"Title IX of the United States Education Amendments of 1972 stipulates that 'no person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance'" (Barra). "Early in the history of Title IX, the United States Supreme Court held that Title IX coverage applied only to specific programs receiving federal financial assistance ... The Title IX regulations contain specific provisions relevant to athletics" (Francis). "The document that changed sports in America didn't mention the word 'sports'" (Barra). Title IX directly states that equality is a huge issue that needs to be resolved and fixed. The sole purpose of Title IX was to help women become just as successful in athletics and education. Women are not the problem, the problem is the amount of opportunities that Title IX gives to women, but not to men, which denotes the sole purpose of the agreement, equality amongst all genders and no sexual discrimination. That being said, Title IX has affected many male athletes from entering college athletics due to unavailability in money and a spot on the team roster. This all boils down to Title IX because it provided many opportunities for women, but it has significantly dropped the amount of opportunities for men. 

Before men's athletics were disrupted at multiple universities across the United States, the basis of Title IX needs to be addressed first. Deondra provides statistical evidence of the increase in opportunities for men and how outnumbered men are now at colleges: "In the United States through the 1970s, women have outnumbered men as the recipients of bachelor's degrees since 1981; and during the 2012-13 academic year, women comprised an impressive 57% of the nation's college students." Title IX is largely recognized for expanding athletic opportunities for women (Deondra). Title IX his revolutionized the life of many women that had certain dreams they wanted to accomplish come true.

Dara Torres is an Olympic swimmer that came out to be one of the best of all time because of Title IX. Also, the benefits Title IX supplied for her made her the best possible athlete/person she could possibly be. Torres ... was ranked first in the world in the 200-meter butterfly by the age of 14 (Hogshead-Maker). Shortly after this achievement, vast numbers of college swimming teams swept the country, and they offered scholarships (Hogshead-Maker). Swimming beyond high school became inevitable for women (Hogshead-Maker). "She accepted a scholarship to Duke University in 1980" (Hogshead-Maker). She says that without Title IX, I would not have been able to win three gold medals and one silver medal at the 1984 Olympics at the age of 22 (Hogshead-Maker). Despite all of the success she had with Title IX being available to her, she is quite disturbed how poorly Title IX and equality principles are communicated to students ...  (Hogshead-Maker). That being said, Title IX provided many openings for women to chase their dreams, but this conflicts with the amount of opportunities there are available at colleges/universities for men.

Allison Kasic in her article "Title IX's Assault on Swimming," provides sufficient evidence that the growth of women's sports are exponentially growing. Women's swimming has been thriving and growing in participation (Kasic). The number of women that competed at the Division I level from 1981 to 2004 saw an increase of 61.25%, from approximately 3,000 to 5,000 women (Kasic). The increase is no doubt a positive development for women. "Unfortunately, men's swimming is a different story" (Kasic). Only 3,568 men competed at the Division I level in 2004, down from 1984 with a high of 4,372. This is a decrease of 18.39% and dropping slowly (Kasic). It is not just men who do not have the opportunity to compete and suffer from sadness when their program gets cut, but women swimmers lose their teammates, their training partners, and their biggest supporters (Kasic). The reason why so many men's swimming teams have been cut are primarily because of Title IX (Kasic). "Title IX supporters will say that the statute makes no requirements for gender quotas" (Kasic). The troubles of Title IX lie on how bureaucrats and the court system interpreted the law (Kasic). They concluded on achieving "proportionality" (Kasic). "For example, if 57% of the student body at a university is female, 57% of the athletes must also be female" (Kasic). So as previously stated, there is an exponential increase in women's enrollment in college athletics. With this increase, "schools often struggle to meet proportionality's demands" (Kasic). In order to accommodate with this struggle of proportionality demand, "schools can add women's programs or cut men's programs" (Kasic). "Men's swimming has been one of the hardest hit ... " (Kasic). There have been many upset male athletes that did not get the opportunity to swim for the university they dreamed of representing for the sport they love doing.

Title IX has created many obstacles for men to participate in sports in college such as: scholarship money; availability on team roster. Bill Kelley is one of these unfortunate men. Kelley had a dream of swimming for the University of Illinois (Beveridge). "His whole life had revolved around swimming and now he had the chance to compete in the Big Ten athletic conference as a member of the university's men's swimming team" (Beveridge). But Kelley's dream ended unexpectedly when the university cut the men's swimming program (Beveridge). "'We were recruited and told that we could swim for four years. The university now has made that impossible ... It's going to be disappointing ... '" Kelley's dreams were crushed due to Title IX. As previously stated, the reason this happened to Kelley, and the other male athletes that committed to swim for the University Illinois, was a struggle in proportionality demand the university needs to sustain. With no moral action, the university decided to cut the men's swimming program which leads to more openings for female athletes.

Men's sports are being deducted quite frequently to accommodate for the proportionality demand. That being said, "we should explore more seriously the value of opening up opportunities to male athletes in traditionally female sports, especially if it can be done without exacerbating a pronounced gender imbalance in overall opportunities" (Brake). Unfortunately, this not being practiced because Title IX has made this impossible. As Brake says, "we can perhaps accommodate legitimate and important concerns about preserving athletic opportunities ... for girls by measures short of simply banning boys." This alternative is immoral because it seems it is an automatic response to immediately ban men's sports. The reason behind this dissolute act is to accommodate for the proportionality demand which provides more opportunities for women. Brake provides a statistic in her article that gives sufficient evidence to understand the growth of women's intercollegiate sports: "Today, more than 200,000 women compete in intercollegiate sports." Title IX seems to be a catalyst for the growth in girls' and women's sports and the decrease in men's sports. 

