There is now a Title IX commission evaluating the equal opportunities in sports - seems to be specifically at the college level. This article in USA Today talks about some of the challenges, and how, boo-hoo, some "minor" men's sports have been cancelled at some universities in order to fund some women's sporting programs. Gee, isn't that the whole point - to let the girls play a little bit?
Okay, I'm done with the feminist ranting on this. I actually understand that the universities have a tough job. There are some sports that are "income-producing" for the university - sports such as football and basketball, where a winning season just seems to mean more alumni donations. Can anyone say "fair weather friends"? But, it is reality. So faced with the choice of cutting X dollars of funding for football and cutting X dollars (meaning ALL dollars) from wrestling, most of the bigger schools would probably choose the latter. And I'm not sure I blame them.
I never realized that there are actually three points to the Title IX "guideline" for equitable funding of sports, and each university only needs to prove that they comply with one of them (which is pretty much what they expect me to say: "Defenders of Title IX say proportionality can't be a quota because there are two other ways to comply with the law. " Well, duh, what the hell's wrong with that?)
Anyway, the three points are these:
- Proportion of male to female athletes should equal the proportion of male to female students.
- School must show a "history and continuing practice" of adding women's sports. (Obviously this one will only work for so long, before you'd have to go into one of the other two points, or else become a school of only athletes.)
- (and this is the big one) Demonstrate that the athletic "interest and abilities" of the women are supported.
This is where I think that all schools have the best, fairest opportunity. I don't have a huge circle of acquaintances, so maybe I'm biased, but let me just say that I don't know a huge number of women who wanted to play sports in college. Blasphemy! And yet true. So I'm sure that most colleges go with the first option above, because it's easy - you can easily count those numbers. The other points are much harder to prove to the Title IX commission.
Here's another thought: another sexist-but-true opinion from my viewpoint is maybe that women just aren't as interested in competitve sports as men are. Maybe if colleges funded more yoga programs, or dance, or whatever, that would help resolve the issue. Non-competitive sports? Anathema! But maybe the word "athlete" means that specifically? No, the American Heritage Dictionary, via Dictionary.com says: "A person possessing the natural or acquired traits, such as strength, agility, and endurance, that are necessary for physical exercise or sports, especially those performed in competitive contexts." "Especially". Not "Exclusively".
So considering all that, my modest proposal is this: To prove point 3, all the university needs to do is show that they are "cutting" proportionally as many men from sports teams (due to lack of funding) as they are cutting women. For example. Say there are 100 men and 100 women in the college, and there's a men's football team (roster of 60 players) and a women's basketball team (roster of 20 players). By rule #1, they are not being equally supported. But, if you have 75 men try out for football, and 25 women try out for basketball, you have to cut 20% of the men to fill the football roster, and 20% of the women to fill the basketball roster. That to me seems "equal", according to the interests of each. (Though perhaps not to the abilities, but that's a story for another day.)
At least from the count of the number of athletes. You'd have to divvy up the funding based on the proportions: The football program is three times the size as the basketball program, so they get three times more funding. And then make sure you divvy up some other funding into other extra-curricular activities that women are interested in. So maybe that's another count in the criteria: the proportion of the number of students that are in any extra-curricular activity (sports or otherwise) should be equal between the men and the women.
Whew - that took a long time to express! Not that I mind the current state of affairs. Some day I'll tell you why I support affirmative action, at least for the time being. Has to do with harmonic, asymptotic functions....
10:02:13 PM 
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