Be forewarned: This story has no ending. It has controversy and passion and side-winding plot twists. But no ending. It has lawsuits and countersuits and rooms of suits. It has inflated numbers and deflated spirits. It has feuding sides — not just two sides or three, but many. So many, in fact, that one would swear the sides could connect somewhere into a tidy compromise. So far, though, no such luck. Because after all, this story has no ending.

Since its inception in 1972, Title IX has provoked unrelenting debate about how gender should be governed in education, and now, even in the most civilized forums, the debate shows no signs of cooling. Recently, the noisy pugilism surrounding Title IX — the federal law that prohibits sex discrimination in all education programs but applies most often to sports — surged to a crescendo as a 15-person committee appointed by the Bush administration convened in Washington, D.C., 12 days ago to discuss possible reforms.

The Commission on Athletic Opportunity considered about 24 recommendations before forwarding a final report to Secretary of Education Rod Paige. Although panelists voted against the most sweeping changes (a complete overhaul of Title IX), even some Title IX tinkering reminded every interest group about the zero-sum game of male and female athletics. Seemingly, progress for one gender means regression for the other, and even the most optimistic can’t promise a way to strengthen one side without weakening the other.

‘We’re dealing with something where there’s a strong intensity of feeling on all sides,’ Syracuse Chancellor Kenneth A. Shaw said. ‘Apparently, there’s not much of a willingness to come together and make concessions.’

Over the last decade, Syracuse played host to a microcosm of the problems — and benefits — that schools trying to meet the proportionality requirements often encounter. Title IX lists three measures for compliance, but the most important is proportionality, which requires schools’ male-female ratio in athletics to be roughly equivalent to the male-female ratio in enrollment. Syracuse Director of Athletics Jake Crouthamel calls proportionality ‘a monster,’ and to satisfy it, Crouthamel’s athletic department added three women’s teams in the last seven years. Handcuffed by newfound expenses from women’s soccer, women’s lacrosse and softball, Syracuse also cut two men’s teams: gymnastics and wrestling.

Similar nationwide eliminations prompted the National Wrestling Coaches Association (NWCA) to file a lawsuit calling for removal of the proportionality requirement and asserting that, 31 years later, Title IX now hurts men more than it helps women.

The legal action revitalized every classic Title IX debate from every perspective: females who gained their chance, females who never had a chance, males who’ve always had their chance, and now, some males who’ve lost their chance. Together, the voices create a cacophonous chorus.

‘It’s interesting, because the extremes on all sides are shouting the loudest, so public perception is skewed,’ said Muffet McGraw, Notre Dame’s women’s basketball coach and a member of the 15-person commission. ‘Nobody’s hearing the middle ground, and sometimes, you might not even think a middle ground exists.’

Searching for a middle ground creates an unusual predicament, because sports naturally create resolution. The Title IX issue is contested among people who can normally let rules and time settle conflict, whether it takes a 10-run rule or double overtime. But how can you make rules when there’s no definitive right and wrong? And how many overtimes could you fit into three decades?

During that span, women made remarkable and undeniable progress. Female participation in collegiate athletics increased fivefold. Previous stigmas about women and sports faded. A trickle-down effect ratcheted the number of high school girls who play sports from 294,000 in 1971 to 2.8 million in 2002.

‘There’s a generation of girls who’ve been playing since the age of 4 or 5, and now, some of them are hitting the college level,’ SU women’s lacrosse coach Lisa Miller said. ‘It’s just so different now. My mom was a great athlete, and she had to be a cheerleader.’

These days, though, there’s a victim for every beneficiary. In 1979, 107 schools competed in men’s gymnastics. Now, there are fewer than 20. Wrestling is the other men’s sport commonly cut, and it’s lost 440 collegiate programs since Title IX’s implementation.

‘Right now, we’re seeing a wholesale elimination of men’s programs,’ said Mike Moyer, executive director of the NWCA, which filed the recent lawsuit. ‘We’re going to wake up pretty soon and say, ‘Where did all the men’s programs go?’ But you know what? Once they’re gone, they’re not coming back.’

At Syracuse, the numbers speak for relative equality. According to the NCAA Gender Equity Survey, 304 men and 267 women participated in SU varsity sports last year. That’s a 53-47 ratio, which compares favorably to the 58-42 average at Division I schools.

Some say it’s good enough. Some say it’s not good enough. Some say it’s too good. The argument leads to a circus of number-crunching and spin-doctoring and fine-printing that rings hopelessly around any common ground. Those who sympathize with eliminated men’s sports label Title IX as a quota that shakes the balance of male participation.

‘The terrible word they use now is quotas,’ Crouthamel said. ‘But this is a quota, and you can’t get around it.’

Those on the other side point to the fact that men still receive 68 percent of all recruiting expenses nationally and at Syracuse, men receive 71 percent.

‘I like Title IX as it is currently stated, but the thing is, it’s not being enforced.” said McGraw. “If the law is enforced strictly, then it will get to the point that women are in proportionality with men.’

Somewhere between the statistics and charts, Scott Hrnack and Jennifer Boucher embody the two farthest-reaching interests. Hrnack was an accomplished gymnast at Syracuse when, in 1998, his junior year, he lost his team and his Olympic dream. Today, Hrnack attends medical school in Houston, but he’s still bitter. As a senior relegated to the club team, he entered Crouthamel’s office and promised to ‘never give a cent’ to the athletic department for the rest of his life. Hrnack still can’t understand how a program that cost just $26,000 a year could be axed.

