelists.

         24             I think on behalf of all of us here and all 

         25  constituents, we certainly want to thank you.  It's 

                                                                  76

          1  clear to us that the questioning could go on and on, 

          2  and I've committed to an agenda, and I think we need to 

          3  follow that time frame. 

          4                  SENATOR BAYH:  Mr. Chairman, you're 

          5  absolutely right, but may I make an offer on behalf of 

          6  all of us here, that if anybody has a question that's 

          7  going to keep you awake tonight, let us know.  Send us 

          8  an e-mail or a letter, and you can find out.  We'll be 

          9  glad to respond to the best of our ability. 

         10                  MS. BEVERLY LEDBETTER:  Thank you for 

         11  allowing us to be here. 

         12                  MR. TED LELAND:  If our next group of 

         13  panelists could come forward.  If Leo, Christine and 

         14  Steve and Bob could come forward, please. 

         15             What we would like everybody to do is we 

         16  have one hour set aside for this series of short 

         17  presentations followed by quick and snappy questions 

         18  and quick and snappy answers. 

         19             We have so much ground to cover.  We have so 

         20  many great people before us, but what I would like to 

         21  do is ask everyone to stay within the five to ten 

         22  minutes of their original presentation.  And I know 

         23  that's going to be difficult to do and not necessarily 

         24  compatible with what we just went through.  But I would 

         25  like to move this thing along quickly because I think 

                                                                  77

          1  the commissioners have lots of questions. 

          2             What I will do is start making gestures at 

          3  about the 8 or 9 minute mark in your presentation to 

          4  see if we can't get you to wrap it up. 

          5             Again, I apologize for this.  We've got 

          6  fabulous people that are presenting to us, and we want 

          7  to move as quickly as we can. 

          8             The first presenter will be Leo Kocher, who 

          9  for 21 years has been the wrestling coach at the 

         10  University of Chicago.  He's coached numerous All 

         11  Americans and national champions.  He's been active in 

         12  collegiate wrestling.  He's been a member of the Rules 

         13  Committee for a number of years. 

         14             He's had a distinguished career as an 

         15  athlete himself at Northwestern University and competed 

         16  nationally and internationally.  He earned his 

         17  Bachelor's Degree at Northwestern University, a 

         18  Master's Degree from Northwestern University, and an 

         19  MBA from the University of Chicago's fabulous School of 

         20  Business. 

         21                  MR. LEO KOCHER:  Thank you.  I 

         22  appreciate the opportunity to talk to you today.  I 

         23  don't think I can comment on all the testimony, but I'm 

         24  going to go through the most important things first.  

         25  This is important because it really shows the way 

                                                                  78

          1  things are working today as far as Title IX 

          2  enforcement. 

          3             In a moment on the screen you're going to 

          4  see basically a composite athletic program that I've 

          5  created.  I've created it out of 2001 data from the 

          6  NCAA Division 3 schools. 

          7             I've chosen Division 3 for my composite NCAA 

          8  athletic program for four reasons.  Don't put it up 

          9  yet, please.  Number one, Division 3, which used no 

         10  scholarships, no packed stadiums, no TV contacts, has 

         11  more schools in it than either Division 1 or Division 

         12  2.  Number two, because their teams don't generate 

         13  profits, Division 3 schools are the hardest pressed 

         14  when it comes to the financial burden and 

         15  proportionality requirement. 

         16             60 percent of teams dropped in the 1990s 

         17  were Division 2 and Division 3 teams. I know that 

         18  people like to blame football, but the fact of the 

         19  matter is the highest profiled football schools account 

         20  for a very small percentage of teams dropped in the 

         21  last ten, twelve years. 

         22             The majority of NCAA athletes and all 

         23  Division 3 athletes do not have athletic scholarships 

         24  and play simply for love of the game.  And these varied 

         25  non-scholarship athletes also represent the vast 

                                                                  79

          1  majority of talented and dedicated people who have been 

          2  slashed from squad capping and dropped teams. 

          3             Okay, just cover the last two lines if you 

          4  will.

          5             This hypothetical university is a school 

          6  with a perfect balance in its student body of 50 

          7  percent women and 50 percent men.  In its quest for 

          8  equity between the sexes, the school has opted to have 

          9  only sports that are typically offered to both men and 

         10  women.  Therefore, football, wrestling and other sports 

         11  that really have a high rate of male participation, 

         12  they just didn't need to bother with that.  They 

         13  thought they would just start with these sports that 

         14  are basically offered to men and women and considered 

         15  dual sports. 

         16             It should be noted that the numbers of 

         17  participants on these teams reflect the NCAA Division 3 

         18  averages for 2000 and 2001.  So it's a hypothetical 

         19  university, but its numbers up there are based on real 

         20  numbers. 

         21             It should be noted that the average size of 

         22  the NCAA Division 3 male teams have already been forced 

         23  down by the imposition of squad cabs where you tell the 

         24  coach the limited number of student athletes he has for 

         25  gender quota purposes.  So those numbers are already 

                                                                  80

          1  forced down on the male side.

          2             Some schools even impose two-to-one ratio 

          3  requirements.  That's a requirement where, for example, 

          4  a coach is told you can only have half as many men's 

          5  swimmers as you have women swimmers, again, in order to 

          6  help with the gender quota because schools have 

          7  football or some other large sport. 

          8             So you see what the total is using those 

          9  NCAA figures, 190 males and 154 females.  This 

         10  university offers the same amount of opportunities for 

         11  each male and female, and in these matching programs 

         12  more men come out for these teams.  Is this difference 

         13  in the number of male and female athletes due to 

         14  discrimination by the school?  No.  This university, 

         15  like every other school, wants to get as many women out 

         16  as possible for their teams so they don't run afoul of 

         17  the proportionality standard. 

         18             And that's a dark contrast to the men's side 

         19  where these teams are being capped, where boys are 

         20  being told to clean out their lockers, they can't be on 

         21  the team because we have a gender quota problem.

         22             Now, the President of this university gets 

         23  approached by a group of female students who tell him 

         24  they would like to start a women's tennis team.  The 

         25  university's General Counsel explains to the President 

                                                                  81

          1  that even though he offers identical opportunities to 

          2  his male and female students, what really matters is 

          3  proportionality.  As long as the females are he 

          4  underrepresented gender, Title IX gives them a strong 

          5  legal basis for filing a lawsuit to force adding a 

          6  women's team. 

          7             Even though the President finds the hiring 

          8  of a coach and the addition of a team to be a financial 

          9  burden, he feels it best to add a women's tennis 

         10  program and avoid a legal battle. 

         11             The number of tennis players on the team 

         12  ends up being the average number of participants in the 

         13  NCAA Division 3 tennis team, which is 11.  This brings 

         14  the ratio of men to women -- go ahead and put it up -- 

         15  it brings it up to 165 women to 190 men. 

         16             The next year seven women that wish to begin 

         17  a golf team approach this President.  He receives the 

         18  same assessment from his General Counsel that he 

         19  received regarding the starting of a women's tennis 

         20  program one year earlier.  They are the 

         21  underrepresented gender. 

         22             Under the current policy, Title IX is a 

         23  strong claim for demanding a team.  By now it's become 

         24  apparent to this President that he will have to keep 

         25  adding women's teams until they are 50 percent of the 

                                                                  82

          1  athletes.  He decides that he cannot afford this kind 

          2  of gender equity and asks his General Counsel what to 

          3  do.  The General Counsel suggests that he reduce the 

          4  number of squad on the male teams.  Will shrinking the 

          5  squad generate some revenue, asks the President?  No, 

          6  says the General Counsel, but if you get rid of 25 male 

          7  athletes, you will be proportional and not subject to a 

          8  Title IX lawsuit which, due to the Department of 

          9  Education's interpretation, we cannot possibly win.

         10             After looking carefully at the numbers, the 

         11  President decided to ask each men's coach to cut two 

         12  athletes and then he dropped men's cross country.  So 

         13  after starting off on identical athletic opportunities 

         14  to its female and male students, this university 

         15  finally achieves equality by adding one women's team, 

         16  dropping one men's team, and telling the coaches to cut 

         17  12 deserving male athletes.

         18             Now, this does not make sense, and I think 

         19  that it's addressed -- the Women's Sports Foundation 

         20  sent out a circular and an advisory, and they addressed 

         21  this.  They say, Title IX requires that athletic 

         22  programs meet the respective and sometimes different 

         23  needs and interests of male and female athletes. 

         24             If the male athletes want university 

         25  participation opportunities and walk on as practice 

                                                                  83

          1  only players and female athletes want sports that meet 

          2  their playing interests, both those needs should be met 

          3  and accommodated on a current Title IX interpretation. 

          4             I would say it a different way.  If they 

          5  only have two track teams, a men and women's track 

          6  team, and 25 women come out for the women's track team 

          7  and 35 men come out for the men's track team, keeping 

          8  those ten men, they are not saying well, we can't find 

          9  more women, we don't want to punish these extra 10 

         10  fellows so we will, you know, allow those men to stay 

         11  on the team.  That's not what happens. 

         12             Instead, what's happening, and this is what 

         13  the policy interpretation allows to happen, is they 

         14  say, if you want to keep those ten men, it's going to 

         15  cost you a lot more than ten pairs of spikes and some 

         16  sweats.  It's going to cost you a new women's team.  We 

         17  want a tennis team, we want you to hire a coach, we 

         18  want you to give us an operating budget, et cetera. 

         19             So when they are faced with this, it's 

         20  clear, I mean, it's an overwhelming incentive to cut 

         21  male athletes.  And this is what's happening on a macro 

         22  level in our colleges. 

         23             And so here we are with the current Title IX 

         24  policy interpretation of high school athletics to 

         25  proportionality.  What do we have?  Well, after 

                                                                  84

          1  dropping more than 350 male teams in the NCAA since 

          2  1992 and losing tens of thousands of male athletes with 

          3  the imposition of squad caps, even though there are 582 

          4  more women's teams than men's teams, men come out with 

          5  greater numbers.  There are 209,000 male athletes and 

          6  151,000 female athletes. 

          7             When you throw in sports like football, when 

          8  you throw in the fact that males are projected to be 41 

          9  percent of college students by the year 2009, we have a 

         10  disaster in the making. 

         11             What is the future?  As is often the case, 

         12  California represents the future.  San Diego State 

         13  University passed six men's teams and 12 women's teams. 

         14             It's been pointed out that there are 1.1 

         15  million more boys playing high school athletics than 

         16  there are girls. I see this as a curse rather than 

         17  being a privilege because they graduate from these high 

         18  schools only to find their opportunities destroyed by 

         19  the proportionality problem. 

         20             I think that it's not what they are 

         21  experiencing in high school.  I don't think it's really 

         22  equal opportunity. 

         23                  MR. TED LELAND:  Thank you. 

         24                  MR. LEO KOCHER:  I guess I'm done. 

         25                  MR. TED LELAND:  Yes.  Christine Grant 

                                                                  85

          1  is an Associate Professor in the Department of Health, 

          2  Leisure Studies and Sports Studies and a former 

          3  Athletic Director at the University of Iowa for women 

          4  and past President of the National Association of 

          5  Collegiate Women Athletic Administrators, past 

          6  President of the American Association for 

          7  intercollegiate Athletics for Women, the old AIAW. 

          8             She's testified before Congress on this, won 

          9  a number of service awards, and has been named the 

         10  national Administrator of the year in athletics by a 

         11  number of different groups.  So we stand on Christine's 

         12  shoulders. 

         13                  MS. CHRISTINE GRANT:  Thank you very 

         14  much.  I'm missing from my resume that, one, I am a 

         15  friend and colleague of Colin Goldsby, who is an ex 

         16  wrestler, and I am a friend and long-time colleague of 

         17  the legendary wrestling coach at the University of 

         18  Iowa, Dan Gable, who won 15 national championships and 

         19  21 consecutive Big Ten championships. 

         20             And the reason I mention that is I really 

         21  believe that Colin and Dan would both attest to the 

         22  fact that not only am I a very strong supporter of 

         23  women's athletics, I am also a very strong supporter of 

         24  men's athletics.  That's important.  And that's why the 

         25  paper that I submitted to this commission is an attempt 

                                                                  86

          1  on my part to analyze the big picture and to suggest, 

          2  as Senator Bayh mentioned, how we can best resolve the 

          3  major issues that are facing us right now. 

          4             My paper is entitled An Attainable 

          5  Three-Pronged Goal.  One, bringing Division 1 back into 

          6  perspective; two, achieving gender equity; and three, 

          7  retaining men's minor sports.

          8             Let me immediately go to some facts.  And 

          9  I'm going to run through these very quickly because of 

         10  time.  Participation.  Christina, if you would. 

         11             The increases in participation are being 

         12  documented by the NCAA and also by the General 

         13  Accounting Office.  In the top half you will see that 

         14  that study showed that we are losing teams at the 1-A 

         15  level, 91 to be exact, in this particular study there 

         16  are 1-AA 61, but overall we had an increase in 18 years 

         17  of 74 men's teams. 

         18             According to the General Accounting Office, 

         19  in a 17 year study we had an increase of 36 men's 

         20  teams. 

         21             In the next one we can see that the NCAA 

         22  participation numbers generally have gone up for both 

         23  men and also for women.

         24             In the next one we see the General 

         25  Accounting Office, which confirms that men's 

                                                                  87

          1  participation rates have increased over the last 17 

          2  years by approximately 12,000.  And in the next one we 

          3  see that the growth in participation is reflected not 

          4  only at the collegiate level, but also at the high 

          5  school level, where we see a phenomenal increase for 

          6  girls and also an increase for boys.

          7             In the next one people say that at the 

          8  collegiate level we don't have enough women interested 

          9  in participating.  Well, I urge you to look at the 

         10  pools through which we recruit.  The high school pool 

         11  is almost 2.8 million, and look at the minuscule number 

         12  of opportunities for our women at the NCAA level, 

         13  roughly 152,000 slots.  That's all.  That's roughly 5 

         14  percent.  That's all the young women who get a chance 

         15  at the NCAA to participate.  The interest is there.

         16             Next one.  I tracked since 1981 what has 

         17  happened to football, that's the top graph.  The middle 

         18  one is wrestling, and the bottom one is men's 

         19  gymnastics.  What's really interesting about this is 

         20  that between 1980 and 1992 when Title IX was either not 

         21  in effect or not being enforced, we saw a decrease of 

         22  24 percent of our wrestling programs, this is when 

         23  Title IX is not in effect, and we saw a decrease of 50 

         24  percent of our men's gymnastic teams. 

         25             In the next one you will see that women's 

                                                                  88

          1  gymnastics, which is the top graph, is on a more severe 

          2  decline than men's gymnastics.  We lost in that same 

          3  period of time 83 women's teams and 39 men's teams.  

          4  Nothing to do with Title IX.

          5             Next one.  This is the General Accounting 

          6  study.  On the left-hand side of the top you will see 

          7  yes, wrestling unfortunately has taken a hit.  The 

          8  numbers are decreasing.  So is men's tennis, so is 

          9  men's gymnastics.  But look to the right and look at 

         10  the numbers that have been added, the number of soccer 

         11  teams, the number of baseball teams, the number of 

         12  basketball teams.  That is reality. 

         13             Next one.  We cannot discuss in my opinion 

         14  progress or gender equity or the retention of men's 

         15  minor sports unless we talk about the financial 

         16  situation in which we find ourselves today.  This is 

         17  the financial situation. 

         18             1-A you will note that minority of schools 

         19  are bringing in more money than they spend, 46 percent.  

         20  That translates, by the way, to 48 institutions. 

         21             The majority of Division 1 are in deficit 

         22  spending, as are all the other segments in Division 1 

         23  and 2. 

         24             Next one.  The average deficit, the red 

         25  represents 1-A, and in 1993 the average deficit for 

                                                                  89

          1  those who were in deficit spending was 2.1 million.  In 

          2  1999 that jumped 3.3 million, and Syd Demsy has 

          3  recently stated that that figure is now 3.8 million.  

          4  It has jumped a half million dollars in deficit in two 

          5  years.  Thank you. 

          6             Next one.  This goes back to 1972, and it 

          7  shows that the men's budget was 1.5 at that time and 

          8  nothing for the women's program.

          9             Between then and 1993 for every dollar spent 

         10  on the women's program, three additional dollars were 

         11  spent on the men's program.  That is a very, very 

         12  telling statistic.  For every dollar on the women's 

         13  program, three new dollars was put into the men's 

         14  program. 

         15             Next one.  The 20th anniversary of Title IX 

         16  in 1992.  The 25th anniversary in 1997, participation, 

         17  34 percent women, 34 percent for athletic scholarships, 

         18  21 percent of the operating budget and 26 percent of 

         19  the recruiting budget. 

         20             And the next one.  I want you to look at 

         21  this fairly carefully.  It shows, if you look at the 

         22  top line, the men's budget between 1992 and 1997 

         23  increased by 1.38 million dollars.  That was the 

         24  increase alone.  And the increase alone was twice the 

         25  total budget to the women's sports program in its 

                                                                  90

          1  entirety.  1.38 increase, and the total women's budget 

          2  was 663. 

          3             Thank you.

          4             1985, these were the football budgets and 

          5  the men's basketball budgets.  And in 1999 the football 

          6  budget had doubled and the basketball budget had 

          7  increased by 2.5. 

          8             Next one.  In 1985 men's football and men's 

          9  basketball together consumed 49 percent of the men's 

         10  budget and, today it consumes that figure as well.  

         11  It's not 74, it's 72 percent of the men's budget. 

         12             Next one.  This is a sad transparency, and 

         13  it's sad because in the third column you'll see that 20 

         14  percent of the men's budget goes to men's sports, and 

         15  these men's sports could constitute about 200 male 

         16  student athletes. 

         17             Basketball.  Accommodates 15 basketball 

         18  players.  The other men's sports could accommodate 

         19  200.  And look at the difference in funding. 

         20             Next one.  This is a Wall Street Journal on 

         21  an NBC news pole that was done in the year 2000, and it 

         22  said that the public approved of Title IX, 79 percent.  

         23  It approved of cutting back on men's athletics to 

         24  assure equivalent athletic opportunities for women, 76 

         25  percent.  Believe me, that would not be the choice of 

                                                                  91

          1  those of us in women's athletics to cut back on men's 

          2  athletics.  That would not be the choice. 

          3             Our choice would be a preference to bring 

          4  Division 1 back into perspective, and we could do that 

          5  through pursuing national legislation in order to 

          6  eliminate the excesses in football and men's basketball 

          7  and still retain great teams. 

          8             I would hope that in the months ahead when 

          9  you are inundated, as I know you will be, with reports 

         10  and data and materials that you will remember the 

         11  bottom line.  And here is the bottom line:  After 30 

         12  years of Title IX, men's participation, 58 percent, 

         13  women, 42; athletic scholarships, 57, women's, 43.  

         14  That's 133 million dollars less for women every single 

         15  year.  Operating budget, 46 percent.

         16             I think what we need is a stronger 

         17  enforcement of Title IX in order to be fair to our 

         18  daughters and our granddaughters and our great 

         19  granddaughters, and I think that is our responsibility 

         20  today. 

         21             Thank you very much. 

         22                  MR. TED LELAND:  Thank you.  Next up is 

         23  Steve Erber, who is Director of Athletics at Muhlenberg 

         24  College.  He supervises 22 sports and runs the 

         25  intramural recreation program.

                                                                  92

          1             He's a graduate of Penn State University and 

          2  was for 14 years the Athletic Director at SUNY 

          3  Binghamton and received an award from the State 

          4  Unversity of New York Athletic Conference for 

          5  Distinguished Service, that conference's highest award 

          6  for service. 

          7             Steve. 

          8                  MR. STEPHEN ERBER:  Thank you.  I too 

          9  appreciate this opportunity to testify before this 

         10  commission. 

         11             My name is Stephen Erber.  I'm the Director 

         12  of Athletics at Muhlenberg College, a small liberal 

         13  arts institution in Allentown, Pennsylvania. 

         14             I've been involved in the Title IX 

         15  discussion for at least ten years and have listened 

         16  carefully and thoughtfully to the arguments on both 

         17  sides. 

         18             In my professional role as an athletics 

         19  administrator at, as was stated, an NCAA Division 3 

         20  school, I have witnessed and experienced both 

         21  tremendous growth in athletic opportunities for young 

         22  women at the intercollegiate level during the past two 

         23  decades as well as the devastation and destruction of 

         24  similar opportunities for thousands of young men. 

         25             Both of these events, the growth and 

                                                                  93

          1  destruction are in large measure, although not entirely 

          2  as some on both sides of this issue argue attributable 

          3  to the 1972 law known as Title IX. 

          4             One thing, however, is very clear to me 

          5  today and I believe should also be clear to anyone 

          6  willing to look at this issue objectively, and that is 

          7  that clearly, clearly something that was well intended 

          8  and has worked so well has also gone awry. 

          9             At my small private Division 3 college we 

         10  offer 22 sports, 11 for women, 11 for men, and our 

         11  situation is radically different from that of large 

         12  Division 1 schools.  Our enrollment is approximately 

         13  2100 students, and of that number, 545 are varsity 

         14  athletes, only 26 percent of the student body. 

         15             It's a statistic of which we are very proud.  

         16  None of these student athletes receives any scholarship 

         17  funding.  They are all what would be considered at a 

         18  Division 1 or 2 school as walk-ons.  In fact, at the 

         19  Division 3 level of the NCAA it is not permissible to 

         20  even consider athletic ability or athletic talent in 

         21  the awarding of need-based financial aid. 

         22             These 545 students participate in athletics 

         23  simply and solely because they enjoy them and because 

         24  they love them.  We could not bear a 22 sport program 

         25  with an operations budget for the college of $400,000, 

                                                                  94

          1  that's correct, $400,000 for equipment, travel, meals, 

          2  game officials, training room supplies, and recruiting 

          3  for all 22 sports.  We have no excesses. 

          4             We have recently added women's golf to the 

          5  curriculum, but we've also added men's LaCrosse.  I am 

          6  confident that we treat the men's and women's programs 

          7  equitably.  Meal allowance, mode of travel, practice 

          8  times, quality of equipment, publicity brochures, level 

          9  of coaching expertise and so forth are the same for 

         10  both genders. 

         11             I think if you asked the female athletes if 

         12  they would want to trade places with the male athletes 

         13  and vice-versa, they would both say no.  I think they 

         14  would all say they are having a great experience and 

         15  they are treated equitably and fairly.  But with an 

         16  enrollment that's 58 percent female and only 42 percent 

         17  female athletes, we are obviously way out of 

         18  proportion. 

         19             The only way we could possibly become 

         20  proportional would be to eliminate 125 male athletes, 

         21  and that would entail the football team plus maybe the 

         22  soccer team.  Such an action would devastate our 

         23  athletics program as well as devastate our efforts to 

         24  maintain a reasonable female to male ratio within the 

         25  student body. 

                                                                  95

          1             Even if we had the resources that are 

          2  available to some large Division 1 programs and we 

          3  could add 125 female athletes, for us that would 

          4  probably be about five teams.  Or we could add a 100 

          5  member women's equestrian team, as I am told the 

          6  University of Georgia has just decided to do.  In an 

          7  effort to become more proportional, we would still 

          8  devastate our college's efforts to maintain a 

          9  reasonable male/female balance in our overall student 

         10  body. 

         11             Additionally, without athletic scholarships 

         12  available to the Division 1 and 2 schools, we would 

         13  find it difficult to attract enough students to support 

         14  these newly added programs. 

         15             The fact of the matter is we are having a 

         16  difficult time filling the five to six person roster 

         17  for a newly added women's golf program.  Our coaches 

         18  are recruiting but currently relies on some of the 

         19  women on his basketball team to fill the roster. 

         20             At our level we have coaches that coach more 

         21  than one sport.  The same is true for other schools in 

         22  our league that have recently added women's golf.

         23             The point of the above being that college 

         24  Presidents and athletic administrators, because the OCR 

         25  has labeled proportionality a safe harbor because no 

                                                                  96

          1  one wants to be engaged in a costly and time consuming 

          2  lawsuit, because some states like California have 

          3  demanded it, and not because these athletic directors 

          4  and Presidents are chickens as they have been labeled, 

          5  have focused on the proportionality test to comply with 

          6  Title IX even though it is the weakest and least 

          7  productive of the three tests, even though it flies in 

          8  the face of logic, even though it denies inherent 

          9  differences between men and women, and even though it 

         10  has been to the detriment of their students, both male 

         11  and female. 

         12             My college is fully and effectively 

         13  accommodating the athletics interest of our student 

         14  body, but I am not certain that we could prove that to 

         15  the satisfaction of the OCR.  I attended a 

         16  Congressional hearing a number of years ago in which I 

         17  urged the President of Brown University to plead with 

         18  Capital legislators to provide his school with a test 

         19  that would be acceptable to the OCR so that he could 

         20  demonstrate that Brown University was meeting the 

         21  interest of its students. 

         22             Brown surveyed the student body, gleaned 

         23  historical information regarding athletics interest 

         24  from years of SAT reports of students who had applied 

         25  to Brown and studied its female participation in 

                                                                  97

          1  intramural sports.  OCR deemed none of these measures 

          2  acceptable.  So he was left with a government agency 

          3  telling him that one way his school could comply with 

          4  Title IX is by demonstrating that it meets the interest 

          5  of its students, but that same agency telling him he 

          6  cannot produce an acceptable instrument to measure that 

          7  interest.

          8             Every business in this country uses interest 

          9  surveys to determine what people want, but in this 

         10  instance we cannot produce a test to measure athletics 

         11  interest. 

         12             Proportionality is a measure of outcomes, 

         13  not a measure of opportunity.  Current logic applied to 

         14  proportionality and athletics, which reads that lack of 

         15  proportionality de facto indicates discrimination is 

         16  not or should be in my opinion applied to other arenas.  

         17  For example, the United States Service Academy has an 

         18  approximately 15 percent female enrollment.  Given the 

         19  fact that 56 percent of all undergraduate students in 

         20  the United States are female, the current logic would 

         21  seem to indicate that closer to 56 percent of the 

         22  Service Academy enrollment should be female, and the 

         23  only reason it's not female is because the government 

         24  is discriminating against females in its admission to 

         25  the academies. 

                                                                  98

          1             I would argue that the reason is that women 

          2  simply are not as interested in attending service 

          3  academies and not as interested in a career in the 

          4  military in the same numbers as men are.  I'm not 

          5  saying that they are not interested, but I'm saying 

          6  that they are not interested in the same numbers.  And 

          7  I would argue that that is some of the same reason that 

          8  athletics participation at most colleges does not 

          9  mirror the undergraduate enrollment. 

         10             Undergraduate demographics differ greatly 

         11  among colleges.  Some colleges like mine are almost 

         12  exclusively comprised of traditional students, those 

         13  just graduated from high school, those that are legally 

         14  and financially dependent on their parents, and those 

         15  who do not have children of their own.  But a recent 

         16  U.S. education Department report indicated that of 26 

         17  percent of undergraduate students who are 30 years or 

         18  older, 80 percent are employed, including 39 percent 

         19  full-time, and 13 percent for single parents. 

         20             How can we begin to think that we can 

         21  evenhandedly apply proportionality standards to 

         22  athletics participation when the demographics of one 

         23  school may vary dramatically from those of another 

         24  school? 

         25             In Peterson versus LSU, Judge Rebecca 

                                                                  99

          1  Dougherty stated that the proportionality test is 

          2  inappropriate in determining Title IX compliance 

          3  because the test assumes that men and women on all 

          4  campuses are equally interested and able to participate 

          5  in athletics. 

          6             The fact that a disproportionate number of 

          7  people found on the above-mentioned nontraditional 

          8  schools are probably female is a societal problem and 

          9  not something that can be rectified by applying the 

         10  quota system to intercollegiate athletics. 

         11                  MR. TED LELAND:  One minute.

         12                  MR. STEPHEN ERBER:  Yes, sir.  Even if 

         13  there was evidence indicating little interest in 

         14  athletics among men or women in the general population, 

         15  and most evidence is quite to the contrary, the 

         16  interest would clearly not be equal on every campus in 

         17  this country. 

         18             Finally, the current proportionality 

         19  approach to compliance will not be sustainable to 

         20  parents with male and female athletes, witnessing 

         21  continued squad reductions and devastation of entire 

         22  male collegiate athletic teams in traditional sports. 

         23             At the same time, these same colleges add no 

         24  additional women's opportunities to replace the male 

         25  programs with sports that have small or no 

                                                                 100

          1  constituencies in high schools from which they attract 

          2  applicants.  Already it appears that our colleges are 

          3  pursuing a policy that lacks common sense and punishes 

          4  males for the simple fact that they show up for sports 

          5  in greater numbers than females. 

          6             This view will only harden and spread if 

          7  Title IX is not reformed into a more fair and humane 

          8  interpretation.  Athletic Directors and other college 

          9  administrators will be increasingly seen as not having 

         10  the courage to stand against the entire male special 

         11  interests.

         12             It is my hope that this commission will deal 

         13  with this issue honestly and objectively.  Today the 

         14  mere suggestion that the current OCR interpretations of 

         15  Title IX and the test for compliance be examined 

         16  results in a media blitz of hyperbole, threats of 

         17  politicians interested in examining the issue, and 

         18  exaggerations intent on the status quo. 

         19             I have not heard anyone who is asking for a 

         20  review of the legislation speak of, quote, cutting 

         21  Title IX, dismantling Title IX, or setting women back 

         22  30 years. 

         23             If the issue here is Title IX as a means of 

         24  exacting revenge or getting even for past 

         25  discrimination in athletics, then we should get that 

                                                                 101

          1  issue on the table.  If the issue is applying 

          2  principles of equity and opportunity in athletics for 

          3  both men and women, then let's continue the dialogue 

          4  and adjust this good law. 

          5             Thank you. 

          6                  MR. TED LELAND:  Thank you.  Bob 

          7  Groseth is next.  Bob has been college coaching for 28 

          8  years.  He's in his 13th season as the head coach of 

          9  Northwestern University's men's swimming and diving 

         10  team.  He was named co-Big Ten coach of the year this 

         11  past year at his championships in February, and he was 

         12  given by the College Swim Coaches Association this past 

         13  year the Richard Stedman award, the award given 

         14  annually to a swimming or diving coach who in the 

         15  opinion of the international swimming hall of fame and 

         16  the college swimming association has done the most to 

         17  spread joy and happiness in Coach Stedman beloved 

         18  sports, swimming and diving. 

         19             Bob. 

         20                  MR. ROBERT GROSETH:  Thank you.  

         21  Chairman Cooper, Chairman Leland, members of the 

         22  Commission, thank you for the opportunity to speak this 

         23  morning. 

         24             While there are many issues before the 

         25  Commission over the next few months, I would like to 

                                                                 102

          1  concentrate on roster management and capping of the 

          2  teams.  I will not bore you with number statistics.  

          3  You have all, I'm sure, made yourself familiar with the 

          4  facts. 

          5             I will tell you some personal stories and 

          6  challenge the Commission to make recommendations that 

          7  will restore the public's trust in Title IX. 

          8             Like all swimming coaches, I don't consider 

          9  myself a men's swimming coach.  I coach the men and 

         10  women's swimming team at the University of Cincinnati 

         11  and also at Tulane University, and every summer I coach 

         12  a team that is composed of men and women.  I just you 

         13  got back from our national championships, where I took 

         14  11 athletes to the championships, five women and six 

         15  men. 

         16             I represent a support that treats genders 

         17  equally.  We have the same rules, order of events, 

         18  seasons, et cetera.  We train the same and in some 

         19  schools train together.  And in fact, if you've watched 

         20  any swim meets lately, we even wear the same suits. 

         21             Swimming has benefited from Title IX as much 

         22  as any sport.  If there are many in the swimming 

         23  community, there are a set number of college teams that 

         24  have been dropped due to Title IX.  I know there has 

         25  been an effort to say that Title IX is not at fault, 

                                                                 103

          1  but in fact the interpretation and enforcement of Title 

          2  IX has been a major factor in the loss of men's 

          3  swimming teams over the last 20 years.

          4             The loss per team and corresponding loss of 

          5  opportunities have not gone unnoticed, and I submit a 

          6  USA swimming study showing percentages of male and 

          7  female athletes. 

          8             Over the past few years as the college teams 

          9  for men have gone down, the swimming communities have 

         10  started to express concern. 

         11             When wrestling coaches filed their suit, the 

         12  College Swim Coaches Association issued a statement and 

         13  later joined the suit.  Later this year in June Chuck 

         14  Wielgus, who is a USA Executive Director, issued a memo 

         15  to the President of the USOC about the decline of 

         16  Olympic sports programs in college athletics. 

         17             Last week John Leonard, Executive Director 

         18  of the American Swim Coaches Association sent an open 

         19  letter to the USOC President about Title IX's 

         20  unintended consequences.  And again, I submit these for 

         21  the record.

