Demand Sets Funding

The staff's notion that Brown and Harvard are somehow limiting access to women's athletics is ridiculous and insulting. The amount of people at any level of athletics is merely a function of demand; the opportunities exist for all women to participate, if they so choose.

Brown, probably more than any other Ivy, has strived to meet the requirements of Title IX, and in the process has had to cut funding to many areas of men's athletics, including abolishing wrestling and men's lightweight crew. Their experience has shown that Title IX cannot be met effectively by increasing women's athletics--the demand is not there. Rather, they have had to cut men's programs to try to meet the 50/50 requirements, and following this ruling, more cuts are forth coming. Title IX in spirit calls for increasing opportunity for female athletes, but Brown has shown that in practice it means constricting opportunities for male athletes.

The staff's solution to their supposed problem is even more ridiculous. Would athletic opportunites for women on campus actually increase through greater recruitment of female athletes? It is precisely athletic recruiting which closes the doors to collegiate athletics for the average Harvard student. The present female population of Harvard will hardly feel more equal through the addition of more female athletes.

The goals of Title IX are to increase opportunity for female athletes and provide funding comparable to that received by men's teams. These goals have largely been achieved, despite the failure to acheive the strict 50/50 ratio. The attempt to jerry-rig this nominal goal will only close the doors to male and female athletes in the long run.