‘And we could have cut costs even more if it meant survival,’ Hrnack said. ‘They put us up in five-star hotels when we’d go on the road, but I would have stayed in HoJos if I had to.’

Before Hrnack cried foul about cuts, Boucher wanted one simple addition. In 1995, when she captained SU’s women’s lacrosse team, Boucher and seven other players filed a class-action suit alleging that Crouthamel and Shaw discriminated against them by denying their petition for varsity status. Blueprints for women’s soccer and women’s lacrosse were already in place, but for Boucher, then a junior, those changes would come too late.

At the time, females comprised 32 percent of SU’s athletes. Boucher would later drop her suit but not before that slanted ratio received its share of press.

Attempts to reach Boucher were unsuccessful.

‘There’s no doubt in my mind that if it weren’t for Title IX, young ladies would not have these opportunities,’ Shaw said. ‘Not that people were ever opposed to it, but it wouldn’t have been a high-enough priority.’

Twelve days ago, Title IX drew more attention when the 15-member commission, amid debate, selected several subtle recommendations while discarding a raft of possibly transforming measures. Yet even those seemingly innocuous actions inspired complaints from all sides.

Men’s supporters showed disappointment, because the commission decided to keep proportionality as a key requirement. Women’s-sports advocates lamented that any possible changes could only lessen female athletes’ opportunities.

‘Some of the women’s groups want to be very sure that nobody touches Title IX,’ said Rita Simon, a member of the commission and a professor at American University. ‘They feel, with the way enrollment is swayed to females right now, any changes with the proportionality rule would only weaken it.’

Some feminists complained because, under one proposed change, proportionality would be established by counting the number of roster spots available rather than the number of players actually on the team — and men, primarily through walk-ons, fill more rosters slots than females. Men complained because they saw no way the recommendations could restore disbanded teams.

‘Title IX was supposed to get women involved in sports, right?’ Hrnack said. ‘And it’s done that — it’s just been amazing how participation has jumped. But what are they looking for now? Now, Title IX advocates are crushing men’s sports. It’s like: Boom, screw you! Boom, screw you! Right and left, men’s sports are being eliminated, and nobody has the balls to stand up for it.”

The next potential wave of Title IX controversy will come later this month, when Paige, the secretary of education, examines the recommendations before finalizing any changes. Paige faces a tough task. He must quell the concerns of special-interest groups, each gripping a carefully harvested set of statistics to prove its case. (According to the NWCA, there are now 600 more women’s teams than men’s in the NCAA. But according to the National Women’s Law Center, the average Division I school still has 70 more male athletes than female athletes. Somehow, both brain-bending facts are true.)

To end the rankling, Paige must satisfy the Feminist Majority Foundation and its director, Katherine Minarik, who said ‘Title IX is a phenomenal piece of legislation, and changing a perfect law isn’t a good idea.’ Paige must satisfy the College Sports Council, which defends men’s opportunities from its Web site: www.savingsports.org.

Paige must appease female coaches and athletes who’ve seen first-hand benefits of the law. He must soothe male coaches and athletes who’ve lost teams and, sometimes, jobs.

‘Realistically,’ said Scott Miller, who coached the SU wrestling team until its final season in 2001, ‘when we dropped the wrestling program at Syracuse, the only thing they did was eliminate 30 opportunities. When you’ve just added three women’s teams and you’re still not in compliance, I think there’s something wrong with that.’

Or maybe Paige will simply realize what many around him are already saying: that Title IX is incorrigible, that not even the farthest-reaching stitches could tie together the sides, that sadly, after all this plotting, there’s still no end in sight.

Add more women’s sports? ‘At some point, you can’t add any more women’s sports,’ Crouthamel said. ‘There is a finiteness to women’s sports. For instance, I don’t think it would do Syracuse any good at all to add a six-person Jai Alai team.’

Force men to concede a portion of recruiting expenses and scholarships? ‘Anytime someone has a big piece of the pie,’ said Miller, SU’s women’s lacrosse coach, ‘it’s human nature to resist giving it up.’

Just get rid of Title IX and let athletic departments employ some modern-day natural selection? ‘No,” said McGraw, Notre Dame’s basketball coach, ‘we’ve come a long way, too far to go backward. Before, we were second-class citizens.’

On and on, the debate rages from all sides and angles. Activists hold press conferences, wronged athletes sit before television cameras, members of the 15-person committee — like Stanford Athletics Director Ted Leland and current US women’s soccer player Julie Foudy — flare their tempers at one another while debating proposals. The search for an ending carries on with little success.

‘There is no easy right answer,’ Shaw said. ‘I don’t sense that we’re getting any closer to finding a solution that satisfies people.’

Or maybe, the solution will only come once people realize that, under no circumstances, can every person be satisfied. Paige will probably make some minor alterations to Title IX, but both Shaw and Crouthamel said the changes likely won’t affect Syracuse.

So Title IX, the law that calls for equality, will continue as is and accomplish its mission with a measure of perverse beauty. It will draw ire, cause controversy and stir debate. And, fittingly, for the foreseeable future, all sides involved will be equally upset.

Published on February 9, 2003 at 12:00 pm