         22             These statements from the leaderships of the 

         23  swimming community reflect a changing attitude toward 

         24  Title IX.  Once revered the opportunities to provide 

         25  our women, it is now scorned for the denial of 

                                                                 104

          1  opportunities to our men. 

          2             The current interpretation of enforcement of 

          3  Title IX has caused anger and devisiveness within the 

          4  swimming community and between swimming and other 

          5  sports.  In addition, it has led to frustration because 

          6  of the up until now rapid response to organizations 

          7  that can effect change. 

          8             With the elimination of such programs as 

          9  Miami and 22 NCAA champions at UCLA with 22 Olympic 

         10  medals, the loss of swimming is qualitative as well as 

         11  quantitative. Swimming people will be watching the 

         12  Commission closely.  They want Title IX to work and 

         13  look to you to help fix it. 

         14             I'm an advocate of athletic opportunities in 

         15  age group, high school and college coach.  I've seen 

         16  the benefits of organized athletic training and 

         17  competition geared to young people.  These benefits are 

         18  well documented, real, and worth protecting. 

         19             While there are people who will testify that 

         20  have political agenda, more government, less 

         21  government, women's rights, men's rights, let's not let 

         22  the political agenda dominate the dialogue. 

         23             When Title IX first started getting in 

         24  force, there were nay sayers that claimed college 

         25  athletics would be ruined.  They were wrong, it got 

                                                                 105

          1  better.  Today there are those who claim correcting 

          2  Title IX will bring us back to the stone age.  They are 

          3  just as wrong.  There are boys and girls right now 

          4  learning to swim, run, play soccer and many other 

          5  sports. 

          6             In the process of developing their craft,, 

          7  they are becoming better people who will eventually 

          8  become better citizens.

          9             It is for these future citizens the 

         10  Commission should be fighting for and for who I will 

         11  try to make my case.

         12             This is a scene that is played out over and 

         13  over and over again on my campus.  John and Mary Paxton 

         14  of Cincinnati, Ohio are taking their son Brad on a tour 

         15  of colleges over the summer.  They stopped by the 

         16  swimming office to find out about the program. 

         17             After the initial set of questions, one of 

         18  the parents asked, do you have a spot for Brad on the 

         19  team?  I know he's not an Olympic caliber swimmer, but 

         20  swimming has been such a big part of his life.  We 

         21  don't expect a scholarship, we just want to make sure 

         22  he's got a chance to be on the team.  It's going to be 

         23  a big part of Brad's decision.  We love your school and 

         24  would like Brad to go here. 

         25             When the school's policy on squad size was 

                                                                 106

          1  explained, you could see the family's shoulders sag.  

          2  They have heard this story before.  The scene is played 

          3  out all across the country on many college campuses in 

          4  coach's offices of all men's sports.  There is room in 

          5  the pool, on the court, track or field.  You can share 

          6  lockers and equipment, but because each school has to 

          7  meet a numerical quota, there's no place on the roster 

          8  for their son.  No Ruby's need apply here.  His dream 

          9  is gone.  When those parents and their son walk out the 

         10  door, I feel like a bag of dirt. 

         11             Parents with sons see the handwriting on the 

         12  wall.  Larry Barbiere, a member of the 1968 Olympic 

         13  team and on three of Indiana University's NCAA 

         14  championship teams, has three children, two daughters 

         15  and a son.  While their daughter is in swimming, their 

         16  son plays baseball, even though he's an excellent 

         17  swimmer. 

         18             When I asked Larry why he wouldn't let his 

         19  son swim, he said, college athletics was one of the 

         20  most exciting and dramatic experiences of my life.  I 

         21  want my son to be part of a college team, and I'm 

         22  afraid that when it comes time for him to go to 

         23  college, swimming won't be a sport. 

         24             Larry's feelings about his college 

         25  experience are shared by many, and though his judgment 

                                                                 107

          1  of swimming's future is, I hope, a little bleak, the 

          2  downturn in interest at the grassroots level in 

          3  swimming is directly tied to the opportunities at the 

          4  collegiate level.

          5             There can be no reason, other than to reach 

          6  a quota, to cap or roster manage a men's swimming team.  

          7  Those who have been in coaching for a long time know 

          8  that their biggest boosters and your school's biggest 

          9  boosters are not the scholarship athletes, but the kids 

         10  that were given a chance to be part of a team, who 

         11  stuck it out, who made the starting line up, qualified 

         12  for the NCAA's, or won a college championship.  A Rudy 

         13  story. 

         14             It is part of the spirit and magic of 

         15  college athletics.  It's what keeps us in the business.  

         16  It is the soul of sport.  Roster management and capping 

         17  have robbed us of that soul. 

         18             Joan Domitz was the swimming coach at the 

         19  University of Wisconsin at Whitewater.  In the middle 

         20  of the 1998 season she was running her afternoon 

         21  practice when the Athletic Director entered the pool.  

         22  You have to cut three men from the team today.  

         23  Whitewater had worked hard to deal with gender equity.  

         24  In fact, Joan's husband was one of the Assistant 

         25  Athletic Directors there.  Swimming had to keep the 

                                                                 108

          1  number of and women and men equal.  Unfortunately 

          2  halfway through the season three women quit.  Three men 

          3  had to leave.  I was crushed, he said.  These guys 

          4  worked so hard.  They didn't have scholarships, they 

          5  just wanted to swim. 

          6             Joan stopped the practice to tell the team.  

          7  When she announced that three men had to be cut,  there 

          8  were many tears on both teams. They worked out a 

          9  solution, keep the other women on the team, lower the 

         10  practice and performance standards so they would stay 

         11  out for the team. 

         12             At first I was happy that the guys were able 

         13  to keep swimming, but over time I realized they were 

         14  sending the wrong message to the women. 

         15             The next year I attended an outing for 

         16  college swim coaches from the State of Illinois.  I 

         17  asked each coach about his or her school's policy on 

         18  roster management.  Every school's was different, but 

         19  all had some policy. 

         20             Some Division 3 schools had a two-to-one 

         21  policy.  They had twice as many women on as men.  Many 

         22  had the same experience as Joan Domitz, having to cut 

         23  men in the middle of the season. 

         24             Amazingly every coach said the same thing, 

         25  don't reveal where you got this information, I might be 

                                                                 109

          1  in trouble.  I know from my own experience and from 

          2  talking to other coaches that in my conference 

          3  discussing the capping of teams is a taboo subject.  

          4  Why?  Because administrators know in their gut it is 

          5  wrong and they don't want to have to explain it to the 

          6  public.

          7             The result of these policies is that guys 

          8  that want to swim in college can't because the numbers 

          9  don't match.  A few years ago I was attending a banquet 

         10  for graduating seniors for their induction into 

         11  Northwestern's Letter Club.  One of the speakers, Mike 

         12  McGraw, was a 3.5 economics major and member of the 

         13  school's Rose Bowl team. 

         14             After speaking about his experiences on the 

         15  Rose Bowl team, he addressed the subject of capping 

         16  teams.  Turning to the President of the school and the 

         17  Athletic Director, he said, I started at Northwestern 

         18  as a walk-on for the baseball team.  Coach Stevens gave 

         19  me a chance to play, and I made the team my freshman 

         20  year. 

         21             As a softmore I went out for football.  I 

         22  made the team, earned a scholarship, and eventually a 

         23  starting position. 

         24             This year I was on a Big Ten championship 

         25  team and played in the Rose Bowl.  When I saw the caps 

                                                                 110

          1  being put on baseball and other teams, I realized I 

          2  would never have a chance if I was a freshman this 

          3  year. 

          4             I understand policies that increase women's 

          5  chances to play sports.  What I don't understand is why 

          6  men have to suffer for them to gain.  Just remember 

          7  when you cap men's teams, I'm the guy that's getting 

          8  capped.  Capping and roster management does nothing to 

          9  increase the number of women participating in sports.  

         10  It only increases their percentage.  Addition by 

         11  subtraction.  Who gets left out?  The good student 

         12  who's in the sport because he loves it, who goes on to 

         13  cherish his experience and contributes to the future 

         14  success of the school and the sport. 

         15             What it does do is increase the resentment 

         16  for a good law, Title IX.  It is up to this commission 

         17  to advocate changes in the interpretation and 

         18  enforcement of regulations associated with Title IX 

         19  that will eliminate the capping of teams and restore 

         20  the public's trust. 

         21             Thank you. 

         22                  MR. TED LELAND:  Thank you.  And we now 

         23  have 15 to 20 minutes for questions. 

         24                  MS. JULIE FOUDY:  I hear the repeated 

         25  theme of interest coming up, and I find it interesting 

                                                                 111

          1  being a part of athletics for so long and having lived 

          2  and breathed it, this question of interest is still 

          3  around.  And I read the statement from the Brown Versus 

          4  Cohen case, which says -- the U.S. Court of Appeals 

          5  says, to assert that Title IX permits institutions to 

          6  provide fewer athletic participation opportunities for 

          7  women than for men based upon the premise that women 

          8  are less interested in sports than are men, it is among 

          9  other things to ignore the fact that Title IX was 

         10  enacted in order to remedy discrimination that results 

         11  from stereotype notions of women's athletic interests 

         12  and abilities are rarely developed in a vacuum.  They 

         13  evolved as a function of opportunity and experience, 

         14  women's participation athletics reflects a lack of 

         15  opportunities to participate in sports. 

         16             Moreover, the Supreme Court has repeatedly 

         17  condemned gender based discrimination based upon 

         18  archaic and over-broad generalizations about women. 

         19             My question is that I understand the issue 

         20  of numbers in terms of coming out to teams but, and 

         21  this will go to anyone on the panel, are we not placing 

         22  discrimination on top of discrimination, because, like 

         23  this says, interest and ability is rarely developed in 

         24  a vacuum.  If the opportunities have not been there, 

         25  then how are they supposed to be there, for example, 

                                                                 112

          1  with the golf team? 

          2             And secondly, when we look at the numbers 

          3  participating in high schools, we're at 2.7 million 

          4  over that.  I think it was shown that when provided 

          5  opportunities, there's an interest that follows. 

          6                  MR. TED LELAND:  Panelists? 

          7                  MR. LEO KOCHER:  You know, arguing 

          8  interest seems to be a nonproductive area.  People end 

          9  up really resenting anyone who suggests that there's 

         10  any difference between males and females regarding an 

         11  interest in athletics. 

         12             I guess we don't have a problem with women 

         13  being 85 percent of dance programs or 95 percent of 

         14  mercy programs, or males need the majority of 

         15  engineering.  But for some reason we can't suggest that 

         16  there might be different interest and preferences 

         17  between populations of males and females.

         18             All I know is Brown submitted an evidence 

         19  that the SAT student questionnaire for 1993 during 

         20  their court case, and I have it right here, 45 percent 

         21  of the males taking the test said their interest in 

         22  participating in intercollegiate athletics, 24 percent 

         23  of women do. 

         24             Now, let's nurture that interest.  That's 

         25  fine.  You're always going to want to bring up the 

                                                                 113

          1  lower person.  That's fine.  But don't turn around and 

          2  level down men in order to fit some standard.  That is 

          3  wrong. 

          4             I will never complain about women getting 

          5  more opportunities.  I will complain about Marquette 

          6  University cutting their wrestling team that didn't 

          7  cost them one penny because it was funded by outside 

          8  sources simply so it would not fall afoul of the 

          9  proportionality standard, simply so they wouldn't get 

         10  dragged into court and lose. 

         11             So I'm not interested in arguing.  Things 

         12  change from one campus to the other, but I do want some 

         13  common sense and fairness.  If 25 women come out for 

         14  track and 35 men come out for track, don't tell those 

         15  guys they got to go. 

         16                  MR. TED LELAND:  Debbie.

         17                  MS. DEBORAH YOW:  Thank you, Ted.  For 

         18  anyone on the panel, but, Dr. Grant, especially for 

         19  you, I've been reading a number of suggestions that 

         20  you've made relative to perhaps a different approach 

         21  through the federal government for how to get our hands 

         22  around the situation.  And as I was reading those, a 

         23  question came to mind that I wanted to ask you, because 

         24  when I was serving on the NCAA management council for 

         25  the Atlantic Coast Conference, I made a suggestion that 

                                                                 114

          1  we take better care of what I would consider the 

          2  traditional women's sports, and by taking better care 

          3  of them, I was suggesting that we would add scholarship 

          4  opportunities for those sports. 

          5             For everyone in the room who understands the 

          6  difference between equivalency sports and head count 

          7  sports, you all understand what I mean. 

          8             At the University of Maryland as an example 

          9  in the last eight years we won eight national 

         10  championships in our women's sports program, and yet 

         11  one of those sports, like women's LaCrosse or like 

         12  field hockey, both of whom have won national 

         13  championships during that time, there would be carried 

         14  on their roster as many as 30 individuals, and yet only 

         15  had the opportunity to provide a total of equivalency, 

         16  if you will, of 12 or 13 scholarships. 

         17             Certainly there weren't in my mind more 

         18  financial support because of the level of excellence to 

         19  which they have risen.  And it appears to also have 

         20  occurred to me as an Athletic Director with a 38 

         21  million dollar operating budget that it would serve 

         22  them well.  It would also serve the institution well. 

         23             From a proportionality perspective, we would 

         24  then not have to add, perhaps, a nontraditional sport 

         25  like bowling.  I hope no one takes offense.  I'm not 

                                                                 115

          1  interested in adding bowling at Maryland.  And we would 

          2  do good in two separate ways. 

          3             We carried that forward through the NCAA 

          4  Management Council to the NCAA, and it was rejected out 

          5  of hand as an attempt to not be in compliance with 

          6  Title IX.  And as a female who has her entire life 

          7  every opportunity that has ever been afforded to me in 

          8  athletics has been as a result of Title IX. 

          9             I was shocked to be viewed in that light.  

         10  Sorry for the long-winded explanation, but would you 

         11  support adding through the NCAA regulations additional 

         12  scholarships to existing and traditional women's sports 

         13  for those reasons? 

         14                  MS. CHRISTINE GRANT:  That's a very 

         15  good question, Debbie, and my short answer is I would 

         16  absolutely support that, absolutely. 

         17             In the early 1990s one of the NCAA 

         18  committees analyzed the number of scholarships offered 

         19  to each sport and came up with recommendations which in 

         20  many women's sports increased the numbers and made more 

         21  sense.  And I think your LaCrosse team and field hockey 

         22  team are terrific examples where you may be carrying 30 

         23  people on each team and you've only got 12 scholarships 

         24  to divide up.  It came to an abrupt halt when it got to 

         25  the NCAA council at that time. 

                                                                 116

          1             I think it's probably ripe right now to put 

          2  that suggestion forward again because we could increase 

          3  numbers in our current sports like that, I believe, and 

          4  make it more competitive for the current students. 

          5             If you don't have 22 people to scrimmage in 

          6  field hockey, you're at a huge disadvantage.  And 

          7  sometimes that has happened at the University of Iowa.  

          8  If we had just a few more scholarships, we could 

          9  increase our squad to 25 to 30 people.  I would 

         10  absolutely advocate that. 

         11                  MS. DEBORAH YOW:  And also at the same 

         12  time not carry the burden of adding a new sport with a 

         13  new coach and all that comes with it. 

         14                  MS. CHRISTINE GRANT:  It's a very 

         15  expensive venture adding a brand new sport, and there 

         16  are less costly ways to achieve the same goal. 

         17                  MR. STEPHEN ERBER:  Both the question 

         18  and the response speak a lot to the concern I think 

         19  that I raised, and that is that at a Division 3 

         20  institution I don't even think about scholarships, and 

         21  we can attract or build or develop interest by using 

         22  scholarships.  I mean, we happen to get students that 

         23  generally say, hey, I'd like to do this.  I want to 

         24  come out for the team.  I would like to be a part of 

         25  the team.

                                                                 117

          1             And I would also like to say in response, 

          2  Julie, to your question, I think the issue is not that, 

          3  you know, whether or not interest can be nurtured.  I 

          4  think everybody understands and agrees that obviously 

          5  interest in many different things can be fostered and 

          6  nurtured, particularly in children.  But the issue is, 

          7  you know, can a school like mine nurture that interest 

          8  to the extent that we have 58 percent of our 

          9  undergraduates participating in the athletic program?  

         10  And my answer to that is I don't think so. 

         11             And the only way we can get that percentage 

         12  of female athletes up to 58 percent is probably by 

         13  reducing the number of male athletes. 

         14             So I'm sure an interest is nurtured, it's 

         15  absolutely nurtured, but the question is to what extent 

         16  and how much can you nurture?

         17                  MR. TED LELAND:  Okay.  We have some 

         18  questions from Brian and Gerry.

         19                  MR. BRIAN JONES:  I would actually like 

         20  to follow-up on Mr. Erber's point there and the point 

         21  that Julie raised because I do think that his question 

         22  of interest does seem to be, as far as I can tell 

         23  baffing institutions in the courts. 

         24             The issue isn't as you suggest.  It isn't so 

         25  much about whether or not we're going to allow those 

                                                                 118

          1  stereotype notions of interest to control, but rather 

          2  it seems to me that the question is one of how do we 

          3  measure the interest of it?  What is sort of the 

          4  appropriate measure? 

          5             I would love to get your thoughts, Mr. 

          6  Erber, and yours, Ms. Grant, as people who have to 

          7  actually sort of implement this third prong of the test 

          8  in a practical way.  I mean, what should we be thinking 

          9  about?  What should we be looking at when we examine 

         10  this question of what's the right denominator as we 

         11  look at the interest of the question? 

         12             Ms. Grant, you had some statistics about, 

         13  for example, the vast disparity between the number of 

         14  women who are participating in athletics at the high 

         15  school level versus the number of opportunities that 

         16  are made available at least in the NCAA.  And, you 

         17  know, a question arises, you know, for example, what is 

         18  the relative participation rate of men to women at the 

         19  high school level versus the rate of female to male 

         20  participation at the college level?  I mean, is that 

         21  one statistic that we could use to begin to get a 

         22  better grip on how to measure interest? 

         23             Should we be looking at just sort of a 

         24  larger population of students who apply to college and 

         25  that sort of thing?  Is that getting us closer to a 

                                                                 119

          1  fair assessment of whether students are actually fully 

          2  and effectively meeting the needs and interests. 

          3             That really seems to me to be the big 

          4  question that seems to be bugging a lot of people is 

          5  what do we look at to figure out whether or not we're 

          6  actually fully and effectively meeting the needs and 

          7  interests? 

          8                  MR. TED LELAND:  Your response, 

          9  Christine.

         10                  MS. CHRISTINE GRANT:  One of the great 

         11  advantages of having been around forever is that I was 

         12  here in 1972 when there was really no interest on the 

         13  part of girls to participate, and the high school 

         14  participation at that time was 8 percent.  The schools 

         15  were forced to offer opportunity, and my goodness, it's 

         16  now up to 42 percent.

         17             I don't know when we will satisfy the 

         18  interest at the high school level.  I don't think it's 

         19  been satisfied yet.  I don't think it's near being 

         20  satisfied.  In fact, I will go so far as to say we will 

         21  never ever satisfy the interest of girls and boys to 

         22  participate.  We have to cut it off.  There are more 

         23  boys and there are more girls that want to participate, 

         24  that being the case at the high school level, I think 

         25  exactly the same as at the collegiate level. 

                                                                 120

          1             With a pool of 2.7 million people, girls 

          2  participating in the high school level, we certainly 

          3  could keep adding opportunities at the collegiate 

          4  level.  And as long as we keep offering them, the women 

          5  will keep participating. 

          6             We don't know what the interest is, we 

          7  really honestly don't, but I would guess it's as great 

          8  as the man's for every ounce.  Really. 

          9                  MR. TED LEDBETTER:  Any response, 

         10  Steve?

         11                  MR. STEPHEN ERBER:  Yes. I think that 

         12  we have the expertise and knowledge to develop an 

         13  instrument that will measure interest in athletics on 

         14  each and every campus in our country.  And let's do 

         15  that so that the OCR can say, hey, here's the test, 

         16  apply it to your campus.  If you come up short, then 

         17  you have to make some adjustments and make some 

         18  corrections.

         19             But that, as far as I know, is not the case 

         20  right now.  And, you know, the way to measure interest 

         21  is pretty amorphus right now as far as I'm concerned. 

         22                  MR. BRIAN JONES:  Is your suggestion, 

         23  though, that the pool that we ought to be looking to to 

         24  measure interest is the existing undergraduate 

         25  population?  Is that what I'm hearing you say? 

                                                                 121

          1                  MR. STEPHEN ERBER:  Yeah, I would 

          2  think.  Isn't that the issue? 

          3                  MR. TED LELAND:  We only have about 

          4  three more minutes.  Welcome Donna, by the way. 

          5                  MS. DONNA de VARONA:  I have a quick 

          6  technical question for Ms. Grant. 

          7             In calculating the respective proportionate 

          8  participation opportunities under the first prong, what 

          9  do you think about an adjustment taking into account 

         10  nontraditional students?  In other words, if we can 

         11  agree that nontraditional students are highly unlikely 

         12  to participate in intercollegiate athletics, does it 

         13  make sense to count them in our calculation for the 

         14  first prong? 

         15                  MS. CHRISTINE GRANT:  How do you define 

         16  your nontraditional students? 

         17                  MS. DONNA de VARONA:  Say students over 

         18  30 years old.  And that's an issue that could be worked 

         19  out and debated.  And I'm sure that reasonable people 

         20  could establish a definition. 

         21             But let's assume that we have that 

         22  definition, that type of adjustment.  Would it be 

         23  appropriate in your mind? 

         24                  MS. CHRISTINE GRANT:  Oh, I think 

         25  reasonable people would be willing to look at that and 

                                                                 122

          1  then try to determine, you know, what would be the 

          2  consequences were there such a policy? 

          3                  MS. DONNA de VARONA:  Okay.  Well, let 

          4  me ask it a different way.  Let's assume that a school 

          5  has a high population of students over the age of 45.  

          6  Would it be reasonable not to count that population for 

          7  purposes of calculating numbers under the first prong? 

          8                  MS. CHRISTINE GRANT:  I think that's 

          9  something that should be considered, yes. 

         10                  MS. DONNA de VARONA:  Thank you. 

         11                  MR. TED LELAND:  Okay.  We got another 

         12  minute and a half.  Bob. 

         13                  MR. BOB BOWLSBY:  This really kind of 

         14  goes to the heart of the same issue.  Ms. Ledbetter 

         15  mentioned earlier, or at least I think she intimated, 

         16  correct me if I'm wrong, that perhaps the comparison to 

         17  the undergraduate student population is a flawed entry 

         18  assumption. 

         19             In the case of major athletics programs on 

         20  our campus, we have 700 student athletes, and a very 

         21  small percentage of that 700 comes from the student 

         22  population.  They are recruited to campus, invited to 

         23  be there and such. 

         24             There also is very wide ranging differences 

         25  among institutions.  For instance, Senator Bayh's 

                                                                 123

          1  institution, Perdue, and Georgia Tech here in Atlanta 

          2  both have technology engineering, some institutions 

          3  it's agricultural basis for their undergraduate 

          4  curriculum, and therefore they don't have the 55 

          5  percent female, 45 percent male that many of the major 

          6  universities around the country and liberal arts 

          7  institutions have, but instead, have a student 

          8  population that may be just the reverse of that, may be 

          9  60 percent male and 40 percent female. 

         10             My question is for all four of you.  Should 

         11  those variances enter into this proposition, and in 

         12  your estimation, is the proportionality usage of 

         13  undergraduate student population a flawed entry 

         14  assumption?  And if you believe it is, what is a better 

         15  population to utilize if some sort of comparison is 

         16  required? 

         17                  MS. CHRISTINE GRANT:  I'll take a shot 

         18  at it.  I've thought about this quite a bit, as you can 

         19  imagine, and I've come to the conclusion that I truly 

         20  believe that the athletic ability is probably divided 

         21  in an equitable fashion between men and women, you 

         22  know.  And if that's a fair assumption, then I think 

         23  the proportionality prong makes a lot of sense 

         24  nationwide. 

         25             I know that differences do exist between 

                                                                 124

          1  Perdue's undergraduate population, which is very low 

          2  for women, and Iowa's, which is very high, but I think 

          3  as a nation as a whole we're being fair to our young 

          4  men and our young women if on our individual campuses 

          5  we use the undergraduate population as our test.  And 

          6  I'm supportive of that because you have to have 

          7  something at which point you can say, okay, that's it, 

          8  we're in compliance with Title IX. 

          9             I see it as a very, very fair way to do the 

         10  cutoff point for both men and also for women. 

         11                  MR. TED LELAND:  We have a couple of 

         12  minutes for a response to this question.  Anybody else?  

         13  Leo?

         14                  MR. LEO KOCHER:  I do. I just want to 

         15  say that Beverly Ledbetter, I think she described a 

         16  pretty involved effort at ascertaining student interest 

         17  in both the population where they grew from and all the 

         18  rest.  There are student administered surveys, there's 

         19  the SAT thing that I cited before, the SAT student 

         20  descriptive questionnaire.  I mean, there's all sorts 

         21  of ways to do it if we want to do it. 

         22             Unfortunately, the people that designed this 

         23  three-prong test did want to do it.  They just felt 

         24  let's just go with a flat out student enrollment 

         25  number, and that's the way they are going to go. 

                                                                 125

          1             I don't think it's fair.  We don't do it in 

          2  any other extracurricular activity.  I'm just not sure 

          3  why we do it in sports. 

          4                  MR. TED LELAND:  Any other repsponse?

          5                  MS. CHRISTINE GRANT:  I would like to 

          6  say one more thing.  The bottom line is men still have 

          7  58 percent of all participation opportunities. 

          8                  MR. TED LELAND:  Well, thank you.  I 

          9  apologize for not -- we have more questions and the 

         10  discussion is fruitful, but I'll be a sticker on the 

         11  agenda, so we need to move to the next panel.

         12             Thank you very much. 

         13                  MS. CYNTHIA COOPER:  Ron Galimore.  Ron 

         14  Galimore is the Senior Director of the men's program at 

         15  USA Gymnastics since 1994.  As the men's Program 

         16  Director, Ron oversees all fiduciary and programmatic 

         17  responsibilities for men's gymnastics in the United 

         18  States. 

         19             Ron was a member of the 1980 U.S. Olympic 

         20  gymnastics team, making history as the first African 

         21  American gymnast to achieve this accomplishment. 

         22             Ron is a graduate of Iowa State University.  

         23  He was also voted the 1991 Iowa State athlete of the 

         24  year and recently inducted into the Iowa State 

         25  University Athletic Hall of Fame. 

                                                                 126

          1                  MR. RON GALIMORE:  Thank you.  I would 

          2  like to thank you, the Commission, for giving me the 

          3  opportunity to discuss Title IX and its dramatic impact 

          4  on the sport of gymnastics. 

          5             This is an issue of great concern to the 

          6  entire Olympic community in the United States, and I'm 

          7  happy to be here to talk about some of the unintended 

          8  consequences of Title IX. 

          9             As mentioned, I was a member of the 1980 

         10  Olympic team.  I became the first African American to 

         11  make the U.S. Olympic gymnastics team. 

         12             The following year I graduated from Iowa 

         13  State on an athletic scholarship and earned the athlete 

         14  of the year award. 

         15             After college I became a coach, a judge and 

         16  a gymnastic club owner, and today, as mentioned, I'm 

         17  the Senior Director for the men's program for USA 

         18  Gymnastics, which is the national governing body for 

         19  gymnastics in the USA. 

         20             I more than anyone understand the value of 

         21  collegiate athletics.  I, like many other student 

         22  athletes, was able to fulfill a lifelong dream of 

         23  receiving an education at an NCAA member institution 

         24  while competing as an NCAA athlete. 

         25             I am saddened, however, by what is happening 

                                                                 127

          1  to Olympic sports at NCAA institutions across America.  

          2  There is not a person that I talk to who does not 

          3  recognize the benefits of Title IX and the great 

          4  opportunities that have been afforded to women and 

          5  education in sport.  But at the same time, Title IX has 

          6  devastated men's and women's collegiate gymnastics in 

          7  the United States. 

          8             The way in which Title IX is enforced and 

          9  factors used to determine compliance have created some 

         10  of these devastating consequences.  And I would like to 

         11  note that there is a relation to a women's program 

         12  dropped shortly after the men's had been dropped.  

         13  There is a relation to that.

         14             From 1980 to 2000, I think some of these 

         15  figures have been mentioned, we've lost a hundred 

         16  women's collegiate gymnastic programs and 83 men's 

         17  collegiate gymnastic programs.

         18             There are fewer than 90 women's programs 

         19  remaining in the U.S. today, and men's programs have 

         20  gone from an all-time high point of 202 programs in the 

         21  1970s down to just 20 programs today.

         22             The elimination of these gymnastic programs 

         23  as well as the elimination of other Olympic nonrevenue 

         24  producing sports continue to give the following 

         25  negative effects.  It will continue to decrease the 

                                                                 128

          1  number of American athletes eligible for world and 

          2  Olympic competition teams; it will continue to reduce 

          3  the number of athletes who will become coaches, thus 

          4  eliminating quality coaches in America's youth, and 

          5  many of these coaches in the men's program go on to 

          6  coach women's collegiate programs; and it will continue 

          7  to eliminate the opportunity for low income and 

          8  minority young people to receive quality education 

          9  through athletic scholarships in a number of Olympic 

         10  sports. 

         11             The interest level in gymnastics is growing, 

         12  but the NCAA member institutions are not meeting the 

         13  needs of students who want to participate in our sport. 

         14             USA Gymnastics records show that overall 

         15  participation has doubled from 1980 to 2000.  Presently 

         16  over a half million boys participate in competitive and 

         17  recreational programs in private clubs across America.  

         18  And incidently, it's the private clubs in America that 

         19  are feeding our NCAA programs, not necessarily our high 

         20  school programs. 

         21             This year alone after state and regional 

         22  qualifying competitions 650 boys qualified to 

         23  participate in the 2002 Junior Olympic national 

         24  championships held in San Diego, California.  Of those 

         25  650 competitors, 310 were college bound or within one 

                                                                 129

          1  year of entering the college program, but with the 

          2  total number of athlete participation in men's 

          3  collegiate gymnastics going from 1,367 in the 1981 /82 

          4  season down to 367 in the 2000 /2001 season, it's 

          5  apparent that the needs of these boys are not being 

          6  met. 

          7             This situation is very much the same in 

          8  Olympic sports such as wrestling, diving, track and 

          9  field, tennis, and swimming.  I've shown today that 

         10  this is a serious problem at the collegiate level, and 

         11  unless steps are taken by the Department of Education 

         12  with increased responsibility to NCAA institutions to 

         13  solve this problem, we will see more programs 

         14  eliminated to the point of extinction. 

         15             Many of you might remember Peter Vidmar, Tim 

         16  Daggett, and Mitch Gaylord, members of the 1984 Olympic 

         17  team winning a historic gold medal for the U.S.  you 

         18  might also remember world champion Kurt Thomas.  Fast 

         19  forward these moments in our sport to the year 2002.  

         20  The collegiate gymnastic programs that developed these 

         21  Olympians no longer exists. 

         22             As a matter of fact, half of our 2000 

         23  Olympic team was developed in collegiate programs.  And 

         24  on a personal note, the program that gave me my 

         25  opportunity has also been eliminated.

                                                                 130

          1             You have a big job to review Title IX and 

          2  make recommendations to the Department of Education.  I 

          3  don't think the intention was to provide a law to 

          4  motivate member institutions to drop men's sports or to 

          5  hide behind as they drop men's programs and have small 

          6  annual budgets while they take a portion of those 

          7  budgets and create a women's program.  But this is what 

          8  happens from the proportionality prong of Title IX 

          9  compliance, decisions to drop programs being made in a 

         10  vacuum and no accountability for spending in place at 

         11  NCAA institutions. 

         12             I don't believe in complaining about some of 

         13  the problems without offering at least two solutions or 

         14  two comments.  One is, and this is real out of the box 

         15  thinking so don't -- take endangered sports, and 

         16  endangered is the key word, like men's gymnastics out 

         17  of the formula of calculating Title IX compliance.  I 

         18  know this is real out of the box thinking, but this is 

         19  desperate times, and I would encourage you to think a 

         20  little out of the box when looking at everything and 

         21  trying to come up with some solution to our problems. 

