Game, Set, Match

by Susan Ware

  In December 1978 HEW took yet another stab at explaining how the athletic policy would work, publishing draft guidelines and asking for comments by February 1979. These proposals raised a storm of controversy in much of the athletic community because they proposed to use an “equal per capita” expenditure benchmark to compare men’s and women's athletics, by far the most radical proposal yet to have come from Washington.72 By March HEW had received over 700 responses, nowhere near as many as the 10,000 it got when it was drafting the initial regulations in 1974–75 but still a sizeable number, all with their own opinions and arguments about why the proposals would or would not promote equal opportunity for women athletes or potentially bankrupt existing sports programs, or indeed whether athletics should be covered in the first place. With the potential for damaging riders to HEW appropriations bills working their way through Congress, Title IX’s fate once again hung in the balance. The Chronicle of Higher Education called it a “giant game of ‘chicken.’”73

  Like the major shift between the draft regulations circulated in 1974 and the final ones adopted in July 1975, HEW’S final Intercollegiate Athletics Policy Interpretation showed major differences from its earlier incarnation. The most obvious change was dropping any references to equal per capita expenditures, which had proven a problematic way to measure equality. Among other things, because per capita expenditures were tied to present levels of participation, they tended to perpetuate past discrimination rather than encourage new opportunity slots. Instead colleges were required to provide “proportionately equal” scholarships for men’s and women's athletic programs as well as offer “equivalent” benefits and opportunities in other aspects of sports.74

  In the long run the main significance of the December 1979 policy interpretation was the articulation of what came to be known as the “three-prong test.” Under this test, an institution was deemed in compliance with Title IX if it met any one of the three prongs. The first prong required that participation opportunities, especially scholarships, for male and female athletes be substantially proportionate to their general enrollment in the educational institution. For example, if male students made up 55 percent of students, then they should receive approximately 55 percent of the athletic opportunities, with the remaining 45 percent allotted to women. This emphasis on proportionality was a compromise, pushed by the NCAA and the Football Coaches Association. Two other options had been to require that athletic opportunities be split evenly at fifty-fifty or that athletic expenditures be equal for the men’s and women's programs. At the time male undergraduates earned significantly more bachelors’ degrees than women (56 percent to 44 percent in 1972), so athletic directors probably breathed a sigh of relief when the proportionality option was chosen, because that goal seemed much easier to reach than fifty-fifty parity. In the long term, however, this compromise backfired when women became a majority of college undergraduates in the 1990s.75

  The two other routes to compliance concerned the key issue of “interest” on the part of the underrepresented sex, in this case, women. Many athletic administrators as well as leaders of the NCAA argued that the disparities between men’s and women's programs were not necessarily the result of discrimination but caused by longstanding societal factors that meant women were less interested in participating in organized sports than men. women's sports leaders such as Donna Lopiano dismissed this reasoning out of hand: “There’s never been a question of enough interest. If you build it, they will come.”76 Reflecting the latter point of view, the second prong required that a school show that it had a history and continuing practice of program expansion to meet the interests and needs of women; the third prong required demonstration that the school’s programs “fully and effectively accommodated” the interests and abilities of the underrepresented sex. With small changes and tweaking over the years, these same standards are still the main guiding principles for all Title IX litigation and compliance reviews today.77

  At the same time the 1979 policy interpretation for athletics was being formalized, another battle was coming to a head: one between the National Collegiate Athletic Association and the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women over formal control of women's athletics. In fact the two stories were intimately connected. The promulgation of the policy interpretation confirmed that, like it or not, athletics were going to be part of Title IX enforcement. Its political and legal options exhausted, the NCAA stepped up its efforts to maintain control over intercollegiate sports in general by unilaterally announcing in 1980 that it planned to offer national championships in most women's sports starting with the 1981–82 season. Like many other aspects of the battle over Title IX, this power play was about money and control. As AIAW lawyer Margot Polivy noted, “When the budget for women was ten thousand dollars, no one cared how it was spent. When we added two zeroes, it became a power issue.”78

  The NCAA had been eyeing women's sports throughout the 1970s but nothing concrete had come of it. At various points the AIAW and the NCAA discussed a possible merger, but nothing came of those talks either, in part because of the vastly different resources and goals of the two groups and also because of ongoing ill will from the NCAA’S anti-Title IX lobbying. The AIAW was only interested in a merger between equals, with an equal split in decision making and continued oversight over the field of women's athletics. Such guarantees were not forthcoming. For the NCAA, merger would really be a submerger: taking over and folding the AIAW’S programs into theirs. Think of it as a hostile takeover, and not just by any athletic organization but by one of the most vocal and persistent leaders in the fight to weaken Title IX. Representative Pat Schroeder described the NCAA’S strategy in this way to delegates at the 1980 AIAW convention: “First they tried to eat the sheep. Now they’ve seen the light and want to herd them.”79

