Without it, 2,175,000 young women would not be able to participate in varsity sports. With it, less popular men’s intercollegiate sports are getting cut all over the United States. The controversy over Title IX still rages today, 31 years after it was passed by congress.

In 1971, a Connecticut judge ruled that girls were not allowed to run on the boys’ cross country team, despite not having their own team. “Athletic competition builds character in our boys,” the judge ruled. “We do not need that kind of character in our girls.”

That same year, only 32,000 women participated in college athletics in the entire United States, while 172,500 men were involved. It was obvious that something had to be done to correct the imbalance. After several proposed education bills regarding gender equity and months of deliberation by a House-Senate Conference Committee, Title IX was finally put into effect in June, 1972. It said that women and men had to have equal opportunities in sports and in the classroom.

While Title IX strives for gender equity, it’s far from perfect. One of the provisions states that there must be equal funding for both sexes. Because of this, the less popular men’s sports are being cut to make up for the budget differences. In fact, only two four-year colleges in Washington still have wrestling programs. The University of Miami is planning to cut its swimming and diving team next year, although it has produced 26 Olympians.

At the University of Washington, both the wrestling and men’s gymnastics programs were cut soon after Title IX was put in place. Wrestling immediately died out, but gymnastics has stayed a team, despite not getting any funding from the school. The gymnasts have to raise all the money they need for the year’s expenses on their own.

“It’s a source of pride to think that previous gymnasts and our coaches had love enough for the sport to keep it going,” UW gymnast Scott Province said. “We try to carry it on to this day; we have to work an extra 200 hours a season to keep it going.”

Title IX has been a helpful piece of legislation despite the controversy. There has been a 300 percent increase in high school girls’ basketball participation since Title IX was passed. The popularity of professional women’s sports has also increased. When the US women’s soccer team won the Olympic gold medal in 1996, they attracted a crowd of 76,481 fans.

President Bush, under pressure from wrestling coaches nationwide, recently promised to review Title IX and take a “reasonable approach” in enforcing it. The current interpretation came out of the Clinton Administration which, in 1996, published a clarification of Title IX and began to enforce it. The Title IX issue could have a huge impact in the upcoming election, in which Bush needs to work for women’s votes. Although it will bring about a certain amount of protest from special interest groups, Title IX needs to be reevaluated.

We still need Title IX. There is still a gap in gender equity in sports. Despite making up more than half the students in Division-1 colleges and universities, women still only get 43 percent of athletic scholarship dollars and 36 percent of operating budgets. The gap exists partly because there simply seems to be more interest in men’s sports: 77,000 more men play on the college level than women. The high cost of maintaining sports like football also drain both scholarships and athletic budgets.

Title IX has been more successful in regards to gender equity in education. In addition to providing many scholarships to female students who would not have been able to attend school otherwise, the gates have been opened to women in search of higher education. Before Title IX, schools had no problems refusing admittance to women and had no legal restrictions to prevent that. Now women make up the majority of college students and of students earning masters degrees.

Title IX has helped to equal out the gender bias problems we have had as a country, but it continues to have its problems. In the words of Garfield teacher and women’s rights advocate Dan Cerquitella, “Gender equity is tough because men and women are different. You can only go so far to perfect basic inequalities.”