         22             Also consider another prong to measure 

         23  interest of participation in sports at an institution 

         24  instead of proportionality.  Yes, there are two other 

         25  prongs, but they only got institutions back to 

                                                                 131

          1  compliance based on proportionality, which does not 

          2  provide an accurate measure of who wants to play 

          3  sports. 

          4             Of course there are other possible solutions 

          5  that could be directed directly to the NCAA, such as 

          6  legislation to provide advance notice of elimination of 

          7  an Olympic sport.  You know, many of my coaches have 

          8  told me that they learned about their program's 

          9  elimination when they picked up the morning paper.  I 

         10  also believe different rules of eligibility and 

         11  existence should apply for sports like football and 

         12  basketball.  It's illogical to apply blanket policies 

         13  for dominant sports like football and basketball to 

         14  Olympic sports like gymnastics.  But I'll save those 

         15  thoughts for a later date. 

         16             Members of the Commission, I believe it's 

         17  time to take responsibility for the preservation of 

         18  men's Olympic sports at the collegiate level.  It's 

         19  time to stop pointing the finger and asking about are 

         20  these male athletes any less important than those 

         21  participating in other sports?  We are talking about 

         22  the development of our next generation of leaders, 

         23  aren't we? 

         24             The goal of Title IX was to create equal 

         25  opportunity without prejudice.  Obviously this has not 

                                                                 132

          1  occurred, and a review and modifications are in order.  

          2  Thank you. 

          3                  MS. CYNTHIA COOPER:  Judith Sweet 

          4  joined the NCAA as vice-president for Championships and 

          5  Senior Women Administrator in January of 2001.  Prior 

          6  to that, Judith served as Director of Athletics at the 

          7  University of California, San Diego, from 1975 to 1999, 

          8  when she became one of the first women in the nation 

          9  selected to direct a combined men's and women's 

         10  intercollegiate athletics program. 

         11             Judith was elected to a two-year term as 

         12  President of the NCAA in January 1991 and was 

         13  Secretary-Treasurer of the NCAA from 1989 to 1991, 

         14  becoming the first woman to serve in each of those 

         15  positions. 

         16             Judith. 

         17                  MS. JUDITH SWEET:  Thank you, Madam 

         18  Co-Chair.  If I may, I would just like to add one P.S. 

         19  to that very kind introduction. 

         20             I've loved sports all my life.  As a young 

         21  girl I dreamt of representing my high school and 

         22  college on a sport team.  I never had that opportunity 

         23  because there were no teams at either the high school 

         24  or college level. 

         25             While I would welcome the opportunity to 

                                                                 133

          1  share my perspective based on those life and campus 

          2  experiences that Cynthia alluded to, my remarks today 

          3  will focus on the NCAA. 

          4             On behalf of the National Collegiate 

          5  Athletic Association and its more than 1200 member 

          6  colleges, universities, conferences, and affiliated 

          7  organizations, I'm pleased to have the opportunity to 

          8  provide the Commission with comments about the impact 

          9  of Title IX on intercollegiate athletics from the 

         10  Association's perspective. 

         11             For those of you who may not be as familiar 

         12  with the NCAA as others of you are, allow me to briefly 

         13  note that the NCAA is a membership driven association.  

         14  The NCAA derives its authority, including all national 

         15  policy, entirely from the will of the membership 

         16  through the vote of institutional or conference 

         17  representatives. 

         18             The vast majority of decisions regarding 

         19  athletics programs, including which sports to sponsor 

         20  or to cease sponsoring, are made at the campus level.  

         21  Member institutions have complete autonomy over their 

         22  programs except where the broader membership has set 

         23  standards through national policy. 

         24             Allow me also briefly to describe the role 

         25  of intercollegiate athletics for women 30 years ago 

                                                                 134

          1  when Title IX was signed into law.  There were no 

          2  college athletic scholarships to speak of for women, no 

          3  NCAA championships for women, and very few 

          4  opportunities for competition. 

          5             In 1971 /72 a survey of the NCAA member 

          6  institutions showed that only 29,977 women were 

          7  participating in sports and recreational programs 

          8  compared to over 170,000 men, more than five times as 

          9  many men as women. 

         10             The athletics opportunities for women were 

         11  few, and the prospects for growth were dismal.  With 

         12  numbers like that, it might be fair to wonder what 

         13  college woman would show any interest at all in 

         14  athletics. 

         15             What a difference 30 years of legislative 

         16  impetus, opportunity and support make.  Today nearly 

         17  150,000 women are competing in sports at NCAA member 

         18  schools. 

         19             While some individuals suggest that women do 

         20  not have a strong interest in sports participation, the 

         21  numbers prove otherwise.  In the last ten years alone 

         22  female NCAA participants have increased by more than 

         23  55,000.  The number of collegiate women's soccer teams 

         24  has grown from 80 in 1982 to 824 in 2002. 

         25             The number of girls participating in sports 

                                                                 135

          1  at the high school level exceeds 2.7 million.  As 

          2  opportunity has increased, interest has increased.  Of 

          3  the 87 championships in 22 sports conducted by the 

          4  NCAA, 43 are exclusively for women, and bowling will be 

          5  added to the women's championship in 2003/04. 

          6             And, Debbie, the Committee on Women's 

          7  Athletics has also indicated that they will look at the 

          8  number of scholarships being provided in all of our 

          9  sports.  The NCAA membership has demonstrated a 

         10  commitment to both men's and women's Olympic sports 

         11  through legislation that allows the continuation of 

         12  championships in Olympic sports even if the number of 

         13  sponsoring institutions does not meet minimum 

         14  requirements for championship events. 

         15             Clearly Title IX has promoted opportunities 

         16  for female athletes over the last 30 years, but there 

         17  is much more still to be done to ensure that men and 

         18  women who attend NCAA member schools have equitable 

         19  access to athletics participation. 

         20             Although women comprise 54 percent of the 

         21  undergraduate student population at NCAA member schools 

         22  on average, as you have heard, they account for only 40 

         23  percent of the athletics participants.  They receive 

         24  only 40 percent of the scholarships, they receive only 

         25  36 percent of the operating dollars, and have only 32 

                                                                 136

          1  percent for recruiting budgets. 

          2             Like any social legislation designed to 

          3  change the deeply imbedded status quo, Title IX has had 

          4  and still has its critics.  Over the last 30 years the 

          5  voices of dissent have been less strident regarding the 

          6  law itself and have grown more concerned with the 

          7  standards used to measure compliance. 

          8             The Department of Education standards 

          9  consider an athletics program to be in compliance with 

         10  Title IX if its student athletes by gender are in 

         11  proportion to the make-up of the undergraduate student 

         12  body or if the program can demonstrate a history of 

         13  expanding its program to meet the needs of the 

         14  underrepresented gender or if the program can 

         15  demonstrate that it has fully and effectively 

         16  accommodated interests and abilities of the 

         17  underrepresented gender. 

         18             Critics argue that the focus of courts and 

         19  the Office of Civil Rights has been on a 

         20  proportionality test and that it has become the de 

         21  facto single test used to determine compliance.  The 

         22  unintended consequence of Title IX they say has been 

         23  the cutting of the so-called nonrevenue men's sports in 

         24  order to get the number of athletics participants for 

         25  an institution more in line with the undergraduate 

                                                                 137

          1  population by gender. 

          2             Others have claimed that increased expenses 

          3  in providing opportunities for women to comply with 

          4  Title IX have resulted in a reduction of spending for 

          5  men's sports.  In fact, financial reports from 1972 to 

          6  1993 show that in Division 1-A for every new dollar 

          7  spent on women's sports, three new dollars were spent 

          8  on men's sports. 

          9             Before I discuss the findings of the report 

         10  on this issue from the United States GAO in March 2001, 

         11  allow me to share with you a message from the NCAA 

         12  executive committee, one of the primary decision making 

         13  bodies within the government structure and comprised of 

         14  university Presidents and Chancellors. 

         15             In a discussion about the work of the 

         16  Commission at their meetings earlier this month, the 

         17  President spoke strongly of the value of Title IX and 

         18  urged the Office of Civil Rights to apply consistent 

         19  Title IX enforcement and interpretations in all regions 

         20  of the country. 

         21             Regarding decisions by member institutions 

         22  to cut men's sports, this group of college and 

         23  university CEOs noted that institutions have dropped 

         24  sports for various reasons, such as institutional 

         25  philosophy, program priorities, finances, infractions, 

                                                                 138

          1  safety, lack of conference opportunities, inadequate 

          2  facilities, insurance costs, and others, but the single 

          3  most important message that they wanted me to deliver 

          4  on their behalf was this:  Don't blame Title IX for 

          5  institutional decisions to cut programs. 

          6             The President's position is supported by 

          7  findings of the GAO report.  The United States Congress 

          8  included provisions in the higher education amendments 

          9  of 1998 that required the GAO to study participation in 

         10  athletics, including schools' decisions to add or 

         11  discontinue sports teams.  They examined the membership 

         12  of both the NCAA and the NAIA.  Among the GAO's 

         13  findings are these:  Athletics participation for both 

         14  men and women have increased since 1981.  The total 

         15  number of teams has increased for both men and women. 

         16             Since 1992963 schools added teams and 307 

         17  discontinued teams.  Most were able to add teams, 

         18  usually women's teams, without discontinuing any teams.

         19             The report found that the level of student 

         20  interest was the factor schools cited most often as 

         21  greatly or very greatly influencing their decisions to 

         22  add or discontinue both men's and women's teams. 

         23             The conclusions are clear.  The decisions to 

         24  discontinue specific sports are made at the 

         25  institutional level for a variety of reasons. 

                                                                 139

          1             If the decision is made to eliminate sports 

          2  for gender-equity reasons, it is because institutions 

          3  have chosen this path rather than pursuing other 

          4  options, not because Title IX dictates such action. 

          5             The task before the Commission is an 

          6  important one.  In a perfect world Title IX would not 

          7  be necessary.  There would be enough resources and the 

          8  will to do the right thing and thus meet everyone's 

          9  needs.  Social legislation exists, of course, because 

         10  we do not live in that perfect world. 

         11             In the charge to this commission the 

         12  Department of Education acknowledges that extraordinary 

         13  progress has resulted from the passage of Title IX. 

         14                  MS. CYNTHIA COOPER:  One minute. 

         15                  MS. JUDITH SWEET:  While we like to 

         16  think that this progress would have taken place without 

         17  Title IX because it was the right thing to do, the fact 

         18  is that opportunities and support for girls and women 

         19  in athletics are still not equitable with those 

         20  provided for men, even though it was 30 years since the 

         21  law was passed. 

         22             Your charge appears to bear more on the 

         23  federal standards for measure of compliance than on the 

         24  necessity for the law.  The degree to which the 

         25  Commission can give direction to colleges and 

                                                                 140

          1  universities in achieving compliance with Title IX, 

          2  emphasizing application of any of the three prongs, 

          3  would remove the misunderstanding that proportionality 

          4  is the only way to comply.  The law is clear, the 

          5  intent is to correct inequities. 

          6             The NCAA stands ready to assist the 

          7  Commission any way it can as you deliberate.  The 

          8  ultimate test for compliance with Title IX may have 

          9  been summed up best by an NCAA gender-equity task force 

         10  in 1992.  It defined gender equity in the following 

         11  manner:  An athletics program can be considered gender 

         12  equitable when the participants in both men's and 

         13  women's programs would accept as fair and equitable the 

         14  overall program of the other gender.  No individual 

         15  should be discriminated against on the basis of gender, 

         16  institutionally or nationally, in intercollegiate 

         17  athletics. 

         18             As I conclude my comments, I urge you to 

         19  consider the following:  Would participants in both our 

         20  men's and women's programs accept as fair and equitable 

         21  40 percent of the participation opportunities, 36 

         22  percent of the operating dollars, and 32 percent of the 

         23  recruiting dollars?  Would we expect that of them? 

         24             Thank you for the opportunity to meet with 

         25  you today. 

                                                                 141

          1                  MS. CYNTHIA COOPER:  Thank you, Judith. 

          2             Christine Stolba is a Senior Fellow with the 

          3  Independent Women's Forum, where she writes about a 

          4  range of issues, including women and the economy, 

          5  feminism, and women's studies.  She is also an adjunct 

          6  scholar at the American Enterprise Institute for Public 

          7  Policy Research and a Visiting Scholar at the Ethics 

          8  and Public Policy Center, where she has written about 

          9  bioethics and the history of genetics. 

         10             Christine has testified before Congress on 

         11  issues related to women's wages and workplace 

         12  advancement.  Christine has been the recipient of 

         13  fellowships from Emory University and from the American 

         14  Philosophical Society.  She holds a Ph.D. in history 

         15  from Emory University. 

         16             Christine. 

         17                  MS. CHRISTINE STOLBA:  Thank you, 

         18  Chairman Cooper and distinguished members of the 

         19  Commission.  I'm honored to have the opportunity to 

         20  testify on the issue of Title IX and opportunity in 

         21  athletics. 

         22             I am Christine Stolba, Senior Fellow at the 

         23  Independent Women's Forum, which is a nonprofit, 

         24  nonpartisan organization dedicated to research and 

         25  public education on issues concerning women. 

                                                                 142

          1             For the past ten years the Independent 

          2  Women's Forum has been tracking the enforcement of 

          3  Title IX, with special focus on its impact on gender 

          4  equity and college athletics through its "Play Fair" 

          5  project. 

          6             I was born in 1973, which was one year after 

          7  President Nixon signed Title IX into law.  At that time 

          8  one in nine girls were playing high school sports.  

          9  Today that number is one in three.  The expansion of 

         10  women's participation in athletics is a heartening sign 

         11  of social progress. 

         12             As a competitive high school softball 

         13  player, I guarded lifelong benefits from my 

         14  participation in team sports, but when Title IX became 

         15  law, women were 43 percent of the undergraduate college 

         16  population, and their minority status was invoked as 

         17  proof of the need for the statute. 

         18             Today women are the majority of college 

         19  graduates, and the Department of Education estimates 

         20  that by the year 2009 men will be 41 percent of 

         21  undergraduates; in other words, the underrepresented 

         22  sex on campus will no longer be women, but men. 

         23             Contrary to Title IX's original aim of equal 

         24  opportunity, the courts and the Office For Civil Rights 

         25  at the Department of Education have embraced equal 

                                                                 143

          1  outcomes in the form of statistical proportionality as 

          2  their primary measure of compliance with the statute. 

          3             This proportionality principle, as you've 

          4  heard, posits that absent discrimination, men and women 

          5  would demonstrate identical levels of interest and 

          6  enthusiasm for all activities, whether it's the choice 

          7  of college majors or preferences for playing sports. 

          8             Such thinking, of course, ignores men's and 

          9  women's demonstrated preferences for certain 

         10  activities, and I think it leads inexorably to calls 

         11  for a sex quota system in higher education. 

         12             Now, as you've heard in theory, a school 

         13  need only meet one of the three prongs that the Office 

         14  for Civil Rights test determines, but in practice, 

         15  however, after the First Circuit's decision in the 

         16  Cohen V. Brown University case, the first prong has 

         17  become, this is the phrase used by the court, the safe 

         18  harbor for school's compliance with Title IX. 

         19             But because women today are the majority on 

         20  most college campuses, but still demonstrate lower 

         21  levels of interest in playing collegiate sports than 

         22  men, schools find themselves caught in a difficult 

         23  bind. 

         24             The solution many colleges have chosen has 

         25  been to cut men's team.  In less than a decade, more 

                                                                 144

          1  than 80,000 college female athletes on intercollegiate 

          2  teams disappeared from college campuses. 

          3             Between 1993 and 1999 alone 53 men's golf 

          4  teams, 39 men's track teams, 43 wrestling teams and 16 

          5  baseball teams have been eliminated.  The University of 

          6  Miami's diving team, which has produced 15 Olympic 

          7  athletes, is gone. 

          8             Now, supporters of statistical 

          9  proportionality in college sports have argued, and many 

         10  of them have argued before you here today, that since 

         11  the inception of Title IX, women's demonstrated 

         12  interest in sports is not a true measure of equality 

         13  because it fails to consider female athletic potential.  

         14  If you build it, they will come. 

         15             Because society discriminated against women 

         16  athletes for so long, the argument goes, generations of 

         17  girls internalized the message that they didn't belong 

         18  on the soccer field or the basketball court. 

         19             The fact that women currently are not 

         20  turning out for sports in rates as high as men is a 

         21  legacy of that denial of opportunity the argument goes. 

         22             Now, this line of reasoning obviously has 

         23  truth.  Culturally, the female athlete has been a role 

         24  model only in recent years.  Displays of female 

         25  athleticism were rarely celebrated.  And doubtless, 

                                                                 145

          1  many girls never ventured to challenge the social norms 

          2  that saw men but not women as athletes, and they lost 

          3  out on athletic opportunities in the process. 

          4             A similar set of cultural assumptions 

          5  governed the labor market for generations.  But once 

          6  women had achieved formal equality of opportunity, as 

          7  they did with the passage of Title IX, I think we have 

          8  to move to another question.  The question is is the 

          9  government's role to enforce anti-discrimination 

         10  legislation or is the government's role to mandate a 

         11  certain level of interest in athletics to achieve 

         12  equality of outcome? 

         13             I believe the intent of Title IX is the 

         14  former.  I think in practice we're seeing the 

         15  enforcement of the latter idea.  Well, what do women 

         16  want? 

         17             Numerous contemporary studies demonstrate 

         18  that even 30 years after the passage of Title IX, on 

         19  average men and women still display different degrees 

         20  of enthusiasm for sports.  This obviously never should 

         21  be used as an argument to prevent women from pursuing 

         22  athletics.  But if you look at the data, for example, 

         23  this particular set of data, it's been raised a few 

         24  times this morning, the scholastic aptitude test data, 

         25  which shows that nearly twice as many men as women say 

                                                                 146

          1  they want to play sports at a college level. 

          2             Now, there's some other more interesting 

          3  data which I have and a few people today have alluded 

          4  to comes from the National Federation of State High 

          5  School Associations.  They do high school athletic 

          6  participation surveys and look at the rates of gender 

          7  breakdown, a range of extracurricular activities. 

          8             One survey done, this one was done about ten 

          9  years ago, similar numbers follow, shows that there is 

         10  one place where the girls are, and that's everywhere 

         11  but playing sports.  They make up around 69 to 70 

         12  percent of the participants in band programs, choir 

         13  programs, debate teams, drama clubs, they dominate in 

         14  journalism, in speech, in yearbook, in student 

         15  government, and in service clubs.  Boys dominate only 

         16  in sports. 

         17             So I would argue that this is women's choice 

         18  in action.  Given a range of options of extracurricular 

         19  activities, many girls are choosing other things 

         20  besides sports.  I think one of the commissioners or 

         21  testifiers this morning mentioned that the purpose of 

         22  collegiate education is indeed education, it's not 

         23  extracurricular activities.  I think a lot of these 

         24  choices that women are making at the high school and 

         25  college level feed into future job opportunities. 

                                                                 147

          1             Figures for little league activity confirm 

          2  that observation, particularly since youth leagues are 

          3  generally a matter of supply and demand; teams form 

          4  depending on the number of interested players who 

          5  register.  Nationally, 2.4 million children, almost all 

          6  of them boys, participated in Little League baseball in 

          7  1999.  Little League softball, which has the same 

          8  structure as Little League baseball, had only 384,000 

          9  players, almost all girls.

         10             Now, I think that, as several people have 

         11  pointed out, and this is a serious problem, even when 

         12  universities present solid evidence of men's and 

         13  women's different preferences, they often end up 

         14  nevertheless having to cut men's teams and settle 

         15  lawsuits. 

         16             The University of Texas is an example.  In 

         17  1993 it was the target of a Title IX lawsuit seeking 

         18  the creation of four new female varsity sports, soccer, 

         19  softball, gymnastics, and crew.  The evidence that the 

         20  university marshaled from student surveys and 

         21  participation rates in intramural sports revealed that 

         22  women in Texas simply displayed less interest in sports 

         23  than their male counterparts. 

         24             Despite this evidence, the University of 

         25  Texas settled the case before it came to trial to avoid 

                                                                 148

          1  a long and potentially costly court battle, and at a 

          2  cost of one million dollars agreed to raise the female 

          3  participation rates from 23 to 44 percent. 

          4             Attempts by the government to mandate 

          5  certain levels of interest and participation by women I 

          6  think leads to misguided standards and a denial of 

          7  opportunity to male athletes by assuming that all women 

          8  have the same degree of interest in sports as all men 

          9  without actually bothering to consider whether this is 

         10  in fact true. 

         11             Proportionality proponents reveal a 

         12  different purpose, and that's social engineering.  

         13  Proportionality is not equality.  Now, proportionality 

         14  proponents would in essence reject the reality of 

         15  women's choices, but they would do well to remember 

         16  that proportionality could turn out to be a double-edge 

         17  sword. 

         18             In Cohen V. Brown, as several witnesses this 

         19  morning have shown, Brown University provided the court 

         20  with statistics that revealed that gender rations in 

         21  other programs were also skewed.  Students' 

         22  enthusiastic about dance, music, and drama were 91, 66 

         23  and 56 percent women respectively. 

         24             Thus far, courts have not been sympathetic 

         25  to male athletes' claims of reverse discrimination.  

                                                                 149

          1  But it is useful to remember that there's a logical 

          2  conclusion to the proportionality principle, and that's 

          3  quotas in every arena of higher education, including 

          4  the classroom. 

          5             Considering that men are the minority on 

          6  college campuses today, this is not an unheard of 

          7  proposition. 

          8             Now, I understand that the Title IX debate 

          9  has no simple solutions.  Athletic directors, 

         10  administrators, and students will continue to quibble 

         11  over who gets what.  No one is calling for the 

         12  elimination of Title IX, nor suggesting that its 

         13  underlying principle of equal opportunity is misguided, 

         14  but the past 30 years have shown that the practical 

         15  application of Title IX has led to the elimination of 

         16  equal opportunity for many male athletes. 

         17             I think we need to find a better way.  With 

         18  the recognition by the courts and policy makers that 

         19  Title IX guarantees equal opportunity but doesn't 

         20  necessarily guarantee equal outcomes, we can return to 

         21  the original intent of Title IX.

         22             I would urge this commission to consider 

         23  more accurate and innovative ways of measuring student 

         24  interest in college athletics, such as polling data and 

         25  student surveys, as well as counting sports things that 

                                                                 150

          1  weren't sports 30 years ago, such as cheerleading 

          2  squads, which on many college campuses today are 

          3  actually athletic activities. 

          4             Young women should have, of course, every 

          5  opportunity to pursue sports, but we should be 

          6  enforcing equal opportunity, not ideology or quotas.  

          7  The proportionality principle ultimately is destructive 

          8  to free choice and to relations between the sexes. I 

          9  think it's debasing to women and is wasteful of our 

         10  nation's limited educational resources.

         11             Thank you.

         12                  MS. CYNTHIA COOPER:  Open up for 

         13  questions. 

         14                  MS. RITA SIMON:  This is a simple 

         15  question, and, Christine, you alluded to it just now.  

         16  Is there a consensus about what is a sport among all 

         17  colleges?  For example, you mentioned that cheerleading 

         18  might be a sport.  Is there a consensus about that?  

         19  What about the marshal arts, is there a consensus about 

         20  the definition of a sport? 

         21                  MS. CHRISTINE STOLBA:  One thing we 

         22  have seen is the emergence of emerging sports.  We have 

         23  these massive equestrian teams, precision ice skating, 

         24  for example, is sweeping the nation.  I am being 

         25  sarcastic because we know that some of these sports are 

                                                                 151

          1  obviously being created in order to fill the 

          2  proportionality.  But sports change just as cultures 

          3  change with regard to the kind of sports women play, 

          4  and I think the Commission could do a great service in 

          5  helping guide administrators by defining what is a 

          6  sport these day and what isn't.

          7                  MS. JUDITH SWEET:  There is in 

          8  fact a definition that I would like to share with you.  

          9  The activity is sponsored with the primary purpose of 

         10  preparing for and engaging in athletic competition 

         11  against other similar teams.  The team prepares for and 

         12  engages in competitions in the same way as other teams 

         13  in the athletic program, such as receiving coaching, 

         14  conducts tryouts, engages in regular practice sessions, 

         15  and has regularly scheduled athletic competitions.  

         16  Whether national and state conference championships 

         17  exist for the activity and whether the activity is 

         18  administered by the athletic department, if the purpose 

         19  of the activity is primarily to support and promote 

         20  other athletes, then the team would not be considered 

         21  to be engaged in a sport for the purpose of compliance 

         22  under Title IX.

         23                  MS. RITA SIMON:  What does that do to 

         24  cheerleading?

         25                  MS. JUDITH SWEET:  There are 

                                                                 152

          1  programs such as cheerleading where the emphasis has 

          2  shifted to competition, and they do not exist to cheer 

          3  for other teams, but rather to compete based on 

          4  athletic ability. 

          5                  DR. RITA SIMON:  Thank you. 

          6                  MS. JULIE FOUDY:  I think we're all in 

          7  agreement.  Of course, we're certainly in agreement 

          8  that we don't want to see any men's opportunities 

          9  eliminated, and I think some people disagree as to why 

         10  that's happening.  And, Judy, I have a question for you 

         11  about that, because when you look at all the financial 

         12  figures and numbers, especially in light of what's 

         13  happening today in the corporate market and the talk of 

         14  fiscal responsibility, you look at the number and there 

         15  seems to be an arms' race happening with coaches'  

         16  salaries, with assistant coaches' salaries, and there's 

         17  a lot of expenses that are happening. 

         18             What are the consequences and what type of 

         19  limitations can we put in place to try to contain that, 

         20  or are there any? 

         21                  MS. JUDITH SWEET:  Thanks for that 

         22  question, Julie.  I think that there are several 

         23  challenges that athletics admininstrators faced.  I 

         24  spent 24 years as a Director of Athletics and went 

         25  through successive years of budget cuts when California 

                                                                 153

          1  was in a severe financial circumstance. 

          2             We had to make hard decisions, and those 

          3  decisions were to try to generate additional resources 

          4  to maintain our broad-based program, but we had to 

          5  reallocate our resources to take care of our programs. 

          6             We never dropped a sport with the exception 

          7  of replacing women's field hockey with women's water 

          8  Polo because on the West Coast there weren't any teams 

          9  for us to compete against in field hockey and we saw 

         10  women's water Polo as a growing sport. 

         11             The question with regard to the arms' race 

         12  is one where institutions are constantly calling for a 

         13  level playing field, and if one institution determines 

         14  that they need to be competitive based on salaries that 

         15  are offered at another institution, then we continue to 

         16  escalate that competitive arms' race.

         17             There is no such thing as a level playing 

         18  field, and I think we need to acknowledge that.  There 

         19  are all kinds of things that enter into whether a 

         20  institution can be competitive.  Certainly the 

         21  resources they put into a program are one factor, but I 

         22  believe the quality of an academic program that you 

         23  offer, your location, there are a number of other 

         24  things that determine whether you are going to be 

         25  competitive. 

                                                                 154

          1             I think we need to be realistic.  If we 

          2  continue to increase our expenses at the rate that we 

          3  are right now, we're going to go broke.  We just can't 

          4  continue to do that.  So we need to use good sense.  We 

          5  need to be rational and reasonable as we look at what 

          6  we're doing within our athletics programs and make some 

          7  of those hard decisions, that the quality of 

          8  competition is really not going to be diminished if we 

          9  don't follow some of the practices that are currently 

         10  in place.  And it takes everyone's best efforts.  And I 

         11  would hope that the chief executive officers on our 

         12  campuses will play an important role in making that 

         13  happen. 

         14                  MR. TED LELAND:  I get to ask one.  And 

         15  Christine mentioned this a little bit in terms of the 

         16  blame that Title IX gets for dollar problems and 

         17  athletic problems.  But many times there are people 

         18  that have asserted that it's really the escalation in 

         19  the men's programs' costs per student athlete that 

         20  cause a financial burden. 

         21             Three dollars more are spent on men's for 

         22  every one dollar spent on women's during the period of 

         23  time as has been said.  The NCAA is not a reasonable 

         24  ally if we're going to -- not an effective ally if 

         25  we're going to limit the escalation costs.  The NCAA 

                                                                 155

          1  has tried time after time to limit the escalation in 

          2  the cost of running an athletics program on any campus 

          3  and has been ineffective in being able to do that, 

          4  would you agree? 

          5                  MS. JUDITH SWEET:  I'll agree with 

          6  that.  In fact, I'll date myself.  My involvement with 

          7  the NCAA there has been at least three special 

          8  committees put together on cost containment or 

          9  something of that nature to propose legislation that 

         10  would in fact put caps on certain expenses for all 

         11  member institutions, and those pieces of legislation 

         12  have not been supported, and I believe it's because of 

         13  institutional autonomy.  But I think if we are 

         14  individuals of good will, we need to look realistically 

         15  at what's happening as far as expenses in college 

         16  athletics, and we need to work cooperatively to find a 

         17  way to keep those expenses at a level that will allow 

         18  for us to support both our men's and women's programs.

         19                  MR. RON GALIMORE:  I'd like to make a 

         20  comment on that.  It's very true that some of those 

         21  concerns do exist, and I see that steps are being taken 

         22  in order to try and correct some of that. 

         23             The thing that concerns me is over the past 

         24  eight years in working with the USOC particularly in 

         25  offering conference grants to universities that have 

                                                                 156

          1  men's gymnastic programs, we had at our access 1.5 

          2  million dollars and were turned down by many 

          3  conferences that wouldn't accept the money because they 

          4  didn't have the same amount of money to spend for a 

          5  women's program.  They were still trying to meet the 

          6  proportionality issues. 

          7             And so there are concerns on that also.  And 

          8  it saddens me that we can't give away money in order to 

          9  try and help certain programs. 

         10                  MS. CARY GROTH:  I appreciate you 

         11  bringing up that point because I think those monies are 

         12  very valuable to conferences and institutions, but 

         13  unfortunately it's also needed to support those sport 

         14  teams, and as an Athletic Director it's not just the 

         15  direct cost of the sport, that is a challenge for all 

         16  of us, it is the athletic support and training and so 

         17  on and so forth. 

         18             And, Judy, I want to acknowledge your 

         19  comment about the reason that sports were dropped.  

         20  Unfortunately our institution was in that position this 

         21  year, and it was strictly a financial decision, yet the 

         22  publicity really was around Title IX.  And 

         23  unfortunately every time that happens, it's another 

         24  black mark against Title IX.  And a very uneducated 

         25  society about Title IX then puts the blame on women's 

                                                                 157

          1  sports.  So I appreciate that point being brought up. 

          2                  MS. DONNA de VARONA:  Yeah, Judith, Ron 

          3  and Christine, both of us have been through this.  I 

          4  was on two Olympic teams and never completed for a high 

          5  school team or a college team, never got a scholarship.  

          6  And I think it's a sorry place that we've come to that 

          7  this has been so politicized.  And Title IX is always 

          8  blamed when a men's minor sport is cut when there are 

          9  resources and we are a very rich nation and we are very 

         10  creative. 

         11             And when you mentioned, Ron, thinking 

         12  outside the box, I would hope that you could give me 

         13  some more thinking outside the box.  You did mention, 

         14  Ron, that when the men's sports teams were cut, women's 

         15  sports teams were cut, and it seems to me that your 

         16  sport is an endangered sport just like some men's 

         17  swimming programs and water polo programs.  Both of 

         18  you, do you think there's -- or all three of you, could 

         19  you respond, do you think that there's any way the NCAA 

         20  could finally reach out to the independent sports 

         21  govern bodies in the Olympic committee and that this 

         22  commission could in any way direct those groups to come 

         23  together so we could think outside the box and help 

         24  facilitate, for instance, in gymnastics if they are 

         25  going to cut a program that there's a time announcement 

                                                                 158

          1  that they are thinking of this so that those in 

          2  gymnastics can endow their like they did with water 

          3  polo at UCLA? 

          4             Is there a way in which, Judith, we could 

          5  really get the institutions to -- there are 40 men's 

          6  basketball coaches that make over a million dollars a 

          7  year.  Is there any way we could stop this and help 

          8  people be more fiscally responsible and think outside 

          9  the box? 

         10                  MR. RON GALIMORE:  Well, USA gymnastics 

         11  has always been there as a resource for any institution 

         12  and would love the opportunity to try and work with any 

         13  institution on keeping sports. 

         14             You know, in talking a little bit about the 

         15  women's issue, women's gymnastics is not one of the 

         16  sports that people are adding, you know.  They are 

         17  adding some of the other sports that have higher 

         18  numbers.  And when you drop a men's program, as I 

         19  mentioned, a lot of the gymnasts that participate in 

         20  that program go on to be coaches. 