  Actually the moment when the battle was lost may have occurred several years before the NCAA made its fateful announcement that it was moving into the field of women's athletics. The tipping point was the result of one of Title IX’s unintended consequences: the merging of previously separate men’s and women's athletic departments. Note that there is nothing in the law or the regulations that mandates this outcome, but it was often the first step taken by schools as part of their Title IX compliance. By 1979–80, 80.5 percent of all women's programs were run as part of a single administrative structure that included both men’s and women's programs, invariably under the control of a male athletic director. The newly designated position of “Senior Woman Administrator” became a glass ceiling above which few women could rise. Without their former power base, and lacking control over the daily content and rhythms of women's sports, women athletic leaders were already deeply disadvantaged when the NCAA made its move. In many ways the NCAA’S subjugation of the AIAW just replicated on a national scale the pattern that had already taken place at hundreds, probably thousands of athletic departments across the country as the larger, more powerful male divisions absorbed—and co-opted—the smaller, formerly autonomous female departments.80

  By the time the NCAA made its move in 1980–81, the chance for an independently run women's athletic structure had passed. Separate teams for girls and women prevailed, but not separate administration and governance. As the women's Sports Foundation noted, “The tragedy is that it is altogether possible for women to win the battle for equal opportunity and lose the war by turning over the control of women's sports to others.” The Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women closed its doors on June 30, 1982. Once again the male model triumphed, although in this case it wasn't without a fight.81

  THE FIRST DECADE OF Title IX’s existence represented a time of momentous change for women and sport. Seemingly overnight, American sportswomen found participation opportunities that would have been unthinkable just five or ten years earlier. Even if the law was not being actively enforced for most of the 1970s, it was a powerful tool in the struggle for gender equity in sports because it allowed advocates to put p
ressure on schools and budgets knowing that a federal law was behind them. As Bernice Sandler observed in 1981, the very existence of Title IX “is a good example of how having a law in place leads to a voluntary change. The vast majority of institutions have not made all the changes we would like, but they have made some changes.”82

  To ascribe all the breakthroughs and progress to Title IX, however, is both inaccurate and simplistic. Some of the biggest jumps in participation and funding happened before Title IX was passed or before its impact on athletics was widely known, which was not until late 1973 and early 1974. In addition, some changes, at least limited ones, were going to happen anyway precisely because the inequalities in sports were so extreme that they could not be ignored. Even the most diehard traditionalists would be hard pressed to argue that it was fair that women and girls received only 1 percent of sports budgets. As sports historian Kathryn Jay observed, “Sports had become too important to American society to exclude half the population.”83

  Since so much progress occurred without active prosecution of the law, some critics have concluded that Title IX wasn't all that important, that many of these changes would have happened on their own.84 And yet given the intransigence of many athletic directors, school administrations, and NCAA officials, it is hard to imagine that as much progress would have voluntarily occurred in this initial period without Title IX. In addition to suggesting that some change was inevitable, the threat of losing federal funds was also a powerful incentive for action. Even though in hindsight we know that the federal government never seriously considered resorting to this drastic option, institutions did not know this at the time. In Donna Lopiano’s memorable image, “It was more like a guillotine in a courtyard. People were afraid of it. For a while, people did things because they felt they had to.” These were optimal conditions for change and progress in women's sports.85

  Just as significant was the influence of a strong and vibrant feminist movement that put issues of gender equity squarely on the national agenda. In the climate of expectations fostered by the revival of feminism, especially in the first half of the 1970s when so much progress for women occurred, the momentum was on the side of those who were calling for change in the gender status quo. Even though second-wave feminism never made sports a high priority, this supportive backdrop aided advocates who were pressing for changes in sports and recreation programs across the country. To use a metaphor from cycling: sports drafted in feminism’s forward momentum. Absent the symbiotic connection between the women's sports revolution and the explosion of modern feminism in the 1970s, it is quite likely that the story of Title IX would have been far less dramatic.

  The remarkable progress achieved in this initial take-off period shows how much could happen when a new federal law intersected with increasing demands for change in a supportive political climate alongside a certain reservoir of good will to make amends for past discrimination and neglect. Put another way, the existing sports structure had enough wiggle room in the 1970s to accommodate women—up to a point. Then the progress stalled. It took less than a decade to get girls’ high school participation rate from 7 to 32 percent of the total; thirty-five years later, according to the women's Sports Foundation, female athletes on the high school level had only made it to 41.2 percent. Law professor Diane Heckman coined the term “glass sneaker” to refer to this plateau.86

  While it may not be possible to prove empirically, there seems to have been enough flexibility in the system to meet many of the initial demands for more opportunities for women's sports without seriously impacting the status quo. Many of these changes were more cosmetic than substantive. Add teams, but don't pay the coaches; give girls uniforms, but not for home and away games, and don't replace them every year; upgrade girls’ intramural teams to varsity status but still expect them to raise travel funds through bake sales; schedule girls’ games for 3 p.m. on Thursday rather than prime-time Friday night. The looming deadline for Title IX compliance added a sense of urgency to implementing these changes. By 1978—the year Title IX went into effect—most of the easy fixes had been applied. After that point the numbers, both participation opportunities and budgets, continued to inch up, but by gradual increments, not huge spurts of growth. Mar-got Polivy put it this way in 1981: “We’re not going back to being barefoot in the kitchen, but we’re not going to see the growth continuing, either.”87