Access to athletics and scholarships have become widely known and easily accessible to women due to Title IX. According to NOW, National Organization for Women, before Title IX, one in twenty-seven girls played varsity sports (Chadband). "By 2001, one in every 2.5 girls played, meaning a total of 2.8 million girls played varsity sports" (Chadband). In terms of scholarship, before Title IX, athletic scholarships were virtually nonexistent because so few women were involved with sports due to male dominance at the time (Chadband). "According to NOW, in 2003, there was more $1 million in scholarships for women at Division I schools" (Chadband). This has increased exponentially because many full ride scholarships are given out to women for sports to confirm a spot on the team with no tension. This is the antithesis of men because very few full ride scholarships are given out to them. The reason is a mystery, mostly likely due to the proportionality demand that needs to be met by universities.

"The purpose of Title IX was to equalize opportunities between the sexes for participation in collegiate athletics ... " (McBride, Worcester, and Tennyson). It is amazing how equality is still a major issue in the 21st century. Equality is not being practiced in athletics at universities due to Title IX and their laziness. The perverse effect of Title IX is destroying opportunities for men (McBride, Worcester, and Tennyson). Sabo explains in his research through raw data and statistics how equality is still an issue in collegiate athletics. "Sabo's tabularized results ... indicate that, for the 19 years represented ... , women's programs increased across all NCAA divisions combined, by 1,658. Men's programs increased by 74" (McBride, Worcester, and Tennyson). Thus, women's programs are growing at a faster rate of approximately 87 per year; men's grow at a rate of less than four per year -- or about one per division per year (McBride, Worcester, and Tennyson). Assuming that men's program growth is not statistically equivalent to zero, female sports programs grew more than 22 times faster than did men's (McBride, Worcester, and Tennyson). This statistic provides a great example of what equality is not. This is saddening news for men because the growth rate of opportunities available have declined drastically in the past forty years. This predicament can be quite dangerous because of the growing economy and growing competition amongst individuals. This can be especially scary for swimmers because it is a nonrevenue sport and the hardest hit when being cut for proportionality demands. 

The University of Delaware is one of many universities that have eliminated low profile men's teams like swimming in an effort to comply with Title IX (Thomas). The swimming team and other nonrevenue sports that were cut were replaced by a women's golf team (Thomas). Cutting men's sports allows for more women to enter collegiate athletics. This is inversely proportional because as women's enrollment level increases, the amount of men allowed into the university decreases due to proportionality demand. In order to establish a right for equality, "the male athletes that were cut from their programs at the University of Delaware 'filed a complaint with the federal Office for Civil Rights, which oversees Title IX, alleging that Delaware is discriminating against its male athletes'" (Thomas). 

Title IX has typically been invoked to protect the rights of women, cases alleging against men are not unheard of ...  (Thomas). This makes Title IX seem to have a form of sexism, which was not the sole purpose of this document. This document has implied meanings that have been manipulated with no authorization to accommodate for the increase in women's opportunities in athletics and proportionality. This manipulation was done without thinking of how it will affect the lives of men. "96 Title IX complaints related to athletics received in the 2010 fiscal year, 11 involved allegations of discrimination against men, according to the office" (Thomas). As mentioned previously, universities can comply with Title IX in one of three ways: by showing that the number of female athletes is proportionate to the overall female enrollment; by demonstrating a continuing history of expanding sports for women; by proving that the athletic interests and abilities of the female students body are met (Thomas). Rather than spending money  --  shows how selfish and spoiled universities are  --  on expanding sports for women, many universities have instead cut men's teams in order to comply with proportionality (Thomas). The practice is frowned upon by the Office of Civil Rights, but it is not prohibited, which it should be prohibited to limit the emotional struggle men go through.

Title IX has affected many male athletes from entering college athletics due to the proportionality demand and the amount of space that is available for women at universities compared to men. This all boils down to Title IX because it provided many opportunities for women, but it has significantly dropped the amount of opportunities for men. "Title IX ... has brought vast [controversy] across educational and athletic institutions in the United States" (Barra). "Supporters of Title IX argue that the great strides in participation brought by Title IX have not brought deserved fan support, spectators, or revenue" (Francis). Critics of Title IX argue that Title IX's gains are accompanied by significant losses of participation for men in sports (Francis). A better approach would be to move away from proportionality and allow schools to be more flexible in how they meet the interests and abilities of their student body. "A simple starting point would be to institute interest surveys and ask the student body if they are interested in playing athletics. Schools could then take that information and craft a customized athletic program that fits their school's needs" (Beveridge). Courts should interpret Title IX in a manner that focuses on whether opportunities available to female athletes in a given college or university reflect the proportion of female students willing and able to participate in intercollegiate athletics (Beveridge). This interpretive approach will accommodate the interests of both men and women, while simultaneously satisfying the requirements of the Equal Protection Clause (Beveridge). Men need to be treated with equality in collegiate athletics. It is not fair to see women be able to come into a university with no issues. Men are fighting to commit before anyone else does to make sure they receive a spot on the roster and to ensure a scholarship best suited for them. If this does not work out, then they will have to keep trying to find a college appropriate for their preferences. That being said, society will back fire and there will most likely be a similar law that helps provide more opportunities for men. Another option if this continues to escalade as quickly as it is, men will be taking care of their wives, home, and children, while women work because of all the hard work they have put in. 