         21             So we have an interest not just from the 

         22  men's side, but also from the women's side.  I would 

         23  like to do anything possible to do that.

         24             So we would welcome the opportunity to sit 

         25  and visit and try to be creative on finding solutions. 

                                                                 159

          1                  MS. JUDITH SWEET:  I'll try to 

          2  answer both of your questions.  The first one in 

          3  regards to working with USOC, you may be aware that the 

          4  USOC sponsored a conference in Indianapolis to address 

          5  the declining Olympic sports in which several of us 

          6  from the NCAA participated, and at that meeting, it was 

          7  determined that we would work together to try to 

          8  identify ways that we can support Olympic sports and 

          9  maintain both our men's and women's broad-based 

         10  programs.

         11             Your second question about salaries is one 

         12  that is an institutional decision at this point, and 

         13  until there is some means for institutions to do other 

         14  than what they are doing right now or there is some 

         15  mandate, I believe that the salaries will continue at 

         16  the level that they are and probably increase. 

         17                  MS. CYNTHIA COOPER:  Anymore questions? 

         18                  MS. DEBORAH YOW:  I have just a point 

         19  of clarification.  I believe this is accurate, Judy.  

         20  When we talk in this venue about scholarship dollars, I 

         21  think it's important for our audience to understand 

         22  that we're not talking about annual aid dollars alone; 

         23  in other words, the NCAA maximum number of scholarships 

         24  that can be provided.  We're talking about the annual 

         25  aid that's provided, plus summer school, plus fifth 

                                                                 160

          1  year aid.  And that is in my estimation a great part of 

          2  the disparity of the percentages. 

          3             I'm not sure how to delicately say this, but 

          4  at least on our campus our women don't need fifth year 

          5  aid as often as the men.  So it is a nondiscriminatory 

          6  reason, nor do they need summer school aid as often as 

          7  our men. 

          8             Every September I meet with the coaches and 

          9  encourage our women to send their athletes to summer 

         10  school, and they look at my dumbfounded.  They come 

         11  back to me individually and suggest they don't need 

         12  Debbie to go to summer school.  They are on track to 

         13  graduate.  We want a break from each other.  We have 

         14  plans for our summer. 

         15             I can't say that about a number of our male 

         16  athletes.  They in fact occasionally do need to be in 

         17  summer school and do need financial aid in the fifth 

         18  year.  So I just think that we need to keep that in 

         19  mind that the statistics can be somewhat deceiving 

         20  without one acknowledging or recognizing that those 

         21  nondiscriminatory factors are part of those numbers. 

         22                  MS. JUDITH SWEET:  I think I 

         23  mentioned earlier the Committee on Women's Athletics 

         24  has indicated that they are going to look at the 

         25  scholarship provisions, and I would be happy to share 

                                                                 161

          1  with them your comments.  And this is an opportunity 

          2  for review of scholarships in the total picture. 

          3                  MR. RON GALIMORE:  I just wanted to say 

          4  in closing, and I know that we have said that we are 

          5  completely excited about all the opportunities that are 

          6  being afforded, but there is an issue here and there is 

          7  a problem and we do need to try and do something to 

          8  motivate institutions to do something different. 

          9             Right now, presently the way the things are 

         10  set up with the proportionality problem it's to 

         11  motivate to drop men's sports, and things do need to be 

         12  reviewed.  We do have a problem that needs to be 

         13  addressed here as the NCAA decides whether or not they 

         14  want to work with NGB's on this situation. 

         15             So I hope that the Commission will take all 

         16  the information and look at everything and try and make 

         17  some good decisions so that we can all work together.  

         18  I'm just concerned as time goes by and we try to get 

         19  the right parties together that we continue to lose 

         20  sports, and we don't have very many left. 

         21                  MR. TED LELAND:  Thank you.  The three 

         22  of you, plus all the presenters, to remind everybody up 

         23  front here and the presenters, you're all welcome to 

         24  attend lunch.  We'd love the presenters to join us if 

         25  you would.  And we will readjourn at 2:00.  And the 

                                                                 162

          1  room will be locked, and we will open it back up at 

          2  1:50, so if you want to leave some materials in here, 

          3  please feel comfortable. 

          4             Thank you.

          5  (Lunch recess).

          6                  

          7                  MR. TED LELAND:  If you could bear with 

          8  me for a second.  I thought we made great progress this 

          9  morning, and we made even better progress when we were 

         10  able to keep to our agenda and discipline both 

         11  ourselves and the presenters regarding the time 

         12  constraints that we've all agreed to. 

         13             So what we have planned for the next three 

         14  hours is we will adjourn at 5:00.  Our intention is to 

         15  take as much public testimony as we can in the next 

         16  three hours. 

         17             We have asked people to register and then 

         18  also sign in today, so we will begin at the top of the 

         19  list the first person to register and sign in and go 

         20  through those people as quickly as we can. 

         21             We have almost 80 people who have asked to 

         22  speak, so we have a waiting list.  So what we would 

         23  like you to do is limit yourself to three to five 

         24  minutes.  At the end of four minutes either Cynthia or 

         25  I will say -- when you start, the green light is on.  

                                                                 163

          1  At the end of four minutes -- that's this little thing 

          2  right here (indicating).  Then the -- I'm learning this 

          3  as we go.  At 4:30 the yellow light goings on and then 

          4  the red light goes on at five minutes. 

          5             So if everybody could just show respect for 

          6  one another and one another's opinions to make sure 

          7  that you abide by that time frame, it would be 

          8  appreciated by everyone.

          9             Okay.  And Debbie is telling me we will turn 

         10  the microphone off immediately following that. 

         11             And what I will ask people to do is Cynthia 

         12  and I will ask you to come up in sets of four and wait.  

         13  And Debbie Price here from the Department of Education 

         14  to my left, who's Executive Director of the Commission, 

         15  will sort of keep track of the light and the timing.  

         16  And hopefully we can have as much great dialogue this 

         17  afternoon as we had this morning.  Certainly, as we 

         18  said earlier this morning, I see a lot of new people 

         19  here. 

         20             We are all proud to be on this commission.  

         21  We are committed to listening to not only experts in 

         22  the field, but the general public.  People have a 

         23  concern about equal opportunity in athletics, and so 

         24  we're very excited to serve and very excited to hear 

         25  what you have to say. 

                                                                 164

          1             So the first four people up.  Again, a five 

          2  minute time limit.  Clar Anderson, Sam Bell, David 

          3  Rodrigues, and Alan Fecteau, if they would come up, and 

          4  Clar would begin. 

          5                  MR. CLAR ANDERSON:  Thank you for 

          6  giving me the opportunity to speak to you and 

          7  greetings.  Lord, I don't envy your job of trying to 

          8  figure out this dilemma. 

          9             My name is Clar Anderson, and I'm both a 

         10  proponent of Title IX and an advocate for it to be 

         11  revised to ensure that it fully enhances the 

         12  opportunity for both male and female athletes. 

         13             My experience may be made because I am a 

         14  proponent of Title IX and a victim of the unintended 

         15  consequences of Title IX.  When I wrestled, wrestling 

         16  was dropped at Auburn University after my freshman 

         17  year.  Also, I'm a wrestling coach at Duke University, 

         18  where they offer no athletic scholarships.

         19             First I would like to give you some personal 

         20  history of why I'm a proponent of Title IX.  My mom and 

         21  dad raised both my two brothers and sisters and I in 

         22  Upstate New York, and my mother was a P.E. instructor 

         23  and a coach. 

         24             I can remember vividly the difficulties my 

         25  mother faced while she attempted to provide the best 

                                                                 165

          1  experience possible for her young female athletes.  I 

          2  know she spent much of her own money to augment or 

          3  totally underwrite her female teams.  She often had to 

          4  transport the young ladies in our family car to various 

          5  events as well as purchase balls, timers, et cetera. 

          6             She also had to arrange to use the 

          7  facilities after the male sports chose what time they'd 

          8  use the sports and when they wouldn't use the sports.  

          9  This was a travesty, and I'm glad that young ladies get 

         10  more opportunities to play and train for their sports 

         11  these days. 

         12             And I also greatly appreciate the 

         13  opportunity to participate in sports.  Looking at me, 

         14  you can tell I was not predisposed to play basketball 

         15  or wrestle.  I chose to wrestle, or you maybe could say 

         16  wrestling chose me.  There are not many sports 

         17  available for those genetically determined to be 

         18  shorter, slower, et cetera, for wrestling is by design 

         19  intended to give opportunity to those of various 

         20  weights. 

         21             In high school wrestling there are 14 weight 

         22  classes and in collage they are 10 weight classes.  

         23  This guarantees just about anyone the opportunity to 

         24  participate.  It attracts the most diverse range of 

         25  people of any sport, I believe. 

                                                                 166

          1             The lighter weights have Asians, Hispanics, 

          2  African Americans, and Caucasians and have done very 

          3  well in the sport of wrestling while those of many 

          4  religious backgrounds and many different countries all 

          5  train and compete and share common experiences with 

          6  wrestling. 

          7             There are not many other sports where you 

          8  can have a six foot four and a five foot five wrestler 

          9  square off in a national finals match, and the sport of 

         10  wrestling is being disseminate by all the ill-intended 

         11  many consequences of what I believe to be the wrongful 

         12  implication of Title IX. 

         13             I wrestled my freshman year of college at 

         14  Auburn.  It was a great school with a very strong 

         15  wrestling tradition.  Tom Milkovich, the head wrestling 

         16  coach, had for three years promised to be in the top 

         17  ten. 

         18             In my freshman year we were ranked seventh, 

         19  placed ninth in the national tournament, and I was a 

         20  freshman All American when we found -- and we had two 

         21  other All Americans on the team, recruiting classes 

         22  ranked number one in the country, and we were all 

         23  excited about that potential and the dreams there. 

         24             But these dreams were all dashed when we 

         25  found out late in the summer that Auburn wasn't going 

                                                                 167

          1  to sponsor wrestling anymore, but would honor the 

          2  scholarships offered.  Obviously no true athlete 

          3  competes just for the scholarships.  So the team was 

          4  left without any guidance or help to try to find 

          5  another wrestling home before the window of opportunity 

          6  was closed.

          7             Ironically, the wrestling team was the most 

          8  successful athletic program on campus and most likely 

          9  the least expensive scholarship team.  It made no 

         10  sense.  Fortunately for me I was able to transfer that 

         11  year and pursue my dream of being a national champion, 

         12  but many of my teammates had to stay another year 

         13  before transferred or were shed or forced to forego 

         14  their dream. 

         15             Now for some general observations.

         16             It seems ironic that in this public forum we 

         17  have two groups of people that are basically both for 

         18  Title IX, but many of my team -- I'm sorry, and is 

         19  fighting for more opportunity to participate in sports.  

         20  It is a shame that it has to be so adversarial. 

         21             I can't imagine that either group wants the 

         22  other side not to have a fair and equitable chance to 

         23  pursue athletic dreams at the university level, but I 

         24  do know that over 300 NCAA wrestling programs have been 

         25  dropped since the implementation of Title IX. 

                                                                 168

          1             I don't blame the other side for this demise 

          2  of opportunities for so many young men, I just want you 

          3  to know that wrestling is a growing sports and it ranks 

          4  between probably the fifth and sixth most participated 

          5  sport at the high school level.  However, supposedly 

          6  for 100 high school wrestlers there's only about one or 

          7  two opportunities to compete at the college level.  

          8  This isn't scholarships, but just a spot on the team. 

          9             I have witnessed the tears in a young man's 

         10  eye when he was told he could not even practice with a 

         11  team because roster limits that are implemented to 

         12  comply with Title IX. 

         13             If we look at the bigger picture, I think 

         14  our society as a whole would say there's no need to be 

         15  this conflict between men and women over opportunities. 

         16                  MR. TED LELAND:  That's time.  Would 

         17  the speaker please repeat your name into this because 

         18  we are keeping a transcript of these testimonies.

         19                  MR. SAM BELL:  My name is Sam Bell.  

         20  I'm President of the United States Track Coaches 

         21  Association.  And to give you a little background, I 

         22  coached high school grade years at the university level 

         23  for 40.  I'm still standing. 

         24             The first eight years as a high school coach 

         25  I coached football, basketball, track, and one year 

                                                                 169

          1  coached wrestling.  And my first job I taught American 

          2  and rural history of problems in democracy, freshman 

          3  English and, of all things, girl's P.E.  so I had a 

          4  little experience at that. 

          5             The last 16 years of my coaching experience 

          6  was coaching a combined program of men and women.  And 

          7  just as an aside, I will tell you that our budgets were 

          8  exactly the same with the exception of the fact that 

          9  men's equipment sometimes cost more.  When you have a 

         10  heavier shot or a heavier javel or a heavier discus, 

         11  you pay more for it.

         12             I want to quote from an article which 

         13  appeared in the Los Angeles Times.  There are few 

         14  scenes more heartbreaking in sports than a college 

         15  coach having to tell his players that their team has 

         16  been eliminated so that the school can comply with 

         17  Title IX, the federal law applied to gender and 

         18  athletics. 

         19             It's a cheerless drama that is played out 

         20  each year as tens of thousands of young men have been 

         21  stripped of their programs, scholarships, and 

         22  competitive hopes.  Even the fabled Mighty Casey has 

         23  nothing on these student athletes, who have lost not 

         24  simply a game, but their dreams.

         25             There has long been an outcry to examine and 

                                                                 170

          1  yes reform the dubious way Title IX is enforced.  

          2  Schools everywhere fear that only by adhering to quotas 

          3  making the roster proportional to their enrollment can 

          4  they be safe from the federal government and 

          5  plaintiffs' attorneys. 

          6             But until earlier this year those earnest 

          7  pleas were usually confined to the soon to be vacated 

          8  locker rooms of teams that had been cut.  Now, a broad 

          9  group of coaches for many different sports is sticking 

         10  up for the male athletes.  A lawsuit they filed in 

         11  Federal Court in January is bringing this long overdue 

         12  discussion to the national fore.

         13             Eight major sports associations have signed 

         14  on to the reform effort and at a Senate hearing on 

         15  Title IX last month Secretary of Education, Rod Paige, 

         16  announced the formation of this commission to study how 

         17  the law is being enforced, sports and all. 

         18             Having open discussion is crucial.  If the 

         19  Commission does its job fairly, it will hear from 

         20  people like Coach Sterling Martin at Bowling Green 

         21  State University, who saw his track team cut just weeks 

         22  ago replaced by a women's rowing team. 

         23             In that swift stroke, the school chopped 

         24  badly needed scholarships for minority athletes in 

         25  favor of a sport that has, safe to say, a scant 

                                                                 171

          1  following in disadvantaged communities, or for that 

          2  matter, most communities.

          3             Beverly Brandon's son, Barrett, lost out 

          4  when Nebraska eliminated its men's swim team last year, 

          5  and she too would like to say a few words.  Turned away 

          6  by the school, she traveled to Washington a few weeks 

          7  ago with Barrett's sister, hoping in vain to tell law 

          8  makers face to face that here were two women who 

          9  thought Title IX should be in fairness for everyone. 

         10             Brandon has organized other moms too, women 

         11  like Deb Downey, whose son lost his track team, and 

         12  Gina Iamatteo, whose son was a quota casualty at 

         13  Oklahoma. 

         14             Their stories give witness to the wreckage 

         15  scattered at schools across the country.  The UCLA swim 

         16  team, scores of Olympic medals gone.  Howard 

         17  University's decade old baseball team cut at the end of 

         18  last semester.  Kent State hockey, no more.  U-Mass 

         19  gymnastics, good-bye.  And no, those macho football 

         20  guys are not to blame.

         21             The cuts take place just as frequently at 

         22  schools that don't even have football, like Marquette 

         23  University where the Athletic Director had the 

         24  integrity to admit to the wrestling team that he was 

         25  cutting their program to achieve proportionality. 

                                                                 172

          1             At other schools like Bucknell and Yale 

          2  teams were axed even when alumni stepped forward, 

          3  offering to fund the entire program.

          4             But Downey and Martin and the young men they 

          5  champion will never get the chance to tell their 

          6  stories if the National Women's Law Center gets its 

          7  way. 

          8             Marcia Greenberger, the head of an activist 

          9  group which helped the Department of Education pass the 

         10  quota provision, declared recently that the Title IX 

         11  commission was unwarranted and that this law and this 

         12  policy must not be changed and there's no reason even 

         13  to reopen them. 

         14             In the thinking of radical feminist groups, 

         15  the coaches, students, moms and alums are not concerned 

         16  or caring voices that merit attention.  They are 

         17  misguided, or worse, trying to return women to a long 

         18  abandoned era of subservience.  They are wrong.  And 

         19  their condescension has only made a determined mother 

         20  and a fired up coach that much more focused.

         21             I want to try to give you just a little bit 

         22  of a situation in men's track and field where we had a 

         23  student who would no longer be allowed to come out for 

         24  track with the quota system.  Before he left college, 

         25  he was on a world record.  Broke the one-mile relay 

                                                                 173

          1  team.

          2             He graduated in chemistry and went to -- 

          3                  MR. TED LELAND:  Sam, that's time.  

          4  Thank you. 

          5             David. 

          6                  MR. DAVID RODRIGUES:  My name is David 

          7  Rodrigues.  I'm just a parent here in Marietta, Georgia 

          8  who wants to talk a little bit about the effects of 

          9  Title IX here in my state. 

         10             I'm here today not to spout statistical 

         11  information, not to debate who's at fault for the 

         12  elimination of various men's sports.  I'm here today to 

         13  talk about any views about what has happened here in 

         14  the State of Georgia and to challenge the Commission to 

         15  go out of their way in the pursuit of facts and come up 

         16  with a solution that is fair to every citizen of the 

         17  United States. 

         18             Please know that I did not say fair to women 

         19  or men, but fair to all citizens of our great country.  

         20  So as you listen to all the facts and figures being 

         21  thrown at you over the next few months, please remember 

         22  that we as citizens here have high expectations that 

         23  you will find a fair and equitable solution so that we 

         24  will meet the needs of both men and women. 

         25             As to the problem for which we're here today 

                                                                 174

          1  -- let me back up.  Let me just say this.  I would like 

          2  to get a show of hands, how many people here are in 

          3  favor of killing Title IX?  None.  So I want to know 

          4  why do I constantly hear disinformation about how we're 

          5  trying to kill Title IX. 

          6             No one wants to kill it.  I have two 

          7  daughters and a son.  I want them to have every 

          8  opportunity, but it really upsets me that we as 

          9  Americans can't even get our own facts straight.  Why 

         10  is it so important to have a winner or a loser here? 

         11  Why can't we just say, listen, what is the common sense 

         12  of Title IX?  What was really intended? 

         13             What other society or what other area of 

         14  government do we have where we say, excuse me, there's 

         15  not enough blacks working for this company so let's 

         16  remove half the whites, or there's not enough Asians or 

         17  Puerto Ricans?  We don't do that.  It's based on the 

         18  merits of who is the most qualified for the position. 

         19             We give everybody in our country a fair 

         20  opportunity to excel at what they want or desire to do, 

         21  and yet here in collegiate sports we tell young men -- 

         22  we have athletes in Georgia, wrestlers who will never 

         23  get an opportunity to wrestle because we don't have not 

         24  one Division 1, Division 2, Division 3.  You name it, 

         25  we don't have one wrestling program in the whole state.  

                                                                 175

          1  That's a shame.  Why?  So we can meet some kind of 

          2  quota?  How do you tell a young man who's worked all 

          3  his life in high school to wrestle, I'm sorry, you 

          4  can't compete in college because we don't have enough 

          5  girls competing. 

          6             Now, I've heard about interest today, about 

          7  finances.  I want to know how does a program like 

          8  Marquette get cut when it's not even related to 

          9  finances?  They paid their own way, and yet they were 

         10  cut.  Why? 

         11             I want you people to tell me why.  To sit 

         12  there and tell me that well, we have these quotas out 

         13  there and we're not giving women enough opportunity, I 

         14  believe we are.  The opportunity is out there.  And we 

         15  need to make sure that Title IX is alive.  But the way 

         16  we're enforcing it is so wrong.  And I just don't 

         17  understand why as citizens of this great country, why 

         18  we can't get our acts together and say listen, there's 

         19  got to be a better approach to this. 

         20             I cannot believe that when we make a 

         21  statement as a country no child shall be left behind 

         22  that Bush only meant oh, we're going to make sure that 

         23  women get ahead, but you know what, because men have 

         24  been in dominant positions for so long, that you know 

         25  what, they got it coming.  So let's leave the little 

                                                                 176

          1  boys behind.  Let's tell them, I'm sorry, you can't 

          2  compete.  You can't follow your dream. 

          3             I don't understand that, and that's why I'm 

          4  challenging this commission to step forward and find 

          5  some solutions.  I don't want to hear, I'm sorry, we've 

          6  got these quotas that have to be addressed here.  

          7  That's not the right answer.  I need to have an 

          8  understanding as a parent.  You know, what do I tell 

          9  the other boys at the school that are going up for a 

         10  sport and I'm sorry, but, you know, because-- you know, 

         11  I understand we have situations where there's 20 slots 

         12  open for a women's softball team, 16 girls show up, and 

         13  we're told that, you know what, you can only count that 

         14  16.  You can't count the 20 that were available, you 

         15  can only count the 16 that show up.  But there's 

         16  opportunity there, and yet we're penalizing the young 

         17  men for that. 

         18             So in closing, my challenge to you folks is 

         19  to come up with a solution that so help me God, come 

         20  January when you guys come out with your report and so 

         21  forth I hope you guys really do your homework and make 

         22  it a point to find out what is fair, what is common 

         23  sense.  This is not about winners or losers, it's not 

         24  about women's rights or men's rights, this is about 

         25  what's in the best interest of our children, because 

                                                                 177

          1  this rule, if it continues the way it's going in 

          2  proportionality, is going to somehow strike back 

          3  eventually because I don't hear anyone questioning 

          4  about the fact that there's 138 people in choir and 95 

          5  of them are girls.  No one is saying, well, geez, how 

          6  come there's not enough boys in that? 

          7             Debate team.  My daughter is President of 

          8  the drama club.  She says, hey, out of the 20 people 

          9  there, 18 of them are young women.  Now, is this rule 

         10  eventually going to happen to the point where we say 

         11  I'm sorry, but you're going to have to cut girls out 

         12  because there's not enough guys on the debate team or 

         13  the drama club?  That's where this is eventually going 

         14  to end. 

         15             So get to it, folks.  Let's find an answer 

         16  here. 

         17                  MR. TED LELAND:  ALAN.

         18                  MR. ALAN FECTEAU:  Good afternoon.  My 

         19  name is Alan Fecteau.  I practice law in Habersham 

         20  County, Georgia.  It's rural America.  It's rural 

         21  Georgia. I represent a lot of drunk guys in jail and 

         22  pregnant women.  I'm up for Juvenile Court judge.  But 

         23  I wanted to show up today because there were six 

         24  players on a team, there was no dribbling allowed, and 

         25  the rules were a lot different. 

                                                                 178

          1             Several decades before the passage of the 

          2  law that we call Title IX today my mother played high 

          3  school basketball in the 1930s in the rural Kansas 

          4  village of Muscotah, Kansas. 

          5             Now, at that time Muscotah maybe had a 

          6  population of about 500, and that's if you counted all 

          7  the goats and the cows, and there was no electricity in 

          8  Muscotah, Kansas in the 1930s.  So given those arguably 

          9  austere conditions, I think it's safe to say therefore 

         10  that girls like my mother chose to play basketball for 

         11  reasons other than a desire to engage in some sort of 

         12  active left wing political defiance.

         13             If you have political worries about my 

         14  mother, then you can stop worrying now.  It just sort 

         15  of seemed like the thing to do at the time. 

         16             Now, my mother played ball back then because 

         17  she enjoyed competing, she enjoyed testing herself, she 

         18  wanted to be good at something.  Now, there's no reason 

         19  to believe in my view that the same motivations do not 

         20  exist among young boys and young girls alike today. 

         21             Now, in any case, one may reasonably believe 

         22  that my mother did not need Title IX or help from 

         23  guardians of Title IX like the Women's Sports 

         24  Foundation to help her in terms of making her decision 

         25  to play ball, but she made her decision pretty much all 

                                                                 179

          1  by herself. 

          2             I know she would have very much appreciated 

          3  a law like Title IX being on the books back then to 

          4  preserve any option she may have enjoyed to enhance her 

          5  education.  My mother did not attend college despite 

          6  having been a national merit scholar in high school due 

          7  to the lack of family funds. 

          8             She had an older sister and a younger 

          9  sister, and back in those days the older sister went to 

         10  college and the two younger sisters didn't go the 

         11  college.  That was the quota system back then.  That 

         12  was the private sector quota system. 

         13             So in terms of all this chatter we hear 

         14  about Title IX being a system of quotas, I just am 

         15  somewhat puzzled by that sort of logic.  There are two 

         16  other ways to comply with Title IX, as everybody here 

         17  knows, other than the proportionality standard.  

         18  Everybody talks about proportionality and quotas.  

         19  There are two other ways to comply, the history of 

         20  progress standard, and the interest and abilities 

         21  standard.  They are not based upon numbers, they are 

         22  based upon words, and all you have to do is hit one out 

         23  of the three.  The NBA used to have three to make two.  

         24  This is even better.  This is three to make one.  If 

         25  you can't hit one out of these three, then you don't 

                                                                 180

          1  deserve to be in the business of college athletics in 

          2  my opinion. 

          3             Now, let's take a look at the criticism that 

          4  we see so far.  We see talk about quotas on 

          5  proportionality.  We also see the other two standards, 

          6  history of progress and interest and abilities.  We 

          7  don't like those because they have got vague words in 

          8  them that we don't know what the meaning is.  So we 

          9  feel like we're forced into numbers because we can't 

         10  interpret the words.  So we seem to be against numbers 

         11  because they are numbers, and we seem to be against 

         12  words because they are words. 

         13             I don't know what we have other than numbers 

         14  and words.  We can't write a law without some kind of 

         15  standard.  It's going to be a numerical standard or 

         16  it's going to be a verbal standard, but it's going to 

         17  be some kind of standard.  And it just seems to me that 

         18  if you say that you're for Title IX but you're against 

         19  all the regulations, that's kind of like saying I'm for 

         20  swimming but I'm against swimming pools, oceans, 

         21  rivers, lakes and everything that allows you to swim. 

         22             So I just have a hard time taking seriously 

         23  the opposition to this law and the standards that have 

         24  been adopted across this country.  This is not one we 

         25  can blame on the Ninth Circuit in northern California.  

                                                                 181

          1  The entire country has voted the same way coast to 

          2  coast on this law.  It's a good law, it's a fair law, 

          3  it's a flexible law, and it doesn't hurt men. 

          4             Georgia and the SEC are the best in the 

          5  country in women's sports.  I think with all due 

          6  respect, I know you're from all around America, but I 

          7  would argue that the SEC is the best in the country in 

          8  women's sports, and at the University of Georgia, I'm 

          9  most familiar with that place, we have not dropped a 

         10  men's sport in 20 years, not dropped a men's sport in 

         11  20 years.  It was men's wrestling that we dropped with 

         12  all due respect to the wrestler that was up here 

         13  before, and this guy has wrestling, he's involved in 

         14  that. 

         15             I would point out that at the time that 

         16  Georgia dropped wrestling, it was the era of the Grove 

         17  City decision when the athletic associations were not 

         18  covered by Title IX, they had been divorced from Title 

         19  IX, and so they were not forced by Title IX to drop 

         20  men's wrestling at Georgia.  I don't know about Auburn, 

         21  he can speak to Auburn better than me, but I know at 

         22  Georgia Title IX did not force the closure of men's 

         23  wrestling.  And that's the last men's sports that's 

         24  been dropped.  We've added women's soccer, we've added 

         25  women's softball and we've just added women's horse 

                                                                 182

          1  jumping, equestrian. 

          2             My time is up.  God bless you. 

          3                  MR. TED LELAND:  I was with you until 

          4  the SEC comment.

          5                  MS. CYNTHIA COOPER:  If we could have 

          6  the next four people stand.  And forgive me for ruining 

          7  the names.  Dziedzic, Brian Spradlin, Ti Timney, and 

          8  Beth Bass.

          9                  MR. STAN DZIEDZIC:  My name is Stan 

         10  Dziedzic.  I'm the President of the U.S. Wrestling 

         11  Association.  As a wrestler, I was an NCAA champion, an 

         12  Olympic medalist, a world champion.  As a coach, I 

         13  coached at Michigan State University and later the U.S. 

         14  Olympic team in 1984.

         15             Currently I manage the southeast region for 

         16  Littman Brothers.  As a President of NGB whose women 

         17  will be added to the 2004 Olympic games, and as a 

         18  father of four, three of whom are women, I'm a 

         19  proponent of Title IX. 

         20             What I pose is using enrollment as a 

         21  measuring tool for determining whether there's 

         22  discrimination by gender.  Enrollment measures the rate 

         23  of students attending college, but not necessarily 

         24  their interest in athletics. 

         25             In 2001 our research shows that there were 

                                                                 183

          1  8,414 NCAA teams for women, 7,832 NCAA teams for men.  

          2  Despite that 582 advantage for women, according to our 

          3  statistics, there were approximately 209,000 men 

          4  athletes and 151,000 female athletes. 

          5             Looking at enrollment rates by gender, this 

          6  means that we either have to add 60 some thousand women 

          7  athletes or reduce the male athletes by 60 some 

          8  thousand.  The Wall Street Journal did a similar 

          9  analysis in today's paper and calculated the number to 

         10  be 77,000.  Whatever the number, it's a lot. 

         11             To put that in perspective, there are 59,958 

         12  male athletes competing in wrestling, swimming, track 

         13  and field, gymnastics, soccer, golf, and rifle 

         14  combined.  The thought of losing that many positions is 

         15  frightening, not to mention what it would do to our 

         16  Olympic effort.

         17             Another offshoot to meet the proportionality 

         18  is to create demand.  The Wall Street Journal recently 

         19  investigated the trend and gave examples of how college 

         20  rowing coaches were recruiting female athletes who had 

         21  never participated in the sport, nor had shown interest 

         22  in the sport before.

         23             In 2001 the National High School Wrestling 

         24  Federation figures showed that there were 2,539 female 

         25  high school rowers while the NCAA showed 611,000.  That 

                                                                 184

          1  means there are 2.41 spots for every female high school 

          2  rower.

          3             In wrestling, for every 41 wrestlers there's 

          4  one spot in college.  We ought to be able to do a 

          5  better job in balancing that ratio.  In the last two 

          6  decades college wrestling programs have fallen from 363 

          7  to 250 for a variety of different reasons, not all 

          8  because of Title IX, but certainly for some.

          9             Finally, I would like to urge the Commission 

         10  to broaden what activities are considered.  I cannot 

         11  distinguish the athletic components of rifle, bowling, 

         12  archery, equestry and golf from cheerleading, dance and 

         13  band. 

         14             Thank you. 

         15                  MS. CYNTHIA COOPER:  Brian Spradlin.

         16                  MR. BRIAN SPRADLIN:  Good afternoon.  

         17  My name is Brian Spradlin.  I didn't originally plan to 

         18  speak, but after hearing some of the comments this 

         19  morning, I felt that my thoughts as a parent may have 

         20  some relevance. 

         21             I coach a wrestling club that caters to kids 

         22  from the age of 5 to 18.  Last year I had five girls in 

         23  that club, and they participated.  I have four children 

         24  currently living at home.  The two youngest are boys, 

         25  and they are involved in a wrestling club with me.

                                                                 185

          1             They have achieved some amount of success in 

          2  Georgia and a little bit nationally, and both expressed 

          3  a desire to be able to wrestle in college. 

          4             Wrestling is something we do together as a 

          5  family, and we love it.  My two daughters, who are 15 

          6  and 17, have played some soccer, and after watching 

          7  Ms. Foudy play on TV a couple of years ago, I have to 

          8  say as a family we were very inspired to see the 

          9  women's team and the success that you had. 

         10             As a result of that, they decided, hey, we 

         11  want to go to soccer camp.  I sent them to camp, 350 

         12  bucks a head.  Okay, being a coach, when they came 

         13  home, I was all charged up.  I was like okay, we have 

         14  some skills, we've learned some drills, let's go do it.  

         15  Come on.  It's summer now.  By the time next spring 

         16  rolls around, you'll really have those down and will 

         17  put a hurting on the competition. 

         18             Basically after three or four instances of 

         19  me trying to get them to do it, they told me to quit 

         20  picking on them and leave them alone.  I say that -- 

         21  those are my two daughters.  This is my personal 

         22  experience.  Four kids, two of them, they kind of like 

         23  soccer, but to them soccer is more of a social 

         24  occasion, whereas my boys, they already have a goal.

