Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 shines as the great equalizer between men, women and the opportunities they receive.

For 35 years, Title IX has helped college athletes receive the same benefits regardless if the athlete is a man or a woman. It has discouraged discrimination based on sex and punished those institutions that ignored its message.

Title IX strives to equalize all opportunities – not just athletic ones – but reached its greatest fame in sports. For one piece of government code, it has achieved great things.

But the jig is up. The sheen is gone. Title IX has run its course. It’s time to say goodbye.

Title IX should be thrown away simply because it does not fulfill its purpose anymore. The text of the law prohibits discrimination based on sex, and a whole new round of discrimination is here. This time men are the victims.

College athletic departments across the country have cut numerous sports from its slate. The blame mostly lands on monetary issues, but the end result always is the same. The men lose.

This isn’t to suggest today’s male athletes suffer as much as women did before Title IX, or even in the code’s early days. Syracuse women’s lacrosse coach Lisa Miller, an athlete at the College of William & Mary in the mid-1980s, said she had to buy her own equipment while men’s teams received their gear. Men were given preference in the weight room. Often one person would coach three women’s sports.

No one – man or woman – will deal with conditions like that again because of Title IX.

But be on notice. American universities are beginning to move backwards after several decades of process.

Rutgers University announced in July 2006 it would cut six athletic programs from its Division I offerings. RU’s Board of Governors eliminated five men’s sports (swimming and diving, lightweight crew, heavyweight crew, tennis and fencing) and just one women’s team (fencing).

Nine athletes compete for the Rutgers women’s fencing team. Overall, 87 men will lose the privilege to compete as a Scarlet Knight.

The State University of New Jersey isn’t alone, though. Ohio University offers women’s track and field and swimming and diving, but as of fall 2007 any runner, thrower, jumper, swimmer or diver that happens to be a man can not compete in Division I athletics at Ohio. OU also eliminated women’s lacrosse in the cost-cutting move, but the removal of the three men’s sports was motivated by fear of violating Title IX. The Ohio University athletic department counts outdoor and indoor track as separate sports.

It’s bad enough the 26 women on the Ohio lacrosse team will play their last season this spring. Add the 88 men that will cease to be athletes in the eyes of OU once the spring season concludes and there’s a problem.

Part of the problem is the huge sums of money athletic departments pour into their football program. As Rutgers announced the elimination of six sports, it continued to give generously to the football program. The total budget for Rutgers athletics in 2005-06 was $41 million, according to the U.S. Department of Education’s Equity in Athletics program. The Web site reported RU football received $13 million, or almost 32 percent, of the budget.

At SU, almost 52 percent of athletic expenses were from football and men’s basketball while the two programs earned $33.3 million, or 69.4 percent of the athletic department’s reported revenues.

As long as football and men’s basketball earn the majority of the athletic department’s money, the sports and their high-money demands are not going anywhere.

This presents athletic directors with the difficult task of balancing sports’ business side with the traditional function of an athletic department – providing a diverse range of extra-curricular sports programs.

This does not happen anymore thanks to the football-basketball juggernaut and Title IX. Universities are lumping together the majority of athletic opportunities for men into two sports while offering women a wider array of choices. In the process of adhering to Title IX, athletic departments violate the very essence of the law.

A woman at SU could try out for the football team if she so chooses, and women in other places have challenged that barrier. Women have played Division I football at places such as New Mexico, Louisville and Duke.

Despite the stride toward equality in that aspect, there’s still a way to go. Sure, a woman could play football at SU, but a man could not compete in Division I volleyball, tennis or field hockey – all sports members of both sexes participate in worldwide.

‘There’s certainly more benefit to have your school prominent in the more visible sports, like football and basketball,’ Rutgers swimming and diving coach Chuck Warner said. ‘But it seems like schools are zeroing in on those sports and ignoring those sports that were seen as fundamental to having a well-rounded college.’

Warner doesn’t think Title IX was behind the decision to eliminate the Rutgers men’s swimming program. Still, with Title IX in place, Rutgers officials had little choice on what programs to cut.

‘Title IX does mandate equity between men’s and women’s sports,’ Warner said. ‘If you’re going to have a football program, you need to have supplemental programs. They’re not going to be cutting women’s programs very often.’

And the men’s programs take the fall instead. That’s not equality.

Title IX has reached its point of diminishing returns. The law served the United States well, but now it’s causing more harm than good.

It’s time to retire Title IX.

Rob Anthes is an assistant sports editor emeritus at The Daily Orange, where his columns appear on Wednesdays. E-mail him at rmanthes@syr.edu.

Published on February 6, 2007 at 12:00 pm