  Numbers from both the high school and college level confirm the existence of Title IX’s glass sneaker. After great leaps forward early in the decade, there were already noticeable signs of a slowdown by 1978–79 after Title IX finally went into effect. For example, high school participation figures show that the sharp upward climb peaked in the following sports in 1977–78: basketball, field hockey, gymnastics, swimming and diving,88 tennis, indoor and outdoor track and field, and volleyball. In sports such as basketball, field hockey, gymnastics, and outdoor track and field, the number of girls playing in that year was an absolute all-time high; in others, the peak numbers from the late 1970s were only matched much later in the 1980s or 1990s. (See figure 1.) A similar pattern is seen in women's intercollegiate sports. (See figure 2.) Obviously outside factors affect the popularity of individual sports (the steady rise of soccer confirms this) but the overall trend is incontrovertible.89

  Once again, much of this is about money. School administrators and athletic directors were not necessarily opposed to women's sports as long as they could add resources and participation opportunities for women without having to cut into preexisting programs for men. Those two goals coexisted fairly well for most of the 1970s, as budgets for both men’s and women's sports increased. According to a study by the AIAW, the average men’s athletic budget in a NCAA Division I institution rose from $1.2 million in 1973–74 to $1.6 million in 1978–79, an increase of $424,000. Meanwhile the average total women's budget in the same schools for 1978–79 was $276,000. In other words, the increases alone in men’s budgets were more than 50 percent greater than the new resources given to women.90

  With Title IX regulations finally in effect in 1978, most institutions needed to make some harder choices. And who was in charge of making these decisions? Male administrators and athletic directors with a vested interested in the athletic status quo—“In short, the persons who have been most guilty of sex bias are the ones who are first in line to direct its elimination,” according to an update by Candace Lyle Hogan in womenSports. Around this time the precipitous decline in women in athletic leadership positions that was a byproduct of Title IX kicked in, robbing women physical education leaders of an independent power base to serve as advocates for gender equity. This, combined with the escalating battle between the NCAA and the AIAW, muted the voices calling for continued program expansion for women and girls.91

  FIGURE 1. Women's sports participation, high school, 1969–1982.

  Source: National Federation of State High School Associations Participation Figures, .

  FIGURE 2. Women's sports participation, collegiate, 1966–1982.

  Source: National Collegiate Athletic Association, The Sports and Recreation Programs of the Nation’s Universities and Colleges, Report #7 (1987), 24–25.

  Despite what seemed like revolutionary breakthroughs in the 1970s, in retrospect it is clear that this progress did not go anywhere near far enough. As Bernice Sandler pointed out ruefully, when budgets for women's sports go from zero to 20 percent it only means “things have gone from absolutely horrendous to only very bad.” What was it going to take to break through the glass sneaker and get the percentage closer to fifty-fifty parity? Never again would the numbers for women surge the way they did in the 1970s; never again would the battle be fought in such a supportive political and social climate. From now on, it would be a long, slow, contested slog toward the still-elusive goal of gender equity in sports. Without Title IX, that struggle would have been much longer and even harder.92

  Chapter Three Billie Jean King, Inc.

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p; WOMENSPORTS, THE WOMEN’S SPORTS FOUNDATION, AND WORLD TEAM TENNIS

  Billie Jean King was already approaching thirty when she beat Bobby Riggs in the Battle of the Sexes in 1973, and she must have known that her playing days would soon be drawing to a close. Her first retirement—after winning Wimbledon in 1975—didn't stick, but she was already devoting increasing time to a variety of business and charitable undertakings while cutting back on her tennis schedule. “I still feel that playing my best on a given day, I can win every match—provided I can concentrate totally on my tennis,” she said in early 1976. “As my life now stands, I will devote four months a year totally to tennis with the New York Sets in World Team Tennis competition. The balance of the year will be filled with business commitments, womenSports, television commentary with ABC and time off.” Reflecting on her options, she said, “It’s really great that the sport has produced enough to allow me … this choice. I wish this was true for everyone.”1

  Billie Jean King was always clear on the importance of women being able to make a living as athletes: after all, this was the whole thrust behind the establishment of the women's professional tennis tour in the early 1970s. King fervently believed that women's professional opportunities should not be limited to tennis: “Little boys have so many opportunities. They can picture themselves being a baseball player, basketball player, hockey—wherever professional opportunities are open to boys, that’s what they can dream about in a realistic way.” Her childhood memories were far less expansive: “When I was a little kid, I had to follow Mickey Mantle’s batting average. I never had any woman to emulate in politics or anything.” She wanted little girls to dare to dream on equal-opportunity terms and proudly offered her career as a model and inspiration.2