         25             In light of the discussion concerning level 

                                                                 186

          1  of participation among females, my own family 

          2  experience, one man's experience came to mind, the 

          3  thought that my sons could be denied the opportunity.  

          4  And that's what I see on the wall here.  I think that's 

          5  what we're talking about is opportunity. 

          6             We want all our kids to have the 

          7  opportunity.  The ring is there.  If they want to jump 

          8  up and get it, let them jump up and get it.  If they 

          9  choose not to get it, let's don't say, you are not 

         10  allowed to have that opportunity because these over 

         11  here don't want to jump up and grab that ring.  There's 

         12  something inherently wrong in that.  I think we all 

         13  know that. 

         14             I love my girls.  I want them to have every 

         15  opportunity, but I don't want my boys to be denied. 

         16             Thank you. 

         17                  MS. CYNTHIA COOPER:  Thank you very 

         18  much.  Ti Timney.

         19                  MR. TI TIMNEY:  Good afternoon.  My 

         20  name is Ti Timney, and I'm addressing the council as 

         21  both a parent and an advocate of the sport of baseball 

         22  both at the high school and collegiate levels. 

         23             I'm from Camden County, Georgia, which is in 

         24  the southeast corner of the state, and I'm President of 

         25  the high school baseball booster club. 

                                                                 187

          1             Now, as a parent of one boy and one girl who 

          2  equally participate in athletics, I'm a very strong 

          3  advocate of Title IX.  However, the way in which the 

          4  law is being enforced not only impacted my personal 

          5  life, but also the sport which I've grown to love. 

          6             Now, my son started baseball at the age of 

          7  5, and you can all appreciate how much effort it takes 

          8  to take a kid from age 5 all the way up through high 

          9  school; you know, hundreds of miles of travel, hundreds 

         10  of pitches thrown in the batting cage, a lot of money 

         11  spent to get him through the high school level. 

         12             He grew up watching players like Roger 

         13  Clemons and Robin Ventura and the college world series 

         14  and dreamed of playing Division 1 baseball. 

         15             Well, on May 25th of this year his dream in 

         16  Division 1 baseball was shattered when Howard 

         17  University canceled their baseball program because he 

         18  was offered a full scholarship.  This cancellation came 

         19  both swiftly and without warning.

         20             Now, the university's position was a lack of 

         21  facilities was the reason for why the program was 

         22  canceled.  However, at the same point in time that 

         23  baseball was canceled, men's wrestling was canceled and 

         24  a fast pitch softball team was started for women.

         25             Now, the parents of the baseball team were 

                                                                 188

          1  rather upset, as you can imagine, so they got together 

          2  with the City Parks and Recreation Department right 

          3  across from the university, and they set up a deal 

          4  where they would receive a baseball field with all its 

          5  amenities, press box, dugouts, the whole works. 

          6             When the university was addressed with this 

          7  potential solution, the response was, hey, that's all 

          8  well and good.  We appreciate the effort you've gone 

          9  to, but we don't have a baseball program. 

         10             It was mentioned earlier this morning that 

         11  the law should be rational, responsible, flexible.  

         12  When I think of the way the law is being enforced, I 

         13  think of words like ambiguity, misinterpretation, and 

         14  inconsistency. 

         15             Now, schools are enforcing the laws in 

         16  different manners based upon their specific situation.  

         17  I was always under the impression that if we enacted a 

         18  law that they were supposed to be applied and 

         19  implemented equally to all. 

         20             One specific example that I can think of is 

         21  an earlier speaker addressed the investigation into the 

         22  Georgia high school athletics and that the GHSA was 

         23  going to tackle this, quote, disparity in athletics in 

         24  the State of Georgia.  And to some extent this was very 

         25  true, there was a great disparity. 

                                                                 189

          1             However, the way in which the schools are 

          2  beginning to deal with this situation are very 

          3  different.  Some of them are attacking booster club 

          4  money.  Now, can you picture yourself as parents 

          5  raising money for your specific sport and then being 

          6  told that you have to give half of your funds to a, 

          7  quote, equivalent women's fast pitch team, and they are 

          8  not going out and raising the money. 

          9             Now, that's a heck of a situation.  All I 

         10  ask is that when you look at this entire situation, to 

         11  just be fair.  That's all I ask. 

         12             Thank you.

         13                  MS. CYNTHIA COOPER:  Thank you very 

         14  much.  Beth Bass.  You're not Beth.

         15                  MS. ERIN SPENCER:   That's right.  My 

         16  name is Erin Spencer.  I'm speaking in lieu of Beth 

         17  Bass today and she's going to speak for me tomorrow.  

         18  Is that okay, because I cannot attend tomorrow? 

         19                  MS. CYNTHIA COOPER:  That's fine.

         20                  MS. ERIN SPENCER:  Thank you, Madam 

         21  Chair. 

         22             My name is Erin Spencer.  I'm with Spencer 

         23  Management Partners, and, interestingly enough, I used 

         24  to work with Stan Dziedzic.  And I'm an advocate of 

         25  Title IX as an athlete whose life has been changed by 

                                                                 190

          1  athletics. 

          2             Last year I attended the opening ceremonies 

          3  for the Atlanta girls' school and the speaker was 

          4  Gennetta Cole from Spellman College.  Her opening 

          5  statement was "I believe in women."  And as I listened 

          6  to her, I realized that I believe in women too, which 

          7  is why I believe in Title IX. 

          8             I went to an all girls high school and 

          9  therefore was in an environment where girls were 

         10  President of the class, heads of the student council, 

         11  and captains of the sports teams, and I thought this 

         12  was the norm.  I thought this happened everywhere. 

         13             When I went to college, I received a tennis 

         14  scholarship to Duke University as a nationally ranked 

         15  tennis player.  Not only did tennis help me finance my 

         16  education, but it has helped me throughout my career in 

         17  business. 

         18             After business school, when I went to work 

         19  on Wall Street, I played tennis with John Goodfriend, 

         20  the Chairman of Solomon Brothers, as a first year 

         21  associate.  I was nothing and I was getting recognized 

         22  by the Chairman of the firm. 

         23             When I worked at Bane and Company, I played 

         24  tennis with Bill Bane.  Bane and Company is one of the 

         25  top strategic consulting firms in the country, maybe 

                                                                 191

          1  even the world.  I played tennis with Bill Bane as a 

          2  first year associate there. 

          3             I never would have been recognized by these 

          4  people had it not been for my tennis ability.  At every 

          5  major firm where I have worked I have either played 

          6  with the Chairman of the firm or the head of the 

          7  office. 

          8             Playing in sports has made a difference in 

          9  my life.  However, I experienced the world pre Title 

         10  IX.  When I was at Duke, I was number two in the ACC, I 

         11  was runner up in the ACC tournament; however, because 

         12  we only funded one spot to the NCAAs, even though you 

         13  had to qualify for the NCAAs, and I qualified, I was 

         14  not allowed to go because Duke would not fund my way. 

         15             Interestingly enough, no man from the men's 

         16  tennis team qualified, but I still couldn't get the 

         17  funds from the men's team to attend the NCAAs.

         18             The reason I think Title IX is so important 

         19  is that it gives women the opportunity to achieve the 

         20  goals that boys and men have enjoyed for decades.  From 

         21  an academic standpoint, it allows women to have the 

         22  same educational background as men and therefore 

         23  compete on an equal footing in many lines of work. 

         24             From a sports standpoint, it allows women to 

         25  achieve the same extracurricular benefits as their male 

                                                                 192

          1  counterparts.  What are these?  Higher self-esteem, the 

          2  chance for paid tuition to college, a leg up in life 

          3  because they have been given the opportunity to compete 

          4  in sports. 

          5             In 1995 Nike came out with a very poignant 

          6  ad campaign.  It contained images of girls repeating 

          7  the following words:  If you let me play, I will like 

          8  myself more, I will suffer less depression, I will be 

          9  60 percent less likely to get breast cancer, I will be 

         10  more likely to leave a man who beats me, I will be less 

         11  likely to get pregnant before I want to, I will learn 

         12  what it means to be strong, if you let me play sports. 

         13             The statistics dictate that those who play 

         14  sports are better off in life.  Since sports are 

         15  beneficial to men and women for so many reasons, it is 

         16  critical that we maintain gender equality in the 

         17  opportunity to play and benefit from sports.  If we 

         18  cannot do this, women will forever be playing catch-up 

         19  in a man's world. 

         20             There are some that oppose Title IX because 

         21  they fell that it takes opportunities away from boys.  

         22  How can girls be taking opportunities away from boys 

         23  when overall we're not even in parity.  Some feel that 

         24  the football team should be exempt from Title IX 

         25  because so many scholarships are necessary to field a 

                                                                 193

          1  football team, and football is where the money is. 

          2  Schools are afraid that if they limit football 

          3  scholarships, they will not be competitive.

          4             I have two responses to that.  One, is it 

          5  fair that 40 to 80 football players should have the 

          6  chance to have their educations paid for and receive 

          7  all the benefits of sports when girls don't? 

          8             And secondly, if all schools had to limit 

          9  the number of football scholarships, they would all be 

         10  on a level playing field.

         11             Let's make sure that our daughters continue 

         12  to be given the same opportunity to succeed in this 

         13  world as our sons. 

         14             Thank you. 

         15                  MS. CYNTHIA COOPER:  Thank you. 

         16                  MR. TED LELAND:  The next four will be 

         17  Bob Hope, Keith Keller, Agnes Berenato, and Alan Leet.  

         18  If they could come forward.  And we'll start off with 

         19  Bob.  I'm not seeing him.  Let's move on to Keith. 

         20                  MR. KEITH KELLER:  Good afternoon.  I'm 

         21  here to address the Commission as a father of three 

         22  sports-minded girls and also a coach of a number of 

         23  their teams. 

         24             I'm currently a partner at Deloitte & Touche 

         25  here in Atlanta, but, as I said more importantly, I'm a 

                                                                 194

          1  father of three girls.  And I just want to talk about 

          2  -- I'm an advocate of Title IX, and I want to talk 

          3  about why it's important to me and more importantly, 

          4  why it's important to my three girls, although quite 

          5  frankly, the two younger ones may not realize it yet, 

          6  but they will because you can see some of the 

          7  attributes that they are already starting to express. 

          8             I have 15-year-old, 13-year-old, and 

          9  10-year-old girls, and the 15-year-old plays soccer, 

         10  and she has since she's been about 8.  My 13-year-old 

         11  is the tennis player of the family, and she's been 

         12  playing almost exclusively tennis, a little bit of 

         13  soccer and basketball. 

         14             My youngest is the sports animal of the 

         15  family.  She's a good little basketball player and 

         16  soccer, but also plays baseball and tennis. So she's 

         17  and all-sports person. 

         18             I coach the two younger ones' basketball 

         19  teams and also their soccer teams, and in coaching 

         20  those teams, that's where you really get to see the 

         21  benefits of what sports programs can do for the girls. 

         22             And there's equal benefits for the boys, but 

         23  I think something my 10-year-old said to me about a 

         24  year ago.  You know, we were playing basketball and her 

         25  coach said, Dad, this is really more of a boy's sport.  

                                                                 195

          1  And comments like that certainly frustrate me as a 

          2  father because I think she heard it from someone at her 

          3  school.  And I told her, I said, you have a good 

          4  opportunity.  You have talent, and you should have the 

          5  same opportunity as the boys to excel at sport and be 

          6  successful in your career no matter what you do.  If 

          7  it's sports, that's great.  If it's something else, 

          8  that's great too.

          9             But she hears those types of comments.  I 

         10  think going forward -- you know, she certainly doesn't 

         11  realize what Title IX is, but going forward as she gets 

         12  older she already wants to start to see role models.  

         13  She wants to start putting her skills where she can see 

         14  someone that's being successful.  If she doesn't see 

         15  those role models, she's going to tell me again at some 

         16  point in time that this is a boy's sports, I don't want 

         17  to play it anymore.  That's just not the right answer. 

         18             Also, I believe sports for the girls as well 

         19  as the boys have a lot of other things that are kind of 

         20  side benefits.  Certainly there's team work.  You know, 

         21  coaching fourth and fifth and even seventh and eighth 

         22  graders like I have been, the team work and the 

         23  camaraderie that's built when you play with a sports 

         24  team is great.  The discipline just from learning the 

         25  sport, leadership, everyone has a different role on the 

                                                                 196

          1  team and they have to learn their role, and that's 

          2  important.  That sticks with them throughout their 

          3  business careers. 

          4             There's a lot of disciplines and good things 

          5  that come out of being involved in sports.  And 

          6  certainly, it's something that is, not to play it down, 

          7  has the social skills and the physical activity.  The 

          8  girls get to meet each other, they get to meet other 

          9  players on the team.  So all that is important. 

         10             So overall, how does this all relate to me 

         11  to Title IX as they get older?  I'm more involved in 

         12  being interested in Title IX and supporting it.  And, 

         13  as I said, they don't really know it yet, but they do 

         14  look for role models already.  They are looking for 

         15  someone that they can look up to that's a woman in 

         16  sports because that's what they want to do as they grow 

         17  up. 

         18             So I want them to be able to play any sport 

         19  they desire, and they need to see those sports 

         20  supported by the programs. 

         21             I've told all three of them that they have 

         22  great opportunities to do whatever they want in their 

         23  careers and that if they have the talent, they should 

         24  be able to play the sport that they want to play.

         25             And finally, you know, I think that it's not 

                                                                 197

          1  so much to me whether it's fair or not fair how the 

          2  funds get allocated, it's all the other qualitative 

          3  factors that the girls learn from playing sports.  And 

          4  it really hits home when someone on your team, it 

          5  happened to be my daughter, tells me that it's a sport 

          6  that's a boy dominated sport, she can't play, or she 

          7  can't play as well as the boys.  That's something that 

          8  I don't think any of us want our children to be raised 

          9  saying. 

         10             So I think as she gets older she'll 

         11  appreciate that she can go somewhere, go to a program 

         12  and see someone being supported by that program and 

         13  have someone that she can look up to to support that 

         14  sport. 

         15             Thanks. 

         16                  MR. TED LELAND:  Agnes.

         17                  MS. AGNES BERENATO:  In 1975 I was an 

         18  All-State basketball player, on the student council, 

         19  President of campus ministry, held a job, and was from 

         20  a single mom family of ten children.  In my high school 

         21  experience, I was a good student involved in student 

         22  government, pep club, various activities.  I played 

         23  field hockey, basketball and softball.  And I always 

         24  had to work since my dad had died. 

         25             I was good, or I think a very good 

                                                                 198

          1  basketball player, and I have won several state 

          2  championships.  I belong to the thousand point as well 

          3  as the thousand rebound club, and I have won several 

          4  major awards. 

          5             I had one problem.  I was a poor female.  I 

          6  could not go to college because of funds, so I went to 

          7  Europe and I played ball at 17 in France.  And no, I 

          8  didn't speak French.

          9             After several months I received calls from 

         10  Maryland, Old Dominion and UNC, and they talked to me 

         11  about college and basketball and scholarships and about 

         12  this law, Title IX. 

         13             I went to UNC on a scholarship, and I shared 

         14  the same opportunities as Phil Ford and Michael Jordan.  

         15  As a matter of fact, two of my sisters also went to 

         16  Carolina on a basketball scholarship due to Title IX.  

         17  We were all fairly good in basketball, but we were born 

         18  at the right time. 

         19             My two older sisters were very good, but 

         20  they didn't have that opportunity.  My four brothers, 

         21  they all had the opportunity, and you know, it's funny, 

         22  we could kick their butts but they went on to school.

         23             Title IX, it's not about men versus women or 

         24  boys versus girls.  Title IX is not about canceling a 

         25  wrestling program to start a volleyball program.  Title 

                                                                 199

          1  IX is not about depriving boys to force a female to 

          2  drink.  Title IX is about what is right, what is fair 

          3  and what is deserved. 

          4             Ladies and gentlemen of the Commission, I am 

          5  a full-time college coach, and I have a great job at a 

          6  great institution.  I coach at Georgia Tech where women 

          7  are the minority; however, we are in compliance with 

          8  Title IX.  We have an administration that believes in 

          9  team, men and women, and we have complied not because 

         10  we dropped a sport, not because we dropped wrestling, 

         11  but because our administrators worked on their budget.

         12             While growing up, my mom always allowed us 

         13  to have friends over for dinner, but we always had the 

         14  same amount of food.  No one was denied, we just 

         15  learned to share.  We just learned how to give.  We 

         16  learned how to be balanced. 

         17             Georgia Tech has done that.  They have done 

         18  it because it's right, they have done it because it's 

         19  fair, and they have done it because it's what is 

         20  deserved. 

         21             You know, history repeats itself.  I'm a 

         22  mother with five children.  My son is a senior in 

         23  school.  He loves basketball, track, he's on the 

         24  student government, he's in campus ministry.  Well, you 

         25  kind of get the idea.  He has the opportunity to go to 

                                                                 200

          1  college on a scholarship.  It's funny, I have a 

          2  daughter, a sophomore in college, but she also had the 

          3  opportunity.  She didn't have to go to Europe. 

          4             My three younger children, they are all 

          5  little athletes.  My 14-year-old son will tell you he's 

          6  going to Carolina to play ball.  My daughter, she's 12, 

          7  she will tell you she's going to Weaver State and she's 

          8  going to play ball on a scholarship.  And my youngest, 

          9  I just hope she can dream about what is right and fair 

         10  and what she deserves. 

         11             Basketball has given me everything in my 

         12  life with the exception of my husband and my five kids, 

         13  and Title IX has provided that. 

         14             Thank you. 

         15                  MS. CYNTHIA COOPER:  Alan. 

         16                  MR. ALAN LEET:  I'm Alan Leet, and I'm 

         17  offering these remarks on my own behalf and on behalf 

         18  of my wife, who is here today. 

         19             Like many of the speakers, I'm not an expert 

         20  on Title IX.  I'm a parent of three teenagers who are 

         21  affected by this policy, two sons and a daughter. 

         22             We have witnessed firsthand the great 

         23  benefits competitive athletics have had on our kids and 

         24  are great supporters of it.  We have two sons who are 

         25  both wrestlers.  They both are serious wrestlers and 

                                                                 201

          1  would like to wrestle at the collegiate level. 

          2             Our oldest just went through the experience 

          3  of applying to college a year and a half ago.  He 

          4  graduated in 2001.  We were faced with a dilemma.  We 

          5  live here in Atlanta.  He could either choose to quit 

          6  wrestling and go to school here in the state or he 

          7  could go out of state and pursue his dream in one of 

          8  the less than 100 Division 1 schools.  But that 

          9  decision meant a huge difference financially. 

         10             You may know Georgia has adopted a Hope 

         11  Scholarship program, so not only is there the lesser 

         12  in-state tuition which we paid taxes for for years, the 

         13  Hope Scholarship program pays full ride for any Georgia 

         14  high school senior that has a B average. 

         15             So our choices were to stay in the state at 

         16  one of our great schools, such as Tech, or any of them, 

         17  or go out of state.  Staying in state meant foregoing 

         18  wrestling, foregoing something that was a major part of 

         19  his life. 

         20             This is a frustrating dilemma.  As David 

         21  Rodriguez has cited, for Georgia kids there is not a 

         22  single college wrestling program in Georgia.  Of 105 

         23  colleges, not one.  That hasn't always been the case.  

         24  There were three Division 1 programs in existence.  

         25  They have all dropped their programs I'm sure for 

                                                                 202

          1  different reasons. 

          2             I've looked at the data to try and 

          3  understand this along with my sons.  We have done a 

          4  little bit of research.  Wrestling is the six most 

          5  popular boy's sport in the state, it is the tenth most 

          6  popular sport of all sports in the state; out of 32, 

          7  it's in the top 40.  The interest is there. 

          8             We've looked at the issue of well, if it's 

          9  not lack of interest, then there must be another 

         10  reason.  Maybe it's that the nonrevenue sports are 

         11  being cut.  And so we've looked at well, what programs 

         12  are available, and in that regard looked at the 

         13  Division 1 schools, public universities that competed 

         14  at the Division 1 level.  There are four; Georgia, 

         15  Georgia State, Georgia Tech and Georgia Southern.  We 

         16  looked at what sports they offer.  Those schools offer 

         17  programs that are totally aligned with the interest at 

         18  the Georgia high school level.  The top ten boy sports 

         19  and the top ten girl sports are all available at the 

         20  intercollegiate level at those schools in Georgia, with 

         21  the exception of wrestling. 

         22             So it appears that wrestling has been 

         23  singled out.  The last thing I looked at was it's got 

         24  to be money, it must be money.  I'm not an expert on 

         25  this.  I couldn't find data.  But it's not very 

                                                                 203

          1  expensive to run a wrestling program.  These guys that 

          2  run clubs, it's a five thousand dollar mat, that's it.  

          3  The kids come and they wrestle. 

          4             And the University of Georgia announced this 

          5  year it's going to add an equestrian program.  That's 

          6  got to be more expensive.  So to me it's not just why 

          7  did they eliminate?  Why isn't anybody offering a 

          8  wrestling program when we have all this interest in the 

          9  state, and I can tell you firsthand we know lots of 

         10  people of modest income, middle income, to turn down a 

         11  full ride for your kid to a Georgia university in order 

         12  to have your kid follow a dream which is very important 

         13  to them and frankly very important to those families, 

         14  as you all know, as being related to the whole athletic 

         15  experience.  It's a family affair for parents, for 

         16  daughters and brothers who support the athletes who are 

         17  able to compete at that level.

         18             So we have come to the sort of reluctant 

         19  conclusion what else could it be other than some 

         20  responsibility of this proportionality test?  It 

         21  doesn't make sense otherwise.  Of all the other 

         22  programs, other than football, wrestling is the only 

         23  program that's predominantly male.  So as David 

         24  Rodriguez said, we're searching for answers. 

         25             I appreciate the opportunity for this open 

                                                                 204

          1  debate.  I've enjoyed the presentations this morning 

          2  and thank you all for listening. 

          3                  MS. CYNTHIA COOPER:  Mike Moyer, Sarah 

          4  Nobles, Collin Robertson, and Rob Sherrill.  And we'll 

          5  start with Mike Moyer.

          6                  MR. MIKE MOYER:  Hello, my name is Mike 

          7  Moyer.  I'm Executive Director of the National 

          8  Wrestling Coaches Association.  And on behalf of our 

          9  NCAA Board of Directors, we would like to thank you the 

         10  commissioners for allowing us the opportunity to share 

         11  some thoughts today. 

         12             First we would like to be very clear that we 

         13  completely embrace the original intent of Title IX and 

         14  the 1975 regulations, which are to provide equal 

         15  opportunity based on interest.  We're simply contesting 

         16  the three-part test which in many instances requires 

         17  universities to apply a strict gender quota system to 

         18  comply with the current Title IX interpretation.

         19             Further, we don't dispute for one moment 

         20  that women were seriously discriminated against with 

         21  regard to intercollegiate athletics 30 years ago.  It 

         22  was absolutely wrong and it needed to be corrected. 

         23             With that said, a lot has changed over the 

         24  last 30 years, as evidenced by today there are over 600 

         25  more intercollegiate programs for women than there are 

                                                                 205

          1  for men. 

          2             While we applaud the gains that women have 

          3  made in intercollegiate athletics, we're heartbroken to 

          4  see the wholesale elimination of traditional Olympic 

          5  men's programs as a result of this gender quota. 

          6             We have documentation indicating that over 

          7  355 men's intercollegiate programs have been eliminated 

          8  over the last decade.  Moreover, we've seen our 

          9  opponents on national television citing recent NCAA and 

         10  GAO statistics that seemingly suggest men have actually 

         11  gained participatory opportunities since the early 

         12  1980s. 

         13             We would like the commissioners to be aware 

         14  that these statistics are very misleading.  In many 

         15  instances new institutions that brought preexisting 

         16  athletic programs with them were added in the two 

         17  studies after the baseline reporting years and prior to 

         18  the end year of the reports.

         19             For example, in the 2001 GAO report 

         20  approximately 134 institutions, many of which had 

         21  preexisting intercollegiate teams, were not part of the 

         22  baseline reporting year but were included in the 1998 

         23  /'99 end year report. 

         24             The truth of the situation is that the 

         25  percentages of male athletes per team and male teams 

                                                                 206

          1  per institution have declined over the last two 

          2  decades.  The NWCA is committed to protecting 

          3  opportunities for women without harming men.  Our best 

          4  and brightest student athletes across the nation 

          5  deserve much better. 

          6             If students of either agenda experience 

          7  institutionalized discrimination during their college 

          8  years, then we have failed as educators.  Our students' 

          9  civil rights and our own ideals of education are too 

         10  important to trust special interest groups, lobbying 

         11  firms, rival debating points and million dollar media 

         12  campaigns.

         13             We thank you for your consideration of this 

         14  request.  Thank you. 

         15                  MS. CYNTHIA COOPER:  Thank you.  Sarah 

         16  Nobles.  Is Sarah here?  Collin Robertson.

         17                  MR. COLLIN ROBERTSON:  Hi, my name is 

         18  Collin Robertson, and I came here today from Boise, 

         19  Idaho because I feel it's very important that I let my 

         20  voice be heard for myself and many others who have been 

         21  affected by the misinterpretation of Title IX.

         22             I'm a wrestler and I come from a family of 

         23  six boys.  It's kind of a tradition to wrestle in our 

         24  family.  And I'm the youngest and I wrestle in Utah and 

         25  we were quite ecstatic when I was able to earn a 

                                                                 207

          1  scholarship to BYU and wrestle there because it was 

          2  nearby, and a couple of my brothers had also wrestled 

          3  there.  So we were really happy about that. 

          4             I was able to wrestle there for one year as 

          5  a freshman, and then I went to serve a mission for our 

          6  church, and while I was halfway through my mission, I 

          7  got the news that BYU would be dropping their program 

          8  and I would no longer be able to pursue my dream there 

          9  at BYU close to my family. 

         10             So I either had a choice to continue going 

         11  to school at BYU and abandon the sport which I love, 

         12  which I had done since I was 5, or transfer to another 

         13  university.  And that's what I've done, I've moved on.  

         14  And I fee lucky to have been able to move on.

         15             Only 6 out of the 30 wrestlers at BYU were 

         16  able to continue, and I'm just one of those lucky ones 

         17  who found another place.

         18             Some might say it's not a Title IX issue 

         19  that the programs are dropped, but for BYU it was.  

         20  There was no budget problem, supporters of wrestlers 

         21  had actually raised up to close to two million dollars 

         22  to support the wrestling team, which was supported for 

         23  at least 20 years, and they still decided that they 

         24  needed to be in compliance with proportionality, and so 

         25  they dropped the program.

                                                                 208

          1             What hurts me the most is the fact that 

          2  Utah, which is known as one of the better states for 

          3  wrestling in high school, has no universities with the 

          4  support of wrestling in it anymore.  The wrestlers 

          5  there have to go out of state to try and pursue their 

          6  dreams now, and that's a financial burden for many 

          7  people, myself included.

          8             Like I said, I consider myself lucky that I 

          9  can still wrestle.  Some of the others have had to hang 

         10  up their shoes prematurely due to this fact.  And I 

         11  just don't think that Title IX was set up to hurt men, 

         12  and I don't think that that's what you guys want it to 

         13  do either, so why can't we just stop dropping the men's 

         14  programs and hurting the men? 

         15             I think that's what we need to do, and I 

         16  think we need to push for that, and also help the 

         17  women, because I know it's done a great job for them 

         18  and helped them out. 

         19             I just want to thank you for your time, and 

         20  that's it. 

         21                  MS. CYNTHIA COOPER:  Robert Sherrill.

         22                  MR. ROBERT SHERRILL:  Thank you.  My 

         23  name is Rob Sherrill, and my company, the RNL Media 

         24  Group, has been a publisher and disseminator of news 

         25  and information relating to high school wrestling and 

                                                                 209

          1  college recruiting analysis for nearly 20 years at a 

          2  nationwide level, so my work kind of bridges the gap 

          3  between high school coaches and the college coaches. 

          4             As you have heard some of the Georgia 

          5  parents talk about here, wrestling has a great story to 

          6  tell here in the southeast.  In most parts of the 

          7  region, particularly here in Georgia as well as 

          8  Florida, North Carolina, even Alabama, wrestling is 

          9  perhaps the fastest growing sport at the high school 

         10  level. 

         11             However, as you also heard them say, neither 

         12  Florida nor Georgia any longer has a college or 

         13  university with a varsity wrestling program and very 

         14  few exist in neighboring states. 

         15             What this means is that young men from our 

         16  region who wish to compete at the college level, as 

         17  you've heard, must leave the region and their families 

         18  and their friends behind usually to go to schools in 

         19  the north to compete.

         20             Those who elect to stay close to home may 

         21  have the option to compete on a non-varsity club team 

         22  or most likely their wrestling careers will come to an 

         23  end entirely. 

         24             Just about 20 years ago nearly all of the 

         25  schools in the Southeastern Conference had wrestling 

                                                                 210

          1  programs and competitive wrestling programs that 

          2  produced All-Americans year in and year out.

          3             Today it's nearly 15 years since wrestling 

          4  was dropped by the last SEC school to hang on, the 

          5  university of Tennessee.  Now, since my company is 

          6  based in Franklin, Tennessee, I spent a lot of time 

          7  helping Tennessee wrestlers getting placed in college.  

          8  And we've had some success in the last couple of years.  

          9  They are having success at the college level.

         10             Unfortunately, it's taking place at places 

         11  like West Point, Oklahoma State, Michigan State, grant 

         12  it they are all prestigious universities with 

         13  prestigious wrestling programs.  But those young men 

         14  went to those universities and broke up their families 

         15  and their friends because the universities of their 

         16  choice here in their home region were not serving their 

         17  athletic interests.

         18             Nationwide wrestling continues to grow at 

         19  the high school level in record numbers.  According to 

         20  statistics provided by the National Federation of State 

         21  High School Associations, during the 2000 and 2001 

         22  season, which is the most recent data available, 

         23  wrestling participation increased nationwide by nearly 

         24  3 percent over the previous year.  Only outdoor track 

         25  and field, 11 man football, and LaCrosse showed bigger 

                                                                 211

          1  gains among boys' sports.  Only soccer and golf added 

          2  more boys' programs. 

          3             Wrestling, as you have heard, is number six 

          4  overall nationally in terms of participation and in 

          5  programs and has been for many years, yet today there's 

          6  one college wrestling program for about every 35 high 

          7  school programs. 

          8             The next highest ratio for any national 

          9  federation sponsored sport is 1 to 12.  Clearly, 

         10  proportionality has trumped interest and history when 

         11  it comes to assessing the dilemma wrestling faces in 

         12  the Southeast as well as in other regions of the United 

         13  States. 

         14             If proportionality continues as a standard 

         15  for measuring Title IX compliance as the basis for 

         16  litigation brought against schools based upon Title IX 

         17  claims, it is logical to assert that no men's Olympic 

         18  sport in any university can be considered safe.

         19             As the number of college wrestling programs 

         20  continues to decline, the number of high school 

         21  programs continues to increase.  Something is wrong 

         22  with this picture.  The direction of this increasing 

         23  disparity in wrestling and other Olympic sports is one 

         24  that future Title IX enforcement must permit. 

         25             Finally, let me say something.  I want to 

                                                                 212

          1  congratulate everybody that's a member of this 

          2  commission.  The Athletic Directors, Administrators, 

          3  Presidents here are almost all at universities that 

          4  have continued their wrestling programs, and you are to 

          5  be congratulated for that.  And I would hope that you 

          6  will counsel your colleagues to move in that similar 

          7  direction. 

          8             Thank you. 

          9                  MS. CYNTHIA COOPER:  Sarah Nobles. 

         10                  MS. SARAH NOBLES:  Good afternoon.  My 

         11  name is Sarah Nobles, and I am currently a junior at 

         12  Columbia University in New York City.  I'm also a 

         13  graduate of Henry W. Grady High School here in Atlanta 

         14  and a former captain of the varsity girls soccer team 

         15  at Grady High School. 

         16             I began playing soccer at age 5 and I worked 

         17  my way from church leagues to YMCA recreational teams 

         18  to club level play throughout my 13 years as a marking 

         19  back on my various teams. 

         20             I am no longer an official member of any 

         21  defense anymore, but the position came naturally to me, 

         22  and I find that I'm still a defender today in soccer.

         23             Where once I use to shield my team's goal 

         24  from opposing players and balls, I now find that I am 

         25  having to defend Title IX and the work it's done for 

                                                                 213

          1  women and girls in this country from imposing 

          2  misinterpretation of the bill and misimplementation of 

          3  its intents. 

          4             This commission is going to hear from 

          5  countless young women again and again saying that 

          6  athletics have changed their lives, shaped them, made 

          7  them the strong women that they are today.  It's no 

          8  news to us that participation in sports increases 

          9  girls' confidence, increases their health and their 

         10  academic performance, and it decreases obesity, teen 

         11  pregnancy, and teen dropout rates.

         12             You'll hear this testimony repeated from men 

         13  and women across the country in workshops like this one 

         14  because it is true.  I see my positive experience in 

         15  sports as a common one among thousands of women and men 

         16  who have benefitted from Title IX. 

         17             Here I would like to share my personal view 

         18  of the effect of equal opportunity in athletics.

         19             When I amass the most important lesson 

         20  imparted on me for my participation in athletics, I 

         21  immediately answer that sports more than any other 

         22  force in my life has taught me the true value and the 

         23  true meaning of respect. 

         24             My years playing soccer taught me to respect 

         25  deeply time management skills, leadership abilities, 

                                                                 214

          1  friendly competition, healthy athleticism, and team 

          2  work, and yet even more than these essential values, 

          3  playing soccer taught me how to respect myself and how 

          4  to respect others.

          5             As I participated in athletics with others, 

          6  I got to know them as team mates and as friends and 

          7  learned to rely on them both on the field and off.  But 

          8  by team mates here, I do not limit myself to the ten 

          9  other girls on the field with me or the other women on 

         10  the sidelines who are part of my team, but in fact, the 

         11  entire squad of women and men who played soccer in my 

         12  high school. 

         13             For me the team meant all of the soccer 

         14  players in my high school, girls and boys, who worked 

         15  together, traveled together, cheered together 

         16  throughout the seasons.  Were it not for Title IX and 

         17  the work my school system did to ensure its fair 

         18  implementation, I believe that relationship of trust 

         19  and respect between the men's and women's squads could 

         20  never have grown.  Because we felt we were funded 

         21  equally and treated equally to our brothers across the 

         22  field, our women gained respect for men's athletics and 

         23  respect for our own talents and endeavors.  The groups 

         24  learned from each other not just strategies and 

         25  practice drills, but determination and heart. 

                                                                 215

          1             And so we came to see ourselves as members 

          2  of the same team, deserving equal encouragement and 

          3  support.  Title IX provides us not only with the 

          4  uniforms, the equipment, the fields, the coaches to be 

          5  able to coexist and compete fairly, but also the 

          6  validation, the worth, and the respect to do so with 

          7  pride. 

          8             As a young woman looking ahead to a career 

          9  of teaching and mentoring others, I am in awe of the 

         10  lessons of self respect that I gathered each year 

         11  playing soccer. I learned that all athletes can do if 

         12  they work hard and work together, but I also learned 

         13  what women can achieve when they are allowed to play 

         14  equally and fairly with the respect that they deserve. 

         15             Now when I hear the words of that famous 

         16  poem Phenominal Woman, I allude not to a picture of 

         17  just any strong female figure, but an athletic one.  

         18  It's in the reach of my arms, the span of my hips, the 

         19  stride of my step, the curl of my lips, my Angelue 

         20  wrote. 

         21             Well, how can these images conjure anything 

         22  but a live young women throwing a ball inbounds, a 

         23  tenacious defender maneuvering her hips to block her 

         24  opponent, a long-legged forward hustling to the goal, 

         25  or a fiery spirited girl poised on the verge of 

                                                                 216

          1  athletic competition, ready for a battle and a ball. 

          2             I now charge this commission to envision 

          3  these strong phenomenal women and support Title IX.  We 

          4  must continue to expand the important work that it has 

          5  done for women and girls in this country in hopes that 

          6  we can add to Angelue's declaration, I am a woman 

          7  phenomenally.  The words phenomenal athletic women, 

          8  that's we. 

          9             Thank you. 

         10                  MR. TED LELAND:  Our next four speakers 

         11  are S. Louise Davis, Debbie Corum, Matthew Case.  And 

         12  apparently we made a clerical mistake.  Sharon Loughron 

         13  I think was number nine on the list.  We inadvertently 

         14  passed her up. 

         15                  MS. SHARON LOUGHRON:  I would like to 

         16  thank the Commission for this opportunity to speak 

         17  about the positive effect that Title IX has had on our 

         18  country at every level, and I mean that at young girls, 

         19  young boys, high school level, secondary educational 

         20  level, and our professional workplace. 

         21             My name is Sharon Loughron.  I am a high 

         22  school coach and teacher, soccer coach.  I've been 

         23  teaching and coaching in Georgia in Cobb County for 17 

         24  years.  I've also been a football kicking coach, I've 

         25  been a softball coach, and I have also coached 

                                                                 217

          1  swimming. 

          2             I attended Virginia Tech on a swimming 

          3  scholarship because there were more opportunities in 

          4  swimming in 1980 than there were in soccer.  For us to 

          5  think that we have become equal, we are not there yet, 

          6  but without Title IX, we would not be as close as we 

          7  are at this time.

          8             Many of the opportunities I have, and I have 

          9  seen at the grassroots level, I can speak to you more 

         10  now as a coach than I could as an athlete.  At the time 

         11  I was grateful that I received a college scholarship in 

         12  swimming, but as a coach I now really see the effects 

         13  that Title IX has actually had. 

         14             A mere eight years ago my high school team 

         15  was to play another top level high school team in the 

         16  State of Georgia.  We were thrown off the stadium field 

         17  and told to play on a back field because that's where 

         18  the girls played.  And this was eight years ago. 

         19             I see the progress and I see what it has 

         20  done as far as for facilities and our opportunities, 

         21  but we aren't equal yet.  It is getting there, and 

         22  without Title IX, we won't be there. 

         23             Without Title IX, there wouldn't have been 

         24  the Founder's Cup this past weekend in Atlanta, the 

         25  Women's Professional Soccer League.  There would not be 

                                                                 218

          1  a WNBA without Title IX.  The intent of Title IX is to 

          2  stop discrimination on the premise of gender, and it is 

          3  moving in that direction, but it is not intended to cut 

          4  the other sports.  And that's where it's an 

          5  accountability issue in my eyes.  Universities are not 

          6  making decisions to -- I guess what I'm trying to say 

          7  is they are not making decisions to find ways to fund 

          8  these other programs besides using Title IX to say they 

          9  are cutting sports. 

         10             In the State of Georgia when the University 

         11  of Georgia cut their wrestling program, it was reported 

         12  that the very next day it was moved, there were weights 

         13  moved in there and it was made into a football weight 

         14  room.  That is not the intent of Title IX.

         15             The intent of Title IX is to provide these 

         16  opportunities and is to provide educational 

         17  professional opportunities, not to cut the other 

         18  sports.  Universities need the burden of trying to find 

         19  other ways to fund these programs and to also have 

         20  women's programs. 

         21             I must please implore you to keep Title IX 

         22  moving forward, keep federally funded institutions 

         23  accountable, and keep Title IX intact.  And I thank you 

         24  for your work and time for Title IX. 

         25                  MR. TED LELAND:  Louise Davis.

                                                                 219

          1                  MS. LOUISE DAVIS:  Hi, my name is 

          2  Louise Davis.  I live in Middle Tennessee and I'm State 

          3  Chairman of the Tennessee Wrestling Federation. We are 

          4  an affiliate of USA wrestling, the national governing 

          5  body for the sport of wrestling.  Our organization 

          6  serves an annual average of 3,600 varsity high school 

          7  wrestlers within our state, and my concern is for the 

          8  welfare of these kids. 

          9             My passion lies with the sport of high 

         10  school wrestling and the unique athletes who do 

         11  wrestle.  What I know is merely a loose collection of 

         12  facts regarding the issues of Title IX.  However, I do 

         13  know what it has cost our athletes here in the 

         14  Southeast and especially in my home state of Tennessee. 

         15             I have seen firsthand the many benefits of a 

         16  young man's involvement with wrestling and I have seen 

         17  the harm that the loss of opportunity has created for 

         18  tons of our young men.  In Tennessee we have 140 high 

         19  school programs and only three surviving university 

         20  wrestling programs. 

         21             In the name of Title IX there have been many 

         22  casualties scattered along its misconceived path.  

         23  Chattanooga State, Maryville College, Middle Tennessee 

         24  State, the University of the South, Southwestern 

         25  University of Memphis, University of Tennessee, 

                                                                 220

          1  Tennessee Tech, and Tennessee-Martin each dropped their 

          2  wrestling programs in the late '70s and early '80s, 

          3  kind of like a tornado that blew through town and 

          4  didn't care which homes it leveled and never looked 

          5  back at the damage it had done.  Somehow somewhere 

          6  someone felt the end justified the means.

          7             Wrestling was on a roll at the higher 

          8  education level at Tennessee because of those 

          9  prestigious programs that were up and running prior to 

         10  the time it started being eliminated.  High schools had 

         11  picked it up and not only held their own, but with the 

         12  passing of time increased in numbers both programs and 

         13  kids while the numbers and opportunities on the higher 

         14  educational level decreased almost to the point of 

         15  elimination at Tennessee. 

         16             It is my understanding that Title IX, when 

         17  it passed, was a straightforward law to prohibit sexual 

         18  discrimination of any educational program or activity 

         19  within an institution receiving federal financial 

         20  assistance.  We can easily point out the benefits women 

         21  have derived as a result. 

         22             I do know, however, that it was never 

         23  intended to result in fewer opportunities for men.  A 

         24  reverse discrimination would better describe it.  Our 

         25  programs were cut simply to equalize the number of men 

                                                                 221

          1  and women playing the sport, scholarship or not, 

          2  federal money or not, self supporting or not. 

          3             Over the years the results of this law have, 

          4  and will continue to be, disastrous for our Tennessee 

          5  high school programs.  Without a significant number of 

          6  Tennesseans graduating from state college wrestling 

          7  programs, we are now finding ourselves without a source 

          8  of experienced coaches to provide the coaching staff 

          9  for our area schools.  Some schools have reluctantly 

         10  dropped their wrestling programs because they cannot 

         11  find qualified coaches. 

         12             According to the records supplied by the 

         13  National Federation of State High School Associations, 

         14  the number of participants in Tennessee high school 

         15  wrestling programs failed by 27 percent, with the loss 

         16  of nearly 1,000 kids in a single year from 2000 to 

         17  2001. 

         18             Many of our high schools struggle to survive 

         19  with inexperienced coaches and nonfaculty coaches.  In 

         20  the national area alone 25 percent of the secondary 

         21  schools currently have coaching positions to be filled 

         22  for the upcoming high school season, which begins in 

         23  November.  Give the college programs we have lost, it 

         24  is no surprise that our state's top coaches are now 

         25  advancing in age and there are few, if any, coming 

                                                                 222

          1  along to take their places. 

          2             As you can see, the long-term consequences 

          3  have been disastrous.  States with strong high school 

          4  programs have coaching pools that are restocked 

          5  regularly with graduates from their own state college 

          6  wrestling programs.  Tennessee once had a college 

          7  graduate pool to draw from as well.  It is really tough 

          8  to watch the sport that you love dying before your 

          9  eyes.

         10             The final result is that less than 1 percent 

         11  of our graduating high school wrestlers have the 

         12  necessary preparation and ability to pursue college 

         13  wrestling careers, not because of a lack of passion for 

         14  the sport or even a lack of talent, but because of a 

         15  more painful truth, a lack of preparation and ability, 

         16  a lack of preparation and ability because of a lack of 

         17  coaching.  This is another of the effects of lost 

         18  college opportunities within our state, opportunities 

         19  that used to but no longer do supply talented and 

         20  experienced coaches for our high schools and our young 

         21  athletes.  The few select athletes who wish to advance 

         22  in the sport must leave their homes in Tennessee to 

         23  find opportunities in other states. 

         24             I will leave you with -- you cut me off. 

         25                  MS. CYNTHIA COOPER:  Thank you. 

                                                                 223

          1                  MR. TED LELAND:  Debbie Corum.

          2                  MS. DEBBIE CORUM.  Hi, I'm Debbie 

          3  Corum. I'm the Associate Commissioner for the SEC.  And 

          4  I should probably state that my comments are not 

          5  official.  I'm not officially representing the SEC 

          6  here, but they are more personal as someone who's been 

          7  in the trenches of athletics as a coach's daughter for 

          8  48 years, and for 35 years I've been either an athlete, 

          9  a coach, or an administrator.  So I'm making this 

         10  statement personally. 

         11             I prepared a statement that I spent hours 

         12  writing, and you're probably going to receive a written 

         13  copy because I turned it in, but after this morning's 

         14  presentation, I threw it away and I've rewritten 

         15  something.  I continued to rewrite it all morning as 

         16  presentations were being made.  So when you get your 

         17  written statement, it won't exactly read like this. 

         18             We've heard today that Title IX should be 

         19  reasonable, rational and flexible.  I would submit that 

         20  these three words already apply in the OCR policies and 

         21  procedures.  The inflexibility and the unreasonableness 

         22  has occurred in the implementation and the 

         23  misinterpretation of those policies. 

         24             When the Office of Civil Rights developed 

         25  the three-part test, it was to allow institutions to 

                                                                 224

          1  make a choice regarding compliance.  Marcia Greenberger 

          2  questioned the validity of test three this morning 

          3  meeting the interests and abilities of the 

          4  underrepresented sex.

          5             I would submit to you that this test has 

          6  already withstood the scrutiny of the courts in the 

          7  Peterson versus LSU Title IX lawsuit. 

          8             Gene, you asked this morning about 

          9  developing something that universities could use in 

         10  complying with test three, and you already really have 

         11  a good start by looking at LSU's written plan for 

         12  compliance by, meeting the interests and abilities, 

         13  which Federal District Court Judge Rebecca Doherty has 

         14  already approved. 

         15             Steve Erber referred to this plan in his 

         16  comments this morning.  This plan is comprehensive and 

         17  includes monitoring developmental sports not 

         18  necessarily offered in the high schools, which meets 

         19  the point raised by Rod Galimore. 

         20             Senator Bayh stated that institutional 

         21  integrity exists, and I agreed with him.  I don't know 

         22  of a single university President who would like to look 

         23  at a Title IX lawsuit, and I think everyone wants to 

         24  comply with Title IX, but the problem with university 

         25  Presidents is they really don't have a choice because 

                                                                 225

          1  they have been convinced that the only safe harbor is 

          2  proportionality.  So there's a perceived inflexibility 

          3  when talking about Title IX. 

          4             I have a suggestion, and it's really very 

          5  simple.  Presently, the only public report that gauges 

          6  how a university is doing with Title IX is the EADA 

          7  report, which is the Equity in Athletics Disclosure 

          8  Act, which many of you on the Commission are familiar 

          9  with. 

         10             This report is flawed in that it only is 

         11  based on numbers, and what happens, when a university 

         12  President has to report, the only public report on how 

         13  his university is doing with Title IX is based on an 

         14  EADA report that only reports numbers.  Then basically 

         15  you're taking the chase away from the university 

         16  President.  In actuality, he doesn't have a choice. 

         17             An institution could be totally in 

         18  compliance with Title IX, yet this report suggests 

         19  otherwise.  Because a President is worried about what 

         20  the public report is on his university, he really wants 

         21  to only let the numbers look good.  So therefore we 

         22  have an emphasis on numbers instead of the three-part 

         23  test, and we take away the choice from the 

         24  universities. 

         25             The intention of Title IX was to increase 

                                                                 226

          1  opportunities for the underrepresented sex, not 

          2  decrease opportunities for anyone.  The common practice 

          3  on many campuses is to make the numbers look better for 

          4  the EADA report rather than to look honestly at 

          5  opportunities. 

          6             This report should emphasize that 

          7  proportionality is one of three ways to comply, as 

          8  Christine Stolba stated so eloquently earlier today.  

          9  Proportionality is a choice, and although effective for 

         10  many institutions, it does not work in every situation. 

         11             My recommendation is to allow Title IX to 

         12  work the way it was intended, give merit to all three 

         13  tests, the policies for Title IX should be continued, 

         14  change the EADA report and leave Title IX alone. 

         15             Thank you. 

         16                  MR. TED LELAND:  Matthew case.

         17                  MR. MATTHEW CASE:  Hello, my name is 

         18  Matt Case, and I represent the wrestling community.  I 

         19  wrestled at Northwestern University and have coached 

         20  kids, high school and college athletes.  I'm not an 

         21  expert on Title IX, I'm just simply here to let my 

         22  voice be heard for a sport I dearly love. 

         23             There are many testimonies regarding the 

         24  opportunities that have been created for young women 

         25  via Title IX.  These testimonies are good and 

                                                                 227

          1  inspiring, and because of a push to provide equality, 

          2  many women have been exposed to possibilities or dreams 

          3  who may have thought these opportunities never existed. 

          4             I can relate to the possibilities of dreams 

          5  as I was once a student athlete in college, a walk-on 

          6  who had the dream of making my college wrestling team 

          7  and earning a scholarship.  My hope was to get an 

          8  education while erasing my parents' financial burden. 

          9             It took me a couple of years, but eventually 

         10  I managed to earn a scholarship, and in ensuing years 

         11  we actually turned two seasons of losing records to two 

         12  All American finishes.  I also completed my degree.

         13             I accomplished this simply because I was 

         14  extended the opportunity to keep my dreams alive.  I 

         15  note this not to boast, but to remark on how I 

         16  understand the critical need for opportunities in the 

         17  student athlete environment.  Without opportunity, 

         18  dreams and hopes fade and potential is never realized. 

         19             I can empathize with the female student 

         20  athlete who wants the opportunity but has never been 

         21  afforded that.  I know what it's like to hunger for an 

         22  opportunity and know that it might not materialize.

         23             At the same time, I can also rejoice with 

         24  the female athletes who have tasted this hope.  As of 

         25  recent, we have reason to celebrate because more and 

                                                                 228

          1  more women are allowed the opportunities that Title IX 

          2  was designed to provide. 

          3             However, our celebrations can only go so 

          4  far.  While Title IX has been providing opportunities 

          5  for women, its improper enforcement has systematically 

          6  been ripping away opportunities for male student 

          7  athletes, specifically those male athletes in Olympic 

          8  sports. 

          9             Designed to be a blessing of equality for 

         10  student athletes, Title IX has been missing its mark.  

         11  Despite success within the ranks of women, Title IX 

         12  should be labeled as both a blessing and a curse versus 

         13  simply a blessing. 

         14             While thousands of young women around the 

         15  United States are benefiting from Title IX, thousands 

         16  of young men are suffering.  Men who are in the prime 

         17  of their college careers have literally had programs 

         18  ripped away from them while they were competing.  In 

         19  other words, the same policy that's providing hope for 

         20  one group has been devastating another.

         21             Former Senator Bayh, chief sponsor of the 

         22  Title IX bill, is quoted as saying our intention was 

         23  not to take opportunities away from men or boys but to 

         24  give them to women.  But contrary to the Bill's 

         25  intention, the General Accounting Office has published 

                                                                 229

          1  that between 1981 and 1999171 wrestling programs were 

          2  cut, along with 84 in men's tennis, 55 in gymnastics, 

          3  27 in men's track, 25 in men's swimming.  This is 

          4  obviously a dichotomy of equality. 

          5             Why is this happening?  One may think that a 

          6  certain amount of trimming is necessary to make things 

          7  equitable and balanced.  However, the manner in which 

          8  balance is being created currently does not make sense, 

          9  that is, if the desire is to promote and enforce 

         10  complete equality. 

         11             In order to balance and enforce Title IX, a 

         12  sincere look is needed at the method of proportionality 

         13  enforcement.  Since the average enrollment in 

         14  universities is 55 percent female and 45 percent male, 

         15  adherence to this same proportionality percentage 

         16  doesn't make sense unless it can be proven that women's 

         17  interest in those sports are at the same percentage. 

         18             I challenge you to find the hard data that 

         19  defines or details enrollments both before and after an 

         20  individual sports season to account for potential 

         21  dropout rates.  Therefore, I appeal to the 

         22  sensibilities of the blue ribbon panel to sincerely 

         23  consider how proportionality is currently being 

         24  enforced. 

         25             If you are true to your original intentions 

                                                                 230

          1  of Title IX and true to your own consciences, I believe 

          2  that the people who called this meeting who have shown 

          3  sincere efforts for dialogue can find a way to balance 

          4  the scales and provide an opportunity as it should 

          5  exist for all those who want to keep their hopes and 

          6  dreams alive. 

          7             Thanks. 

          8                  MS. CYNTHIA COOPER:  Betty Jaynes, Page 

          9  Remillard, Jennifer Alley, and Tony Armas.  And we'll 

         10  start with Betty Jaynes. 

         11                  MS. BETTY JAYNES:  Thank you very much.  

         12  I have a request.  A lot of our Georgia citizens that 

         13  are sitting out here are out of school, especially some 

         14  of our young athletes.  We have teachers that are out 

         15  taking the day off waiting to testify, so if I may, 

         16  Mr. Chairperson, and Madam Chairperson, I will go to 

         17  the next number and step aside, and I would look 

         18  forward to seeing you in Chicago. 

         19             Thank you.

         20                  MS. CYNTHIA COOPER:  Thank you.  Page 

         21  Remillard.

         22                  MS. PAGE REMILLARD:  I first would like 

         23  to say that I speak with respect for all the speakers 

         24  and their convictions.  They are much appreciated. 

         25             I'm the Director of Athletics at Agnes Scott 

                                                                 231

          1  College, an all women's college here in Atlanta, 

          2  Georgia and a member of the NCAA Division 3. 

          3             My mom told me when I was young, and the 

          4  mere fact that I've retained this information suggests 

          5  how impressionable it was upon me, on how she had to 

          6  hide her basketball clothes under the front steps.  It 

          7  wasn't to hide it from her friends, male or female, she 

          8  was hiding it from her parents because it wasn't 

          9  accepted, as we've already heard, in the 1930s of women 

         10  playing the sport.  My we've come a long way.

         11             I was a collegiate water polo player and a 

         12  collegiate swimmer.  I've coached for 30 years.  I've 

         13  been from Southern California to Virginia and now I 

         14  find myself a proud member or citizen of Georgia. 

         15             At the dinner table my teenage daughter 

         16  asked me a question, one that caused me to pause, and 

         17  due to the preemptive nudge of my wife, check my 

         18  emotions.  She asked me why her coach and school 

         19  administrators forced her girl's basketball team after 

         20  an injury caused delay to forfeit their unfinished 

         21  game, a game they were losing by two points with the 

         22  potential of pulling the upset that she had anticipated 

         23  for weeks. 

         24             Her reasoning as was relayed to her by the 

         25  Athletic Director, her coach and administrative 

                                                                 232

          1  principals in the stands was that they needed to stop 

          2  the women's game to ensure that the boys' team had 

          3  enough time to play because it was a weekday and 

          4  Georgia school associations have a rule that no game 

          5  can start or play after a certain time. 

          6             My daughter is 16 years old today.  These 

          7  are happening now.  We have not come as far as we need 

          8  to come.

          9             The question I believe before the panel as 

         10  well as the many that have been articulated already, 

         11  not only before the panel, but to the caretakers of the 

         12  future of our athletic programs, is should the law be 

         13  changed or should the law merely be enforced? 

         14             The Wrestling Coaches Association claimed in 

         15  a recent lawsuit that the law should be changed so that 

         16  men may return to competition while supporters of the 

         17  existing law suggest that the law should merely be 

         18  enforced as it was intended. 

         19             Proportionality seems to be the main focus 

         20  of discussion.  Opponents argue men's sports that don't 

         21  usually generate revenue such as wrestling, swimming 

         22  and gymnastics are the most vulnerable.  Athletic 

         23  Directors charge that they have no option but to 

         24  initiate roster quotas or to consider eliminating men's 

         25  programs in order to fund the development of women's 

                                                                 233

          1  sports. 

          2             As an Athletic Director at a women's 

          3  college, a college not subject to Title IX, some might 

          4  say why would I get into this debate?  I enter this 

          5  debate as a professional, as a proponent of sport, and 

          6  as a father.  My son benefitted from a scholarship at 

          7  Auburn University with the basketball program.  My 

          8  daughter has dreams of competing in college. 

          9             As a career professional in collegiate 

         10  athletics for over 30 years and an advocate of women's 

         11  sports, I believe Title IX is the scapegoat in the 

         12  issue because some institutional administrators failed 

         13  to practice elusive principled financial management. 

         14             Both in my commission and in the game of 

         15  life the conclusions are the same, that until college 

         16  Presidents take charge of their programs, we're going 

         17  to experience poor management. 

         18             A wrestler should be able to choose a school 

         19  that offers a sport, but I beg that the wrestlers 

         20  choose schools that support Title IX.  Then they will 

         21  know their sport is secure.

         22             The other night at the dinner table I 

         23  explained to my daughter that she was the victim of 

         24  poor decision making and questionable goals and 

         25  objectives.  I only hope that my granddaughter will 

                                                                 234

          1  have the opportunity to finish her game.

          2                  MS. CYNTHIA COOPER:  Thank you.  

          3  Jennifer Alley. 

          4                  MS. JENNIFER ALLEY:  I'm Jennifer 

          5  Alley, Executive Director of the National Association 

          6  of Collegiate Women Athletic Administrators.  I'm not 

          7  here today to speak to you as the Executive Director of 

          8  NAPA, but as a coach, a teacher, an administrator for 

          9  the past 30 years. 

         10             My professional life has been involved in 

         11  athletics.  I wanted to give back to the association 

         12  and to the profession.  I wanted women to have the 

         13  opportunities that I did not have.  I didn't get to 

         14  play.  I didn't get to be an athlete.  I was a Tomboy.  

         15  I got into athletics and into this profession because I 

         16  got to follow my brothers to practice because they did 

         17  get to play.  But I learned to coach and I learned the 

         18  values of team work and I learned the values that I 

         19  believe in today that have directed my life.

         20             From all of my years in athletics I've 

         21  learned that women want to play.  They are interested 

         22  in playing.  They want to opportunities to play. 

         23             I coached for a long time.  I know that 

         24  women are just as proud to wear the university sports 

         25  uniforms as the men are.  It doesn't matter that they 

                                                                 235

          1  got to the game by riding in vans or driving in 

          2  personal cars while the guys got to go on chartered 

          3  buses or airlines.  As the Executive Director of NAPA, 

          4  I'm very proud that 72 percent of our universities have 

          5  been able to build athletic programs without dropping 

          6  any sports. 

          7             We do have some out of control spending at 

          8  some of our schools.  Some schools have allowed new 

          9  million dollar coaches, to renovate their office 

         10  complexes to the tune of ten million dollars so that 

         11  they could have Mahogany paneling and European leather 

         12  furniture and Italian marble.  They even allow them to 

         13  put personal fitness centers into their officers.  This 

         14  doesn't help our student athletes, it doesn't help our 

         15  athletic programs.

         16             If we took that same ten million dollars and 

         17  invested it in programs, our students would have 

         18  excellent athletic facilities, excellent means of 

         19  transportation, opportunities that some of them don't 

         20  have today.  We would never have to drop any sports.

         21             What we need in some areas is control.  But 

         22  most of us are controlling our destinies and we're 

         23  trying to do the right thing.  We're here today to 

         24  share and understand and hear a lot of valuable 

         25  information that isn't always made public to the press, 

                                                                 236

          1  and I hope we all learn from what's going on with this 

          2  commission.  There's nothing wrong with Title IX.  It's 

          3  fair and it's right.  We just need to enforce it after 

          4  30 years. 

          5             Thank you.

          6                  MS. CYNTHIA COOPER:  Thank you.  Tony 

          7  Armas.

          8                  MR. TONY ARMAS:  Hello, I'm Tony Armas.  

          9  I'm from Bremen, Georgia.  It's about 50 miles down the 

         10  road west of here towards Alabama.  I'm probably one of 

         11  few people here that's doing something pretty 

         12  sacrilegious.  I'm missing football practice to be 

         13  here. 

         14             And speaking on that, you all have Coach and 

         15  I've been to a couple of clinics with him.  He's a 

         16  fine, fine man I'll tell you.  And you folks from 

         17  Washington D.C. take care of Steve Spourier because I 

         18  don't want him back in the SEC.

         19             I coach golf.  I'm sort of the director of 

         20  golf at my high school.  We have boys and girls, and 

         21  the problem we have is I have a lot more boys that want 

         22  to play golf than I do girls. 

         23             We put up posters.  You know, you got to 

         24  have a Tiger, you got to have Anika Sorenstam, Kari 

         25  Webb, Jack Nicklaus.  You know, everything is pretty 

                                                                 237

          1  equal, but we can't get enough girls to come out for 

          2  our golf team, and what ends up happening, you know, we 

          3  got a couple of boys out there they are just playing to 

          4  play and mess around, but we end up cutting about half.  

          5  We cut about eight, ten kids every year to get us down 

          6  to about eight or nine boys that can shoot under 90, 

          7  and then we just take all the girls that want to play.  

          8  Last week we finally had six of them.  We even hired 

          9  their own coach.  I send the boys with the pro and I 

         10  work with the girls themselves.  Maybe it's the coach, 

         11  that's the problem.

         12             That's the way it is all over our whole 

         13  region.  We've hosted the region golf tournament the 

         14  last two years and we had 55 boys show up and for the 

         15  same number of schools we have 12 girls this year and 

         16  13 girls last year. 

         17             Now, granted there was a push by some folks 

         18  to have six girls on the golf team for each school and 

         19  count four scores just like they do the boys.  The 

         20  problem that was at stake, we were having the number 

         21  two scores and some teams being 150, so you can imagine 

         22  what the number four, five and six scores would be at 

         23  the state golf tournament. 

         24             I thought about it and said that wasn't a 

         25  good idea to have that many girls until we could slowly 

                                                                 238

          1  build them up to the point where they could be 

          2  competitive.

          3             Basically, why aren't these girls playing, 

          4  they are involved in so many other things?  One of the 

          5  panelists alluded to how many were in the drama 

          6  department.  We had cheerleading tryouts at that time.  

          7  Basically, the point is that boys and girls are 

          8  different. 

          9             If we're going to use proportionality in 

         10  athletics, then let's do it.  Let's do it over the 

         11  whole Department of Education.  Let's make half our 

         12  kindergarten teachers be males.  I've been in the 

         13  kindergarten classroom and you know, I can only keep up 

         14  with them for about 30 minutes.  Then I got to head on 

         15  back to the high school.

         16             I would ask the Commission to look at the 

         17  college campus intramural programs, how many men 

         18  participate and how many women participate in 

         19  intramurals where competition is completely voluntary.  

         20  How many men leagues are completely filled where women 

         21  leagues aren't, have vacant slots? 

         22             Title IX, I felt, was passed to get rid of a 

         23  glass ceiling that many women in education face.  Today 

         24  in the State of Georgia we have Linda Schrenko.  Not 

         25  only is she running for Governor, but she's the 

                                                                 239

          1  Superintendent of schools for the whole state.  We have 

          2  a lot of women who are in administration. 

          3             I think we've taken this thing and focused 

          4  it and narrowed the scope so much on athletics that it 

          5  just doesn't make much sense.  I would like to see the 

          6  Commission return Title IX to its original intent by 

          7  eliminating proportionality and developing a more fair 

          8  method of compliance. 

          9             Another thing is there's been all this talk 

         10  about how there's a lot more girls on college campuses 

         11  than boys, and like Ms. Debbie pointed out, heck, girls 

         12  are a lot smarter than boys.  The University of Georgia 

         13  was the best five or six years of my life. 

         14             That's really about it.  In 1972 there was a 

         15  draft.  Everybody was trying to stay in school.  All 

         16  the boys were.  They wanted that S-2 deferment, you 

         17  know, and -- does he have to type everything I say?  

         18  Jack Nicklaus could hit the ball 300 yards when the 

         19  ball was dead and the woods were wood. 

         20                  MR. TED LELAND:  Our next four 

         21  speakers, Marilyn Childress, again who I think we're 

         22  taking out of order, JoAnne Graf, Charles Huddleston, 

         23  and Athena Yiamouyiannis.

         24             And first up is Marilyn Childress.

         25                  MS. MARILYN CHILDRESS:  I want to thank 

                                                                 240

          1  you all for coming to Georgia.  I appreciate you all 

          2  being here. 

          3             I am the President of the Georgia Amateur 

          4  Soccer Association.  I'm also currently on a number of 

          5  women's committees on U.S. soccer and have been an 

          6  advocate for women's sports for over the past 15 years.  

          7  I also was the one that led the international and the 

          8  national women to have women's soccer added to the '96 

          9  Olympics, and if it had not been for Title IX, the 

         10  women's soccer would not have been in the 1996 

         11  Olympics.  It would not have been the Olympics of the 

         12  women as we embraced it here in Atlanta and they did 

         13  across the country.

         14             And also, we would not have had the 1999 

         15  World Cup, which was seen by more people than the NBA 

         16  finals that year, nor would we have had the Founder's 

         17  Cup and the WSA that was held here.

         18             Title IX is a tool that the colleges and 

         19  institutions have used to bring opportunity for women.  

         20  And it's not just the athletes, but it's for women in 

         21  many areas, such as engineering, medicine, law, 

         22  professorships, et cetera.  And that's for not only 

         23  boys and girls, but that's because they all want to 

         24  have an interest in sports, and that's not where their 

         25  interest lies.  But Title IX is to provide 

                                                                 241

          1  opportunities in those areas as well. 

          2             But the most popular one known is the 

          3  opportunity in sport.  And men and boys in sports have 

          4  had a century worth of development, and that's one of 

          5  the reasons why sometimes you don't see a lot of girls 

          6  participating in sport because they have only been 

          7  doing it, I'm not sure, but I think high school golf 

          8  has only been offered for the last few years in the 

          9  State of Georgia, and so they haven't had the 

         10  promotion, they haven't had a lot of the opportunities 

         11  like men have had.  Only with the past decade have 

         12  women really been involved in sports at a national 

         13  level and to bring importance to it.

         14             The current law was written to make sure 

         15  that opportunities were not affected, and it was to 

         16  give opportunities so that the schools could choose how 

         17  they were going to apply it to their own institution, 

         18  and as many as have stated today, it appears that a lot 

         19  of the problems at institution is budgetary and 

         20  proportionality. 

         21             But one of the ways the schools have been 

         22  trying to do that is this dropping schools' sports, and 

         23  currently if Title IX is changed in any way, what was 

         24  to prevent the schools from going ahead and not only 

         25  dropping men's sports, but then additionally dropping 

                                                                 242

          1  more women's sports? 

          2             The three-test prong was written to give 

          3  them that opportunity to keep it going, and we need to 

          4  keep Title IX enforced the way it was written.  And we 

          5  don't need to be dropping sports, but the schools have 

          6  this three prong opportunity to make sure that they are 

          7  in compliance.

          8             In my fight to have women's soccer added to 

          9  the Olympics, I don't know if many of you all have ever 

         10  had to deal with the IOC or FEFA, but let me tell you, 

         11  they are very formidable, and not many people want to 

         12  take them on.

         13             Had I not been participating in sports in my 

         14  younger days, I would not have had the perseverance, 

         15  the stamina or the team spirit initiative that was 

         16  instilled in me as a young woman to be able to fight 

         17  those groups to have women's soccer added to the 

         18  Olympics. 

         19             And thank you. 

         20                  MR. TED LELAND:  JoAnne.

         21                  MS. JoANNE GRAF:  My name is JoAnne 

         22  Graf.  I'm the head softball coach at Florida State 

         23  University, and I would like to congratulate the 

         24  Commission members for the task they taking on in 

         25  examining the effectiveness of Title IX in providing 

                                                                 243

          1  equal opportunities for both men and women specifically 

          2  as it relates to athletic opportunity.

          3             As someone who has been involved in 

          4  intercollegiate athletics during the entire Title IX 

          5  era, I do find it somewhat sad that 30 years after the 

          6  passage of Title IX we are still discussing its 

          7  implementation.

          8             Colleges and universities have used every 

          9  method and excuse possible to delay treating men and 

         10  women equally.  This is not a difficult task as it 

         11  seems, as mentioned by Senator Bayh this morning, yet, 

         12  we have seen terms used from equal to equitable to 

         13  comparable.  Each term is being used to dilute the 

         14  resources allocated to the women. 

         15             The big question I hope this commission will 

         16  answer is how do we ensure that male and female 

         17  athletes, coaches and staffs are being treated equally 

         18  and what type of enforcement will make this happen 

         19  quickly so that in 30 years we're not still discussing 

         20  this issue? 

         21             While opportunities have increased, equal 

         22  opportunities have not.

         23             As Christine Grant mentioned, while more 

         24  money is being spent on women's sports, the gaps 

         25  between men's and women's budgets remains the same if 

                                                                 244

          1  not larger.  Facilities which are sometimes sitting 

          2  side by side are still not equal.  Role models for 

          3  women are disappearing as men now occupy the majority 

          4  of the head coaching positions for women's teams, yet 

          5  women only coach less than 2 percent of the men's 

          6  teams. 

          7             Women still are not treated as equal.  This 

          8  commission was formed as a response to the outcry 

          9  raised by dropped men's sports, with Title IX being 

         10  blamed as the fall guy.  Nothing could be farther from 

         11  the truth.  No one wishes to address the real issue, 

         12  although I do think we heard it alluded to a little bit 

         13  this morning, that the lack of equal opportunity for 

         14  women and the choice of schools to drop men's sports, 

         15  that issue is the allocation of financial resources at 

         16  each institution. 

         17             The philosophy of intercollegiate athletics 

         18  has changed from educationally based to "must win" 

         19  based.  The overcommercialization of intercollegiate 

         20  athletics has resulted in greater and greater 

         21  expenditures occurring not due to supplying 

         22  necessities, but to keep up with the Joneses.  Jennifer 

         23  referred to that as well. 

         24             The arms' race is what I think must be 

         25  examined.  Lavish locker rooms, huge weight rooms, 

                                                                 245

          1  extravagant offices, more staffs than players on 

          2  benches, million dollar plus salaries have all caused 

          3  schools to make budget choices. 

          4             I could give you several examples of that, 

          5  but it would probably take much more than my five 

          6  minutes.  But I think every coach at every institution 

          7  could give you examples of that.  I know the University 

          8  of Oregon, for example, their booster group spent 

          9  $200,000 putting up a billboard promoting Joey 

         10  Harrington for the Heisman trophy last year.  Was that 

         11  really a good way to spend those resources? 

         12             Earlier today a panelist said that Texas was 

         13  forced to add a women's softball team to reach 

         14  proportionality.  That softball team quickly became 

         15  nationally ranked.  They have more players applying for 

         16  spots on those teams than they can accept, and they 

         17  have to turn players away.  They are competing at the 

         18  top 20 Division 1 level.  They have a player on their 

         19  team who is a sophomore who will probably represent the 

         20  United States in the Olympics.  Forced to add that 

         21  team, maybe.  Was that a bad thing?  No, that was a 

         22  very good thing.

         23             Football teams often have 120 plus players.  

         24  I think we can look at do they really need 121 players 

         25  when we're looking at proportionality?  The wrestling 

                                                                 246

          1  coaches can ask could they reduce that number to 120 

          2  and have those extra 20 people, then be on the 

          3  wrestling team? 

          4             One speaker mentioned that his sons were 

          5  able to watch pro baseball players on TV and have them 

          6  as role models.  Isn't it now great that women can 

          7  watch Julie Foudy and Cynthia Cooper on TV and have 

          8  them as role models.

          9                  MR. TED LELAND:  Thank you.  Athena.

         10                  MS. ATHENA YIAMOUYIANNIS:  Good 

         11  afternoon.  My name is Athena Yiamouyiannis, Executive 

         12  Director of the National Association for Girls and 

         13  Women in Sport.  The National Association for Girls and 

         14  Women in Sport is one of six national associations 

         15  within the American Alliance of Health, Phys Ed, 

         16  Recreation and Dance which is based in Reston, 

         17  Virginia. 

         18             As Executive Director of the National 

         19  Association for Girls and Women in Sport, I am here 

         20  representing both NHEWS as well as the American 

         21  Alliance.  Our combined membership consists of 24,000 

         22  physical education teachers and coaches at the K 

         23  through 12 grade levels as well as college professors. 

         24             Today I would like to comment on two items.  

         25  Number one would be Title IX issues at the grassroots 

                                                                 247

          1  level, and number two would be the dropping of men's 

          2  teams at the collegiate level.

          3             At the grassroots level certainly progress 

          4  has been made over the past 30 years.  You've been 

          5  provided the statistics, but I want you to know that a 

          6  lot of progress is still yet to be made.  When you're 

          7  in the trenches and you're conducting work shops for 

          8  school districts that have asked you to come in and 

          9  help them out to do the right thing, you see firsthand 

         10  some of the situations that schools are faced with.  

         11  You have no more land to build facilities on, you have 

         12  an existing baseball team, what do you do with the 

         13  girls' softball team?  Well, they are required to track 

         14  halfway across town if they want an opportunity to 

         15  play. 

         16             Some of the schools have taken a proactive 

         17  approach to address some of the facility issues out 

         18  there.  They are taking their baseball diamond and 

         19  making it part of a LaCrosse field in the outfield.  It 

         20  kind of tears up the grass for your baseball players, 

         21  but they are trying to do some creative things to make 

         22  gender equitable opportunities for both the boys and 

         23  the girls. 

         24             The maintenance crew has to continually be 

         25  reminded to take care of the softball diamond just as 

                                                                 248

          1  well as the baseball diamond.  When we look at where do 

          2  we need to focus our intention on Title IX today, it's 

          3  on changing the mindframe of the individuals that are 

          4  implementing the law and its regulations.  That is 

          5  where at least from the school districts that I'm being 

          6  told we need to focus our attention.  They need some 

          7  additional guide and support to educate their 

          8  individuals. 

          9             The law is clear.  They know what they need 

         10  to do.  They are just having a challenge of convincing 

         11  the individuals that are implementing the policies that 

         12  this is the right thing to do.

         13             The second thing I would like to speak on is 

         14  in regard to the dropping of men's sports teams such as 

         15  wrestling.  In July and August I was invited to 

         16  participate in a Title IX debate with the Wrestling 

         17  Coaches Association and the Independent Women's Forum.  

         18  As part of my research, I discovered some very 

         19  interesting information, namely that Title IX was being 

         20  used as a scapegoat for the actions of certain 

         21  colleges.  For example, Marquette University, which is 

         22  one of the premier colleges from which the Wrestling 

         23  Coaches Association basis its lawsuit, is a prime 

         24  example of a university telling the press and the 

         25  outside world one thing and then on the other hand 

                                                                 249

          1  internally discussing the issues and finding that they 

          2  are something completely different.

          3             Because I was asked to do this debate, I did 

          4  some homework and I dug up some information, and I 

          5  checked with some of the individuals on campus that 

          6  were the administrators, and this is what I found.  But 

          7  then again, I should ask you what university would 

          8  publicly say the following:  Sorry guys, but we're 

          9  cutting your sport.  You've had a losing season for too 

         10  long.  Too many wrestlers are getting hurt because your 

         11  competitors are light years ahead of you and there's 

         12  too much institutional liability involved here.  Only 

         13  one college within our whole conference even offers the 

         14  sport at this time.  We don't have enough interest to 

         15  field a full squad covering all weight classes.  We 

         16  realize that the entire sport, coaches, scholarships 

         17  and all expenses only cost around $50,000 per year, and 

         18  even those minimal funds used for that sport are paid 

         19  by outside donors, but we've made the decision to fish 

         20  or cut bait. 

         21             In this situation we are choosing to 

         22  eliminate your sport.  We've had to make some tough 

         23  budgetary choices, and we know that having a viable 

         24  competitive wrestling team would take a lot of money, 

         25  and we would rather not spend our time and energy 

                                                                 250

          1  there.  Instead, we as a university would rather put 

          2  our efforts toward a capital campaign to raise 31 

          3  million dollars to build a new basketball arena for men 

          4  and women. 

          5             I ask you what university would say these 

          6  things?  I don't think many out there would.  Sometimes 

          7  it's easier to say Title IX made me do it.  And it's 

          8  easier to say nothing when your college is lauded as 

          9  the prime example of Title IX's failure.  It may be 

         10  easier to do, but it is certainly not the right thing 

         11  to do. 

         12             The decision on what sports to add and to 

         13  drop is an institutional decision.  The institutional 

         14  decision makers need to review their programs and make 

         15  some choices that take into account all the necessary 

         16  pieces; the interests of wrestlers, the interests of 

         17  their male athletes, the interests of the female 

         18  athletes.

         19             Thank you. 

         20                  MR. TED LELAND:  Our next four.

         21                  MS. CYNTHIA COOPER:  Mary Catherine 

         22  Manning, Mike Burns, Maria Capriotti, Anne Harper. 

         23                  MS. MARY CATHERINE MANNING:  I wasn't 

         24  expecting to get up today.  My name is Mary Catherine 

         25  Manning.  I'm a senior at Clemson University where I'm 

                                                                 251

          1  also a fourth year member on the women's varsity rowing 

          2  team. 

          3             America has long been seen as the land of 

          4  opportunity, providing an opportunity for every man and 

          5  woman to reach the American dream.  To be the best they 

          6  can be has long been our ideal as a nation.  But it's 

          7  not to say it's easy to reach, it takes work. 

          8             Equal opportunity is important, but just 

          9  saying we are committed to it isn't always enough.  

         10  Certainly equal opportunity in athletics was not there 

         11  before the introduction of Title IX. 

         12             Since its inception, Title IX has opened the 

         13  door of opportunity to young women like myself.  I am 

         14  delighted that Title IX has given me the opportunity to 

         15  compete and I am proud of the way my university, 

         16  Clemson, has embraced Title IX. 

         17             I'm a fourth year rower in a program that is 

         18  only five years old.  It's fair to say that women's 

         19  rowing would not be at Clemson without Title IX, but 

         20  it's also fair to say Clemson has done a great job 

         21  embracing Title IX and building a competitive  

         22  nationally ranked program right from the start. 

         23             We have the finest supplies and equipment, 

         24  including new pohock racing shells especially designed 

         25  for women, a brand new boat house, and a race course on 

                                                                 252

          1  Lake Hartwell that is among the finest in the nation.  

          2  The facilities are world class. 

          3             We use medical and training facilities 

          4  alongside the football players and the university hired 

          5  top female coaches committed to building a nationally 

          6  ranked program.  Of course I would like to stay in 

          7  nicer hotels like this one, and I'm sure the coaches 

          8  would like a raise too, but we're off to a pretty good 

          9  start. 

         10             I have a younger sister coming along behind 

         11  me, so it's important to me to keep the opportunities 

         12  available to her in the next generation of young women 

         13  athletes.  I have no doubt that you and the 

         14  administration will do that.  President Bush and 

         15  Secretary Paige have said Title IX is important.  

         16  Please be fair, but please understand that fair does 

         17  not necessarily mean just counting the number of 

         18  dollars or number of young women participating.  It's 

         19  not that simple. 

         20             When these hearings finish, I will be 

         21  returning to Clemson where I will join my teammates in 

         22  working with almost 70 young women who have also been 

         23  given an opportunity thanks to Title IX, an opportunity 

         24  to try out for the Clemson women's varsity rowing team.  

         25  In the four years we have been a Division 1 varsity 

                                                                 253

          1  program, all but six athletes have been walk-ons.  95 

          2  percent of collegiate rowers are all walk-ons. 

          3             I will be doing my part to encourage these 

          4  girls and support them along the way.  Please don't 

          5  make the mistake of judging equity and opportunity with 

          6  a hard count on the number of dollars or positions 

          7  available, and don't make the mistake of thinking I can 

          8  say that because I'm in my last year of eligibility 

          9  because I'm not done yet.  I'm studying sport 

         10  management and look forward to continuing my 

         11  involvement in athletics. 

         12             I'm also a certified U.S. dive coach.  I can 

         13  tell you as I progress I am not interested in simply 

         14  replacing the male coach of a women's team.  In the off 

         15  season I already regularly coach two dive teams where I 

         16  coach the girls and boys. 

         17             I would much rather follow in the footsteps 

         18  of Debbie Yow at the intercollegiate athletic program 

         19  as Athletic Director, or WNBA Commissioner Val Acromen 

         20  and lead a professional sports league. 

         21             Thanks to Title IX, the opportunities are 

         22  unlimited.  Thank you for the opportunity through Title 

         23  IX and thank you for the opportunity to be heard today.

         24                  MS. CYNTHIA COOPER:  Thank you.  Mike 

         25  Burns.

                                                                 254

          1                  MR. MIKE BURNS:   How are you doing 

          2  today?  My name is Mike Burns.  I'm the assistant coach 

          3  of the men's gymnastic team at the University of 

          4  Michigan.  I'm a former gymnast from Penn State 

          5  University.  I was a walk-on athlete.  Back in 1976 I 

          6  walked on.  Unbeknownst to me -- well, I knew this, but 

          7  the year I decided to go to Penn State they had just 

          8  won the national championship, and I was not that good 

          9  of a gymnast.  I've put on 30 pounds since then, so you 

         10  can tell I probably wasn't a great athlete.

         11             I worked hard.  I walked on and I made the 

         12  cut, and the coach saw something in me that he thought 

         13  would maybe turn into something.  I became a NCAA 

         14  finalist on high bar my senior year.  And I think if I 

         15  was a gymnast today on our team at the University of 

         16  Michigan, I would have been cut because I wouldn't have 

         17  been one of the top 15 gymnasts.  We have a roster 

         18  limit of 15. 

         19             Since that time I went on to coach at the 

         20  university of Iowa for 11 years and I've been at 

         21  Michigan for five years.  Between my time at Iowa and 

         22  Michigan I spent six years in the junior program.  So 

         23  I'm starting my 23rd year of coaching. 

         24             If I was a graduating high school senior 

         25  now, those 23 years I would have been doing something 

                                                                 255

          1  different because I wouldn't have been a gymnast at 

          2  Penn State, I wouldn't have gone on to coach at Iowa, I 

          3  wouldn't have gone on to coach at Michigan.  And I was 

          4  a three time NCAA national assistant coach of the year.  

          5  I'm on the Board of Directors for USA gymnastics.  I'm 

          6  on the finance committee for USA gymnastics. 

          7             And the reason I tell you these things is 

          8  because none of that stuff would have happened.  And I 

          9  think what has happened since 1979 back when I was 

         10  competing, there was 107 programs.  Now there's 20 

         11  programs.  I'm a dying breed.  I'm a dinosaur.  I'm 44 

         12  years old.  I would like to retire as a coach.  I would 

         13  like to be a head coach some day, but those 

         14  opportunities are becoming much more rare, and I feel 

         15  lucky to have a job at the University of Michigan.  

         16  They have treated me well.  They supported us well.  

         17  Again, it's a big football school, so we obviously have 

         18  the benefits of that. 

         19             And I wrote up some things like Debbie had 

         20  done earlier, and I'm not actually going off of that 

         21  because a lot of the facts and figures and information 

         22  have been covered through the panelists and through 

         23  various speakers today.  But I feel like there is 

         24  obviously some issues with Title IX, and I don't think 

         25  any of us would be here today in Atlanta if that were 

                                                                 256

          1  not the case.  And this commission has a tough job.  I 

          2  don't envy any one of you people sitting up here 

          3  because it's a tough job.  This has become a political 

          4  hot potato issue.  You know, for many years it was not 

          5  a front page issue, but now it is. 

          6             Since the Wrestling Coaches Association 

          7  lawsuit that was filed in January, there's been a lot 

          8  more media coverage on both sides of the story.  So I 

          9  think the public has got a chance to see all the 

         10  benefits of Title IX, all the credible increases and 

         11  opportunities for women from 30,000 athletes to 150,000 

         12  athletes.  These are incredible strides for women. 

         13             And again, you've heard this, but I'm going 

         14  to repeat it, nobody in this room is talking about 

         15  doing away with Title IX.  We just want to look at ways 

         16  to possibly modify some of the enforcement policies so 

         17  athletes in gymnastics, athletes in wrestling and some 

         18  of the other sports that have been more negatively 

         19  impacted than others are still going to have those 

         20  opportunities, the opportunities that I had, the 

         21  opportunities that I had to compete and succeed and be 

         22  part of a team, a successful team. 

         23             And then, I love to coach.  It's one of 

         24  those things that people who coach you understand it.  

         25  You have an impact on people's lives, young people's 

                                                                 257

          1  lives.  You can shape them.  That's what we do as 

          2  coaches.  We don't just teach a double back flip or 

          3  full twisting coback over the high bar, we teach 

          4  character traits, we teach the joy of competition.  We 

          5  teach a lot of things that people learn to take with 

          6  them. 

          7             And I challenge the Commission to look at 

          8  ways to possibly modify the proportionality prong of 

          9  Title IX.  And, you know, if we look at -- 

         10  proportionality is based on student body population 

         11  percentages.  56 percent women is the national average 

         12  now.  Is the athletic population similar to the general 

         13  student body population?  I think that's a question 

         14  that Gerald Reynolds brought up today that was very, 

         15  very important.  I think that's one that you need to 

         16  focus on.  There's a lot of talk about traditional 

         17  versus nontraditional students at college universities, 

         18  college campuses.  I think that's one of the first 

         19  places to look.  And I want to thank you all for the 

         20  opportunity, and you're going to hear from a lot more 

         21  people over the next four months.  Good luck.

         22                  MS. CYNTHIA COOPER:  Thank you.  

         23  Marcia.

         24                  MS. MARCIA CAPRIOTTI:  On behalf of the 

         25  150,000 members of the American Association of 

                                                                 258

          1  University Women, I want to thank you for the 

          2  opportunity to speak today at this first town meeting 

          3  of the Commission on opportunity in athletics. 

          4             We are pleased to assist the Commission in 

          5  its efforts to collect information, analyze issues, and 

          6  obtain broad public input directed at improving the 

          7  application of current federal standards for measuring 

          8  equal opportunity for all to participate in athletics 

          9  under Title IX.

         10             For 120 years AAUW as promoted equity for 

         11  all women and girls, lifelong education and positive 

         12  societal change.  Implicit in our mission is the firm 

         13  belief that there shall be no barriers to full 

         14  participation in education or the workplace on the 

         15  basis of gender, race, creed, age, sexual orientation, 

         16  national origin, disability, or class. 

         17             For this reason, AAUW strongly supports 

         18  Title IX of the education amendments of 1972, the 

         19  statute that prohibits sex discrimination in 

         20  educational institutions that receive federal funds and 

         21  protects against discrimination in college and high 

         22  school athletics.

         23             AAUW believes that since the law's enactment 

         24  30 years ago, girls and women's participation, 

         25  scholarships and share of athletics budgets have grown 

                                                                 259

          1  substantially.  In fact, since Title IX's enactment, by 

          2  2001 nearly 2.8 million girls participated in 

          3  athletics, representing 41.5 percent of varsity 

          4  athletes in U.S. high schools, an increase of more than 

          5  847 percent from 1971.

          6             Progress on college campuses also has been 

          7  impressive.  Today 150,916 women compete in 

          8  intercollegiate sports, accounting for 43 percent of 

          9  college varsity athletes, an increase of more than 403 

         10  percent from 1971.  And contrary to media reports, 

         11  men's participation levels at both the high school and 

         12  college level have also increased.  However, we still 

         13  have a long way to go. 

         14             Although Title IX has broken down barriers 

         15  to opportunity in education and athletics over the past 

         16  30 years, full equity has not yet been achieved.  

         17  Despite the gains women have made under Title IX, 

         18  resources for women's sports have never caught up to 

         19  resources for men's sports. 

         20             For example, according to the National 

         21  Women's Law Center, women in Division 1 colleges 

         22  represent more than half of the student body yet 

         23  receive only 41 percent of athletic scholarship 

         24  dollars, 30 percent of recruiting dollars and 33 

         25  percent of overall athletic budgets. 

                                                                 260

          1             Female athletes are not receiving equal 

          2  treatment or opportunities to participate even 30 years 

          3  after the passage of Title IX.  Although male and 

          4  female participation in athletics has steadily grown, 

          5  female students lack in participation opportunities, 

          6  receipt of scholarships, and allocation of operating 

          7  and recruitment budgets. 

          8             Contrary to what Title IX's adversaries 

          9  believe, discrepancies in participation rates are the 

         10  result of continuing discrimination and access to equal 

         11  athletic opportunities.

         12             It is neither logical nor permissible to 

         13  suggest a lack of interest in college sport 

         14  participation on the part of female athletes when less 

         15  than 200,000 college participation opportunities exist 

         16  for females, yet 2.7 million high school girls are 

         17  participating. 

         18             There are no bolts of lightning that strike 

         19  these high school female athletes.  What happens is 

         20  opportunity evaporates in budgetary meetings on the 

         21  college and university level.  Thus, we have not yet 

         22  reached Title IX's goal of achieving equity for all.  

         23  For these and many other reasons, AAUW strongly 

         24  supports Title IX and opposes any efforts to weaken its 

         25  effectiveness, including undermining the three-prong 

                                                                 261

          1  test used to determine athletic compliance. 

          2             AAUW believes that this test is reasonable 

          3  and fair.  In fact, it has been upheld as 

          4  constitutional by eight Federal Circuit Courts.  It is 

          5  the position of the American Association of University 

          6  Women that no changes to the Title IX standards as 

          7  apply to athletics are warranted or necessary.  

          8  Modifications to the standards that would limit future 

          9  opportunities for women in favor of expanded 

         10  opportunities would violate the goal of gender equity.  

         11  Any modification to the standard that is based on the 

         12  premise that women are less -- 

         13                  MS. CYNTHIA COOPER:  Thank you.  Sorry.  

         14  Anne Harper.

         15                  MS. ANNE HARPER:  Good afternoon.  My 

         16  name is Anne Harper, and I reside here in the City of 

         17  Atlanta, where I have served on the Atlanta Board of 

         18  Education for eight years, from 1994 to the year 2001.  

         19  I'm also the mother of two daughters, one of whom 

         20  played interscholastic soccer in high school for four 

         21  years, and you heard from her in fact earlier today.

         22             I would like to let members of the 

         23  Commission know that the legislators in the State of 

         24  Georgia believe that Title IX is such an important law 

         25  that they decided two years ago in 2000 to pass a state 

                                                                 262

          1  version of the law in order to ensure implementation of 

          2  its principles throughout the school systems in our 

          3  state. 

          4             Our state law, called The Equity and Sports 

          5  Act, provides for annual reporting of school system 

          6  statistics in the areas covered by the federal law, 

          7  things such as transportation, facilities, training, 

          8  academic support, uniforms and equipment. 

          9             Our first official reports will come in in 

         10  2003, and they will cover the past three years of 

         11  activity by our school systems.

         12             Here in Georgia we are urging our public 

         13  school systems to begin strategic planning of their 

         14  athletic programs and facilities in order to implement 

         15  equal opportunity for boys and girls in a measured and 

         16  orderly way that enhances the experience of all 

         17  students.

         18             We have had excellent cooperation from the 

         19  Georgia High School Association, which you will hear 

         20  tomorrow in Mr. Gary Phillip's testimony.  They are 

         21  committed to working with coaches and administrators in 

         22  our state to provide the greatest opportunities 

         23  possible for all of our children.

         24             We hope to avoid at the high school level in 

         25  Georgia the kinds of problems that you have seen 

                                                                 263

          1  discussed here at the college and university level. 

          2             On behalf of the organization which I 

          3  founded to support these efforts, The Coalition for 

          4  Gender Equity in Sports, I ask you to proceed 

          5  cautiously in making changes to the letter or the 

          6  spirit of Title IX. At the high school level where I 

          7  have the most experience we need the federal standards 

          8  to guide state level efforts.

          9             The Office of Civil Rights has provided 

         10  invaluable technical support to all of those working at 

         11  the grassroots level, and we need that kind of support 

         12  to continue.  I believe that most of the hostility as 

         13  you've heard here today to the Title IX implementation 

         14  revolves around the proportionality test for providing 

         15  programs. 

         16             This test is often misunderstood and even 

         17  misused by universities.  And you've heard a lot about 

         18  that today, and I hope that there will be some good 

         19  factual material produced by this commission that 

         20  really goes to the heart of examining what is going on 

         21  with colleges and universities and why they are cutting 

         22  the nonrevenue men's sports such as wrestling. 

         23             But here in Georgia we are trying to make 

         24  the three-prong test work well.  We are working very 

         25  hard to make sure that we have an effective survey tool 

                                                                 264

          1  that is used consistently, the same tool by all school 

          2  systems throughout the state. 

          3             We recognize that interest is a difficult 

          4  issue, that we have to work very hard to improve the 

          5  kind of encouragement we give students to participate, 

          6  but we are committed to the three-part test.  And we 

          7  believe it can work in any educational institution that 

          8  really wants to make it work and that really 

          9  understands that Title IX is entirely about equal 

         10  educational opportunities throughout an entire 

         11  institution, not just on the athletic fields, but every 

         12  single endeavor, the academic, the arts, the 

         13  vocational, technical programs.  Every aspect is 

         14  involved in Title IX. 

         15             This is not the time for a failure of 

         16  commitment to women's equality.  I urge you to speak 

         17  out clearly on behalf of the women who have benefitted 

         18  and who will benefit from Title IX.  You are all 

         19  prominent citizens with tremendous knowledge in the 

         20  world of sports.  You have the potential to play a 

         21  significant role in helping the Bush administration to 

         22  understand the value of this landmark legislation and 

         23  the ongoing need for forceful implementation of its 

         24  provisions. 

         25             I challenge you to "remember the ladies", as 

                                                                 265

          1  Abigail Adams so famously wrote to her husband in the 

          2  18th century regarding the principles of constitution.  

          3  We need your voices now in support of energetic 

          4  enforcement of Title IX. 

          5             Thank you all very much for taking the time 

          6  to serve on this commission and for taking the time to 

          7  take public input today. 

          8                  MR. TED LELAND:  Our next four speakers 

          9  are Nate Dotson, Jason Lewis, Cal Rimler, and Andrew 

         10  Davis. 

         11                  MR. NATE DOTSON:  I thank you for the 

         12  opportunity to be able to speak here.  I just had a 

         13  long drive last night, so forgive me if my thoughts 

         14  wander a little bit. 

         15             To tell you a little bit about myself, I had 

         16  the privilege to be the captain of the men's gymnastic 

         17  team at Michigan State University for their final 

         18  season before we were discontinued in 2000/2001, and it 

         19  was just an experience that was just fabulous to be a 

         20  part of that team and to be part of something as great 

         21  as a college athletic program. 

         22             Growing up it was always my dream to be a 

         23  college athlete.  In fact, my interest in gymnastics 

         24  started in 1984 during the Olympics.  And it sure made 

         25  me think when the men's team won the gold for the team 

                                                                 266

          1  competition, but that's not what made me want to get 

          2  into gymnastics. It was actually watching Mary Lou 

          3  Retton.  When I was a kid, she was my hero.  She was 

          4  the reason I started gymnastics.  And ever since then, 

          5  I worked hard my whole life, trained for 15 years just 

          6  to be able to be part of a college team and to 

          7  participate in what I love to do. 

          8             I wasn't good enough to get that 

          9  scholarship, but I walked onto the team, worked hard.  

         10  After an injury my freshman year, I didn't know if I 

         11  would be able to go on, but I kept persevering and 

         12  trying, and I was able to do that.  I was able to 

         13  become a competitive member of the men's gymnastic team 

         14  at Michigan State. 

         15             I'm not going to talk too much about Title 

         16  IX and what I think its problems are, but what I like 

         17  about being part of an athletic program and what I 

         18  think a lot of people are going to be missing out. 

         19             Being a part of the men's gymnastics team at 

         20  Michigan State, it wasn't just a sport, it was walking 

         21  in everyday no matter what my problems were, no matter 

         22  how bad school was, problems in my life, walking in 

         23  that gym knowing that I could keep everything in the 

         24  door, because when I walked in there, I was surrounded 

         25  by what I would consider my family. 

                                                                 267

          1             It's just something that you really can't 

          2  put your hands on because it's amazing to have an 

          3  opportunity like that to be part of a team.  And I 

          4  don't think men or women should be denied that, and 

          5  unfortunately, I think that's where things are headed. 

          6             At Michigan State University, for example, 

          7  there are numerous opportunities for female athletes, 

          8  plenty of spots on teams that are just not being met.  

          9  I don't know how it is across the country, but that's a 

         10  problem that needs to be addressed.  Men's teams, we 

         11  actually went out and we recruited for women's teams, 

         12  handing out fliers, going to dorms, doing whatever we 

         13  could to try and bring the women in to participate in 

         14  those sports.  And the interest just does seem to be 

         15  there when you have 20 openings on a female team and 

         16  ten women come to try out for that team. 

         17             When you have a spot; for example, on the 

         18  men's golf team a couple of years ago there was open 

         19  spot and we had 50 guys come out for that one open spot 

         20  for tryouts just to do that.  And I think that's what 

         21  needs to be addressed is is the interest really there 

         22  at the collegiate level at big schools in particular 

         23  for women athletes?  I don't know that when they get to 

         24  that level if they particularly want to move in that 

         25  direction or if their past where they want to be with 

                                                                 268

          1  sports, if they have already done what they wanted to 

          2  do with it. 

          3             But I do feel my opportunity that I was able 

          4  to have was fantastic.  I don't think anybody again 

          5  should be denied that opportunity, men or women.  The 

          6  dropping of sports I think is wrong.  I think something 

          7  needs to be done with the way Title IX is enforced so 

          8  that everyone can have a chance to be a part of what I 

          9  had to be a part of, which is something I wouldn't 

         10  trade for the world. 

         11             And I just thank you for this opportunity to 

         12  speak and tell you about what I had as a college 

         13  athlete.  Thank you. 

         14                  MR. TED LELAND:  Jason.

         15                  MR. JASON LEWIS:  Hi, my name is Jason 

         16  Lewis, and I was a gymnast at Michigan State.  I 

         17  competed in gymnastics for 17 years, until our sport 

         18  was dropped my junior year, and we were given a whole 

         19  array of excuses why; Title IX, funding.  Everything 

         20  came back to this big issue that we're arguing today.

         21             You know, it was heartbreaking.  I mean, 

         22  really, no one can feel what I felt that day.  You 

         23  know, I was 19 years old calling my dad and I was 

         24  crying like I was 5 years old and just got spanked.  It 

         25  hurt. 

                                                                 269

          1             But anyway, to the point at hand.  We 

          2  started up classes yesterday, and -- yeah, I'm skipping 

          3  some classes today, but it's okay, I'm a senior.  And I 

          4  was reading our school newspaper, and it's called the 

          5  State News, and I was flipping through it reading the 

          6  opinion section and turned the page and I saw an ad in 

          7  here that said row for Michigan State, and then, you 

          8  know, in letters down here, no experience necessary, 

          9  referring to our women's crew team. 

         10             That was kind of disheartening to me.  We 

         11  have a campus of 48,000 people.  54 percent of them are 

         12  female.  So that's 26,000 girls that they can pull from 

         13  to fill up 25 to 30 spots, and they have to put ads in 

         14  the newspaper for it.  We have 17 guys who dedicated 

         15  their lives, their bodies to doing the sport and, you 

         16  know, we can't do it anymore. 

         17             Michigan State is the epitome of everything 

         18  that's wrong with Title IX.  Just recently the 

         19  facilities were updated.  Women and men got new locker 

         20  rooms.  The women got nice wood ones, the benches like 

         21  hockey player locker rooms, leather sitting chairs in 

         22  the middle, all for free, didn't come out of any of the 

         23  budgets.  Men's teams, if they wanted that, they had to 

         24  raise $10,000 for it, all in the name of equality under 

         25  Title IX.  Kind of disheartening again.

                                                                 270

          1             The whole quota system, I mean, why don't we 

          2  apply it to education too.  It wouldn't seem fair.  We 

          3  go up and say, okay, Jimmy, you're coming in as a 

          4  freshman, you're really good at physics, you can do 

          5  calculus, you want to be an electrical engineer?  I'm 

          6  sorry, not enough women applied that year, so maybe 

          7  you'll have to go be a nurse.  That just sounds 

          8  ridiculous.  I mean, why do we do it with athletics? 

          9             The other thing too is Michigan State, 54 

         10  percent of it is women.  What happens if those numbers 

         11  change and 54 percent become men?  The numbers are 

         12  imbalanced for sports.  We're not going to add another 

         13  men's sport.  Everybody who is an athletic director 

         14  knows that college campuses are so politically correct 

         15  right now they are afraid of a lawsuit.  It will just 

         16  never happen, so why do we approach it that way with 

         17  this, with women?  Why do we drop the men's sports?  

         18  Let's find a way to deal with it.  It's really just 

         19  disheartening.  And thanks for your time. 

         20                  MR. TED LELAND:  Cal. 

         21                  MR. CAL RIMLER:  Hi, I'm Cal Rimler.  

         22  I'm also a former Michigan State gymnast, and I'm going 

         23  into my senior year. 

         24             I have come before you today not so much as 

         25  an aggrieved party, but as an individual with an 

                                                                 271

          1  abiding interest and concern about gymnastics as a 

          2  competitive sport in the United States. 

          3             All across the United States there are 

          4  gymnastics programs involving thousands of boys from 

          5  pre school to high school.  The sad truth is that Title 

          6  IX has effectively created a dead end for aspiring boys 

          7  as there are barely 20 collegiate level men's 

          8  gymnastics programs across the country. 

          9             It was my goal and my dream to become a 

         10  collegiate gymnast and a dream that came true as I was 

         11  a walk-on at Michigan State University.

         12             However, my time as a gymnast was abruptly 

         13  cut short, leaving me with three years unused of 

         14  eligibility.  It will be years I will not be able to 

         15  get back and will regret not having for the rest of my 

         16  life as I graduate at the end of this year.

         17             We gymnasts have tried very hard and 

         18  succeeded in being good students, hard working athletes 

         19  and competitors, but under the rules of Title IX, you 

         20  don't have to do anything wrong to get punished.

         21             We work hard as athletes, as all athletes 

         22  do, to achieve a spot on a team at the collegiate level 

         23  only to get dropped.  It is reprehensible that with 

         24  Michigan State's athletic history and tradition, it 

         25  eliminated our men's gymnastics team with the excuse 

                                                                 272

          1  that equality could not be achieved. 

          2             Make no mistake about it, we support all 

          3  Michigan State athletic teams, but we are also gymnasts 

          4  and we want the opportunity to represent MSU in 

          5  competition. 

          6             It's important now that we should not lose 

          7  sight that gymnastics is an international sport, and 

          8  like all international policy and relationships, the 

          9  U.S. should not withdraw from benefits of friendly 

         10  athletic competition. 

         11             Thank you for the opportunity today. 

         12                  MR. TED LELAND:  Andrew. 

         13                  MR. ANDREW DAVIS:  Hello, my name is 

         14  Andrew Davis.  Thank you for the opportunity to speak 

         15  today.  I represent a former Division 1 gymnastics 

         16  team.  Working so hard, becoming so successful as an 

         17  individual as well as a team, we put forth this effort 

         18  in order to fulfill our dreams. 

         19             With the decision of Michigan State to drop 

         20  the men's program, our dreams were shattered and our 

         21  collegiate experiences were severely tarnished. 

         22             I have been a gymnast for 18 years of my 

         23  life and found myself to be one of these students.  

         24  After Michigan State dropped their men's gymnastics 

         25  program, I was forced due to finances to stay at 

                                                                 273

          1  Michigan State and abandon my lifelong dream of 

          2  competing as a collegiate athlete with hope of one day 

          3  competing above and beyond the collegiate level. 

          4             As a scholarship athlete, through gymnastics 

          5  I was able to follow my educational goals as well and 

          6  give back to society, or in the future give back to 

          7  society.  But taking away these opportunities will 

          8  inhibit future young Americans to fulfill their future 

          9  dreams.

         10             There are tens of thousands of young 

         11  athletes in gymnastics alone throughout the country.  

         12  If Title IX continues, many of these young Americans 

         13  will be denied their dreams. 

         14             I ask you to be the strong voice of wisdom 

         15  and insight which you were elected to be and provide 

         16  these young Americans whose hopes and dreams that will 

         17  have been severely clouded, but show them that they are 

         18  not completely destroyed. 

         19             Thank you. 

         20                  MS. CYNTHIA COOPER:  Dr. Charles Webb, 

         21  Brock Warder, Cynthia Doyle, and Aimee Boone.  We'll 

         22  start with Dr. Charles Webb. 

         23                  MR. CHARLES WEBB:  Thank you.  My name 

         24  is Charles Webb.  I'm employed by the Bulloch County 

         25  schools in Statesboro, Georgia, about 55 miles west of 

                                                                 274

          1  Savannah. 

          2             As a member of the central office staff, I'm 

          3  a certified master athletic administrator with the 

          4  NIAAA.  I have a Doctorate of Education from Georgia 

          5  Southern University.  I'm also a graduate from the U.S. 

          6  Army War College.  And I'm a retired Brigadier General 

          7  in the Reserve of the United States Army. 

          8             I'm also the father of two daughters, both 

          9  of whom have benefitted from Title IX.  So that one 

         10  sentence known today as Title IX has special meaning to 

         11  me personally, patriotically and professionally. 

         12             First, I'm proud that our President and the 

         13  Secretary of Education have both demonstrated a bold 

         14  initiative in publicly addressing this issue. For 30 

         15  years Title IX has been a hot potato, and now it's time 

         16  to shuck the corn as we say in south Georgia. 

         17             For more than a quarter of a century I 

         18  served as an educator and athletics administrator.  

         19  Among other duties, I've shared the responsibility of 

         20  implementing Title IX with coaches and other school 

         21  leaders. 

         22             I've also been a part of many school reform 

         23  measures.  Misunderstanding of Title IX, fear of change 

         24  and just sheer arrogance needlessly restricted the 

         25  civil rights of more than half the population of this 

                                                                 275

          1  country throughout the past three decades.  We ought to 

          2  learn from higher education.  Hopefully the leadership 

          3  and public education sees the importance of avoiding 

          4  the same type of confrontation that has plagued many 

          5  universities that you heard about today. 

          6             This law is about doing the right thing.  It 

          7  is also about expanding what already is good by simply 

          8  teaching our children how to share with one another.

          9             This commission on opportunity and athletics 

         10  should be praised for initiating public hearings and 

         11  seeking information from practitioners and those who 

         12  actually implemented this law in our schools.  Such 

         13  feedback will hopefully be used to assist our 

         14  educational leaders, Mr. Hansen and Ms. Price and 

         15  others from the Department of Education here today, in 

         16  not only understanding and implementing the detailed 

         17  requirements of Title IX, but to also develop the 

         18  spirit of support and cooperation among our coaches, 

         19  students, sports boosters, each of whom has a vital 

         20  role in a school sports program.

         21             Here in our own state of Georgia visionary 

         22  leaders like Representatives Kathy Ash and Stephanie 

         23  Stucky Benfield and other legislators as well, leaders 

         24  like Dr. Ann Harper and Charles Holston, have worked 

         25  diligently to pass the Equity and Sports Act of 2000.  

                                                                 276

          1  It is a law that enables all of our enormous human 

          2  resources now in place to identify problems and 

          3  solutions. 

          4             In Georgia we've begun to do just that.  

          5  Recognizing the perceived intent of Title IX as well as 

          6  appreciating the quality of individuals on this 

          7  commission and within the U.S. department of Education, 

          8  I'm optimistic in briefly expressing three concerns 

          9  related to the question how do interscholastic sports 

         10  avoid the mistakes of intercollegiate compliance this 

         11  past decade?

         12             These three concerns deal with education and 

         13  training, with field services and with funding.  As far 

         14  as education and training goes, it's vital that our 

         15  students, coaches, school leaders and boosters be 

         16  educated on the purpose of this law and properly 

         17  trained in its implementation.  It must not be 

         18  presented as a threat, although the law is forceful and 

         19  its intent is clear. 

         20             Most Americans will favorably support Title 

         21  IX if it is explained in the same positive way in which 

         22  the original legislation was intended.  Whenever 

         23  possible we must avoid adversarial circumstances at the 

         24  interscholastic level.  The U.S. Department of 

         25  Education should be the leader in helping states to 

                                                                 277

          1  help their schools.

          2             Secondly, field services.  One of the 

          3  reasons that Title IX is difficult to implement is 

          4  because it is sometimes difficult to understand.  We 

          5  need to provide more opportunities in the field for 

          6  practitioners to learn about Title IX and to receive 

          7  assistance from consultants to implement this important 

          8  law.

          9             Third is the funding.  Title IX is perceived 

         10  yet as another unfunded mandate from Washington.  The 

         11  real problem here today is not about fairness, the real 

         12  problem is about money, where does the money come from 

         13  to pay for Title IX? 

         14             In conclusion, I ask you to reflect on what 

         15  Charles Darwin commented to others about the origin of 

         16  the species in 1859 when he said, it is not the 

         17  strongest of the species that survive, but rather the 

         18  most responsive to change. 

         19             Thank you. 

         20                  MR. BROCK WARDER:  Hi, I'm Brock 

         21  Warder.   I traveled all the way from Sioux City, Iowa 

         22  to come talk to you guys. 

         23             My senior year at Marquette was cut short, 

         24  whether it be financial reasons or Title IX.  There's a 

         25  couple of variables in there that I can't quite inform 

                                                                 278

          1  you about, but I would like to comment that I do have 

          2  an 11-year-old sister who I want to participate in 

          3  every sport that I did, soccer and basketball. 

          4             She looks to you guys as role models, 

          5  Ms. Cooper and Ms. Foudy.  I would also like to comment 

          6  on the gymnasts that are here from Michigan State.  I 

          7  feel for you guys.  Your senior year, it's going to be 

          8  different, but you'll get through it.  I did.

          9             In 1996 Marquette for Title IX reasons, not 

         10  financial, for Title IX reasons decided to cut the 

         11  program.  The friends of Marquette, the alumni, got 

         12  together and decided that they will raise money every 

         13  year in order to keep the program going. 

         14             We had a banquet every year and we raised up 

         15  to $50,000 a year in order to sponsor our team.  Our 

         16  coach got paid $9,000 a year.  As was stated earlier, 

         17  we might not have been as competitive as the Big Ten 

         18  schools, but we competed, and that was taken away from 

         19  me my senior year. 

         20             I never got to end my wrestling career the 

         21  way I wanted to.  I think that's sad.  I think that the 

         22  people on this committee should realize that a lot of 

         23  athletes are affected either by Title IX or either 

         24  using Title IX as a cover for financial challenges or 

         25  mistakes by athletic administrations and universities 

                                                                 279

          1  in our nation.

          2             A lot of my teammates had to drop out of 

          3  school.  From what little scholarships we received, it 

          4  was enough to keep them in school.  They had to move, 

          5  transfer.  It was my senior year, and I decided not to.  

          6  I decided to get my degree and go on to law school, 

          7  which is where I'm at now. 

          8             But I would just like to get everybody to 

          9  kind of see it from another perspective.  I am the 

         10  poster child for Title IX.  You're looking at him.  I 

         11  had just been named senior captain two weeks before the 

         12  program had been dropped, my roommate and I.  We both 

         13  stayed at school.  None of our credits would really 

         14  transfer anywhere else, so we decided to finish it out.  

         15  But I can understand where the gymnasts are coming 

         16  from.  Maybe it's something that you do from either 4 

         17  or 5 years old until when it's cut short until you 

         18  graduate unless you have Olympic aspirations, which I 

         19  didn't.  I'll admit that I wasn't the best.  I wasn't 

         20  the worst by any means either.

         21             But again, I would like to elaborate on the 

         22  fact that teams are hurt, individuals are hurt because 

         23  of how this rule is being misinterpreted and being 

         24  enforced incorrectly. 

         25             I still have yet to hear from our Athletic 

                                                                 280

          1  Director or our President.  I have e-mailed both of 

          2  them numerous times, and I think that they are either 

          3  purposely not answering me or they don't want to face 

          4  the facts of what really happened.  But hopefully with 

          5  this media exposure and the attempts of athletes like 

          6  from Michigan State and a colleague from former BYU 

          7  that all will change. 

          8             I thank you for your time.  Good luck. 

          9                  MS. CYNTHIA COOPER:  Cynthia Doyle. 

         10                  MS. CYNTHIA DOYLE:  First of all, I 

         11  would like to congratulate each of you that accepted 

         12  the nomination to the Commission both publicly and 

         13  privately because we understand a lot of the things 

         14  that you wrestle with. 

         15             My name is Cynthia Doyle.  I'm Assistant 

         16  Director of the National Federation of State High 

         17  School Associations.  We're actually the ones that many 

         18  of you have used the statistics that we publish to 

         19  bring all the Title IX things kind of into perspective. 

         20             And when we say Title IX, we remove 

         21  ourselves from that, because Title IX itself are just 

         22  words on paper.  What we have to do is put ourselves 

         23  into it and realize that we are Title IX, and the 

         24  things that we struggle with are both financial and 

         25  ethical dilemmas.

                                                                 281

          1             The National Federation is a rule making 

          2  body that represents 51 member state associations, 

          3  30,000 coaches, 17,000 high schools, 130,000 officials 

          4  and more than 6 and a half million student athletes. 

          5             From a numerical standpoint, high school is 

          6  very important because overwhelmingly, that's where 

          7  your Title IX issues are, and although we don't receive 

          8  all the publicity that the NCAA gets, thank goodness, 

          9  our proportion is about 20 to 1 for the number of 

         10  students that we represent. 

         11             We represent participation, and we think 

         12  that that's what your charge is, and overall Title IX 

         13  has been good for participation.  And earlier today I 

         14  shared with you -- get that poster and I'll show it 

         15  right quick.  Someone asked me about the statistics.  I 

         16  wasn't trying to exclude anyone, but he had asked me 

         17  about the statistics for high school, and this is just 

         18  a quick graph of the participation in high schools 

         19  since Title IX. 

         20             This has to do with female participation.  

         21  And I think graphically that's exactly what you want to 

         22  happen.  It shows a constant increase in participation 

         23  at the high school level.  I'm not going to take a long 

         24  presentation because I do realize that the Chicago 

         25  meeting is going to concentrate on high school and 

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          1  junior college participation.

          2             So at this time I would just like to thank 

          3  you for your interest.  I ask you to continue to ask us 

          4  for the things that you need to make the decisions that 

          5  we know are important decisions and let us support you 

          6  on behalf of our Board of Directors and the National 

          7  Federation staff. 

          8             Thank you.

          9                  MS. CYNTHIA COOPER:  Thank you.  Aimee 

         10  Boone. 

         11                  MS. AIMEE BOONE:  Good afternoon.  My 

         12  name is Aimee Boone, and I'm a senior campus organizer 

         13  for the Feminist Majority Foundation in D.C., but I'm 

         14  here today to talk to you as an athlete and as an older 

         15  sister and as a friend to many athletes and as someone 

         16  who will probably one day have daughters. 

         17             Even though I'm only 23, I consider myself 

         18  somewhat of an expert on Title IX because I have been 

         19  playing sports since I was 6.  I have competed in 

         20  equestrian events at a national level, I have been a 

         21  gymnast when I was much shorter, I have played 

         22  basketball and soccer, but most importantly, I have 

         23  played volleyball for the past 10 years, I have played 

         24  softball for the past 15 years, and I competed as an 

         25  NCAA Division 1 athlete on my crew team at the 

                                                                 283

          1  University of Virginia. 

          2             So when you hear people say, as you have 

          3  today and as you will tomorrow and through the rest of 

          4  the hearings that you will hold, that women just don't 

          5  want to play sports, please remember me and think that 

          6  that is not true, because I am here to tell you that 

          7  when women and girls have the opportunity to play 

          8  sports, they will.

          9             Sports has fundamentally changed my life.  

         10  As an athlete, sports have kept my grades up, they have 

         11  kept me away from drugs and alcohol, and they have 

         12  helped me to maintain a positive body image in an 

         13  environment that make it increasingly for women and 

         14  girls to do so.

         15             I can't imagine what my life would have been 

         16  like without sports, but I know that I would not have 

         17  the job that I do today, I would not call myself a 

         18  feminist, and I would not come as far as I have.

         19             All of this has been made possible for me 

         20  because of Title IX, and I am very grateful.  But as 

         21  you have heard again and again today, we are not at 

         22  equality yet.  We have come very far, but we still have 

         23  much further to go.

         24             And so I would ask you to consider all the 

         25  women and girls who still have not had their chance to 

                                                                 284

          1  play sports and to think of them and to save Title IX, 

          2  to leave it as it is, and to increase federal 

          3  enforcement to make it possible for more girls to have 

          4  the same opportunities that I have had to play sports. 

          5             I'm here fundamentally because I do not want 

          6  to raise daughters and sons in a world where the 

          7  abilities of my daughters are not valued in the same 

          8  way as those of my son's are. 

          9             I thank you very much for your time and good 

         10  luck with future hearings. 

         11                  MR. TED LELAND:  Sharon Krueger, Dan 

         12  Fulks, Burnadette McClade, and Agnes Greene. 

         13             Cynthia, my Co-Chair, and I have talked 

         14  about it, and there are on our list here at least four 

         15  people plus three others that are on what we would 

         16  consider our base list, people who registered and 

         17  signed up, and if we can maybe extend the 5:00 deadline 

         18  for a few minutes, we can accommodate all those people 

         19  who were requesting to speak.

         20             We also have, by the way, a waiting list 

         21  outside, and we will ask those people to try to come 

         22  back tomorrow when there's an open forum. 

         23             But if it's okay with the commissioners, if 

         24  we could extend the deadline from 5:00 to a few minutes 

         25  after and accommodate all those people that have signed 

                                                                 285

          1  up.  I can see a lot of nodding heads, so I think we'll 

          2  move forward. 

          3             Okay, Sharon Krueger.  Okay, Dan.  You're 

          4  going to pass.  Okay, Burnadete McClade.

          5                  MS. BURNADEE McCLADE:  Thank you.  My 

          6  name is Burnadette McClade, and I'm Associate 

          7  Commissioner at the Atlantic Coast Conference.  I am, 

          8  as just about everyone in this room is, a product of 

          9  Title IX, and I commend each of you on the Commission 

         10  for your work, and I really just have three thoughts 

         11  that I would like to leave with you in this open 

         12  hearing today.

         13             First off is just to encourage all of you on 

         14  the Commission to certainly uphold the tenants of Title 

         15  IX, that discrimination at any level must be deemed 

         16  unacceptable for males or females involved in athletics 

         17  or sports. 

         18             Secondly, that it's really critical to 

         19  recognize the effects of historical discrimination and 

         20  to accept the fact that time is needed to overcome the 

         21  effects of significant historical discrimination and 

         22  the effect that it has on the pool of athletes.

         23             Golf has been used several times as an 

         24  example of a sport of noninterest or a sport that is in 

         25  existence, but there are females that are unable to 

                                                                 286

          1  field a team, yet golf is probably one of the very 

          2  sports that has really been crippled by the historical 

          3  discrimination towards females in that sport.  And it's 

          4  not only been an opportunity in the sport of golf, but 

          5  in the quality of experience, which is also compounded 

          6  when you have historical discrimination.  Thus today 

          7  there's just simply not a strong enough or a large 

          8  enough skilled grassroots pool as far as the female 

          9  young golfers are concerned. 

         10             The interest is there, but you can't 

         11  accelerate the time and the clock, and it's one of the 

         12  factors of the by-products of a historical 

         13  discriminated sport.

         14             The third thing is that the only reason that 

         15  this commission is in existence is because of certainly 

         16  the universal acknowledgment of the importance of 

         17  sports and athletics for everyone. 

         18             I encourage each of you to uphold that value 

         19  for women as well as upholding that value of importance 

         20  for men, to uphold it for revenue producing sports as 

         21  well as nonrevenue producing sports. 

         22             These are difficult times.  They are 

         23  difficult times financially, politically, socially, and 

         24  educationally.

         25             College Presidents, Athletic Directors and 

                                                                 287

          1  leaders need to keep their institutional autonomy, but 

          2  at the same time each need to be held to a standard of 

          3  nondiscrimination. 

          4             The current three-pronged approach to 

          5  meeting Title IX is thorough and it is flexible, and it 

          6  needs to be applied universally until the opportunities 

          7  for women are truly implemented fairly across the 

          8  country. 

          9             Thank you. 

         10                  MR. TED LELAND:  Agnes.

         11                  MS. AGNES GREEN:  My name is Agnes 

         12  Green and I'm a physician in the Atlanta area.  My 

         13  interest in this is several-fold.  For one, I play 

         14  sports, I have a daughter that's 12 years old, she's 

         15  involved in sports, and currently I'm involved as using 

         16  my oratorial skills as public address announcer for 

         17  Georgia Tech's women's basketball and for the past two 

         18  years the women's Final Four. 

         19             Young women today are facing a myriad of 

         20  issues and obstacles.  And I'm going to talk briefly 

         21  about the medical and health benefits of Title IX.  

         22  Many of the things they face are teenage pregnancy, 

         23  drug use, school shootings, suicide, cigarette smoking, 

         24  vehicular risk taking, and obesity just to name a new. 

         25             As they mature, they will face another set 

                                                                 288

          1  of issues, heart attacks, strokes, lung cancer, breast 

          2  cancer, diabetes, and arthritis. 

          3             For a young lady to lessen the likelihood of 

          4  the first-mentioned issues, one must make good choices, 

          5  and sports has a positive impact on the lives of girls 

          6  and young women and it allows them to make very good 

          7  choices. 

          8             There are many surveys, and I'm sure you're 

          9  aware of the facts, that show that athletes are less 

         10  likely to smoke.  They are less likely to use elicit 

         11  drugs, they are less suicidal.  Female athletes are 

         12  more likely to wear seat belts.  Athletes are less 

         13  likely to get pregnant out of wedlock.  Female athletes 

         14  are less likely to become obese, which is a major 

         15  health problem in America.  There is a lower incidence 

         16  of breast cancer and cancer of the reproductive system 

         17  among former athletes as compared to nonathletes, and 

         18  there's a lower incidence of diabetes in athletes. 

         19             There are many other surveys, particularly 

         20  one that showed female corporate executives, over 75 

         21  percent of them at some point in time were involved in 

         22  organized sports.  So the habits that these young 

         23  ladies form now will follow them into their middle 

         24  years and senior years, and, as you can see, these 

         25  habits have a direct correlation to lessen many events 

                                                                 289

          1  and occurrences that are eating away at the moral fiber 

          2  of our community.

          3             These young ladies will certainly have a 

          4  better chance of being less of a burden on the health 

          5  system, less of a burden on their families, and they 

          6  will be able to have a better quality of life 

          7  throughout their extended lifetime. 

          8             As a physician, I would hate for us to allow 

          9  this to happen.  If we allow the limitation and/or 

         10  elimination of opportunities, this will have a 

         11  deleterious effect to our society and as well as the 

         12  health of our society in general. 

         13             Thus, you can see it is imperative that we 

         14  not cut the wings of Title IX, but instead we must 

         15  allow both men and women to soar to new heights. 

         16             Thank you.

         17                  MS. CYNTHIA COOPER:  Thank you.  Pete 

         18  Fritts, Angela Ryan, and Erin Spencer.  Angela, we'll 

         19  start with you. 

         20                  MS. ANGELA RYAN:  Good afternoon 

         21  everyone.  My name is Angela Ryan.  I am the Vice 

         22  President of Services for Girls Incorporated of Greater 

         23  Atlanta.  I am an advocate for the rights of girls and 

         24  women. 

         25             My daughter played LaCrosse at the 

                                                                 290

          1  University of Georgia, and today she coaches girls' 

          2  LaCrosse in the Fulton County public high school. 

          3             I know how valuable athletics have been in 

          4  her life and in the development of the young women she 

          5  now coaches.  I've seen it firsthand.

          6             I am here today to defend Title IX and to 

          7  urge you not to weaken it.  My position has everything 

          8  to do with gender equity and fairness.  This 30 year 

          9  old civil rights legislation was created to level the 

         10  playing field and to support equal opportunity and 

         11  access for women in the workplace and in athletics. 

         12             What's at issue now is the enforcement of 

         13  Title IX.  In 1972 when Title IX became law, young 

         14  women accounted for only 7 percent of high school 

         15  varsity athletes.  Last year this percentage had grown 

         16  to 42 percent.  But this number would be significantly 

         17  higher if female athletes received the equal treatment 

         18  and opportunities to participate that are guaranteed by 

         19  Title IX.

         20             Also, for every new dollar going into 

         21  athletics in colleges that award athletic scholarships 

         22  female sports received 35 cents while male sports 

         23  received 65 cents.

         24             Women still have fewer opportunities to play 

         25  sports than men and less money is spent on women's 

                                                                 291

          1  athletic scholarships, operating budgets, and 

          2  recruitment. 

          3             If the intent of Title IX is to guarantee 

          4  equal education for women and girls, this goal has not 

          5  been achieved, and it is the responsibility of the 

          6  federal government to enforce Title IX and its current 

          7  standards and practices. 

          8             The Office of Civil Rights has not initiated 

          9  proceedings to remove federal funds at any noncompliant 

         10  school or college in the 30 years since Title IX was 

         11  adopted.  While noncompliance occurs, the OCR 

         12  negotiates settlements that are often less than the law 

         13  requires.  And it further extends the time institutions 

         14  are given to comply with federal law. 

         15             I stand on the side of parents who must file 

         16  Title IX complaints.  I go to court to gain legal 

         17  rights for their daughters, the legal rights that are 

         18  guaranteed to them by this law.  I believe that we can 

         19  elevate the quality of women's programs without 

         20  sacrificing the quality of men's programs. 

         21             The Department of Education must not weaken 

         22  Title IX.  I respectfully request that you urge the 

         23  Secretary of Education and other administrative 

         24  officers to not make any changes to the law.  Do not 

         25  settle for a lesser standard.  Don't change Title IX, 

                                                                 292

          1  enforce it. 

          2             Thank you and good luck on your important 

          3  task and project. 

          4                  MS. CYNTHIA COOPER:  Thank you.  And 

          5  I'm assuming since Beth Bass is here, you're taking 

          6  Erin Spencer's place.

          7                  MS. BETH BASS:  Yes, that was Erin.  

          8  We're just trying -- 

          9                  MS. CYNTHIA COOPER:  I was just testing 

         10  you.

         11                  MS. BETH BASS:  You're doing a good 

         12  job.  Chair Cooper, Chair Leland, commissioners, I have 

         13  got good news.  I'm not going to take all three 

         14  minutes, I can promise you that. 

         15             Like so many here, I am a product of Title 

         16  IX.  I was a scholarshipped basketball player at East 

         17  Tennessee State University.  I have spent time in the 

         18  corporate world both at Converse Incorporated and Nike 

         19  Incorporated, and Muffet, you might disagree with me, 

         20  but I think I got the best job in women's basketball.  

         21  I'm the CEO of the Women's Basketball Coaches 

         22  Association.  I get to work on women's basketball 24 

         23  hours a day, 7 days a week, and I don't have to 

         24  recruit. 

         25             But honestly I chose this job because I 

                                                                 293

          1  wanted the opportunity to give back and create some 

          2  opportunities that I had for the up and comers in 

          3  women's athletics because I had such a wonderful 

          4  experience. 

          5             I hate that Secretary Bill Hansen could not 

          6  stay a little bit longer and hear this healthy debate, 

          7  but I think it shows his confidence and our collective 

          8  confidence in this commission.  And I want just to tell 

          9  you just a couple of thoughts. 

         10             I hope you have careful consideration before 

         11  you tamper with Title IX, especially its mechanics and 

         12  its implementation.  My former CEO, Phil Knight, who 

         13  you might know, he said, insanity is doing the same 

         14  thing over and over again, hoping for a different 

         15  result. 

         16             The insanity is not to beat up Title IX.  No 

         17  one has more empathy or can feel the empathy of 

         18  wrestlers, of male and female swimmers and track and 

         19  field athletes to hear that their lifetime ambitions.  

         20  Any of us that's ever had a goal or aspired to be an 

         21  athlete can have that empathy.  Don't beat up Title IX.  

         22  The insanity is on the campuses of the CEOs. 

         23             It starts with this commission to have an 

         24  insanity check of the overfunding and the mismanagement 

         25  at the top.  It's the campus Presidents, it's the 

                                                                 294

          1  athletic administrations, it's the conference 

          2  commissioners.  You need to have a collective 

          3  integrative approach. 

          4             Shame on us to sit in this room and not be 

          5  able to come up with creative solutions like maybe the 

          6  redistribution of scholarships.  We're smart people, I 

          7  believe in you all, I believe in this commission, and I 

          8  think you will come up with doing the right thing. 

          9             And I'll just leave you with this last 

         10  thought.  As I look forward to the day that in this 

         11  country we will not have to have a law to do what is 

         12  right, what is fair, and what is just. 

         13             Thank you. 

         14                  MS. CYNTHIA COOPER:  Thank you. 

         15                  MR. TED LELAND:  Well, I speak on 

         16  behalf of Cynthia and I and maybe the whole commission.  

         17  I really am impressed with the kind of input that we 

         18  got today.  As a matter of fact, it exceeded my 

         19  expectations in terms of the clarity and the passion 

         20  with which it was presented. 

         21             We'll adjourn again tomorrow morning.  And 

         22  anybody who would like to have time at the mike to give 

         23  us their best thoughts, there's plenty of time open 

         24  tomorrow.  Please sign up at the registration desk.

         25             Thank you.  We stand adjourned.

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          1             (Hearing adjourned, 5:05 p.m.)

          2  

          3  

          4  

          5  

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