Title Ix

Gov. Martin O'Malley suggested Towson University form a task force to study how better to deal with meeting Title IX rules on gender equity. The governor, who proposed giving state money to save the university's baseball program, told a group of reporters Monday that all his questions about the decision to eliminate some men's sports had been answered. But he suggested that perhaps the public would benefit from a task force. "I think a lot of us have trouble with the idea that to create more sports opportunities for our daughters, we have have to eliminate opportunities for our sons," O'Malley said.

The Towson University Board of Visitors fully supports President Maravene Loeschke and her leadership of the University ("Franchot goes too far" April 20). President Loeschke has taken the responsible approach to ensure that Towson athletics are fiscally responsible, compliant with federal Title IX law and competitive in the NCAA Colonial Athletic Association, Division 1 athletic conference. The Board of Visitors is a service and advisory organization of Towson University established to provide advice to the president.

The article, "Title IX under fire as colleges cut teams," (April 7) tackled the issue of Title IX proportionality at Towson University, but the perspective of athletic women and female coaches in this debate has been largely missing. One of the solutions of balancing the number of male and female athletes that was proposed in the article was adding women's teams in universities that are not complying with Title IX requirements. If there were barriers that prevent women from active participation in sports, this solution might not lead to the equality that the title was initially created to enhance.

For full disclosure's sake, I am a 1968 graduate of what is now Towson University (and a 1974 graduate of Morgan State University). I taught high school for 14 years and founded an advertising agency that has a sports specialty. Our company has done sports ticket sales campaigns for 43 university programs in 24 states over a 30 year period - including Towson - as well as several pro teams, including all of the local franchises. To say that specializing in college athletics is not a way to build a big media billing agency is an understatement.

Athletes and administrators with ties to this area describe what Title IX has meant to their athletic careers - and their lives. Angel McCoughtry Angel McCoughtry starred at St. Frances Academy before playing collegiately at Louisville, where she set the school record for career points in just more than three seasons. The Atlanta Dream selected McCoughtry first overall in the 2009 WNBA draft, and she was named Rookie of the Year the following season. She holds records for most points in a WNBA Finals game after she dropped 38 against the Minnesota Lynx in Game 1 last year.

The men who play baseball and soccer at Towson University, run track at the University of Delaware and wrestle, swim or golf at any number of other colleges all heard the same reason when their teams were cut: Title IX. To meet the federal law's goal of providing equal opportunities for athletes of both genders, schools have eliminated men's teams to keep their overall rosters in line with the number of women playing sports. But a growing chorus is crying foul. "People are really upset that they're dragging Title IX through the mud to cut sports teams," said Towson University graduate Scott Hargest.

Lil Shelton discovered them tucked away in a cardboard box, on a dusty shelf in her old office last week at Severna Park High. Inside the box was a musty pile of girls athletic uniforms, circa 1973. Oh, the memories. "All three of the school's girls teams wore those same uniforms back then. They just passed [the outfits] around, from season to season, from volleyball to basketball to softball," Shelton said. "They were heavy, one-piece cotton uniforms, with zippers up the back and navy-blue mandarin [stand-up]

Here is an excerpt of an editorial from the Boston Globe, which was published Wednesday.BESIDES the victory, the thrill of the Women's World Cup soccer game was how well it played out in the hearts of fans.These players have pulled off a nearly chivalrous balance. They are aggressive athletes but with a gentle love for the game.In this world of pure joy about the game, the word "confidence" shakes off its hackneyed shell. It becomes a crackling term that bundles the virtues of practice, focus, desire and hard work.

Virginia Commonwealth will add women's lacrosse to its athletics lineup beginning with the 2015-16 season in order to maintain compliance with Title IX, the school has announced. The VCU Board of Visitors on Thursday approved adding the sport to its intercollegiate athletics program, which currently sponsors 16 intercollegiate sports programs -- eight men's teams and eight women's teams. Over the past four years, the number of student-athletes per academic year has consistently been between 265 and 279, and student-athlete composition has generally been equal between men and women.

WASHINGTON - A set of proposals made last week by a commission created to ensure gender equality in school athletics would scuttle the mandate by the federal program called Title IX to eliminate such discrimination and freeze a discriminatory standard into the system. President Bush and Education Secretary Rod Paige must prevent these undemocratic and unlawful proposals from being implemented. Title IX of the Educational Amendments of 1972 is the landmark legislation that bans sex discrimination in schools, whether in academics or athletics.

The article, "Title IX under fire as colleges cut teams," (April 7) tackled the issue of Title IX proportionality at Towson University, but the perspective of athletic women and female coaches in this debate has been largely missing. One of the solutions of balancing the number of male and female athletes that was proposed in the article was adding women's teams in universities that are not complying with Title IX requirements. If there were barriers that prevent women from active participation in sports, this solution might not lead to the equality that the title was initially created to enhance.

Gov. Martin O'Malley suggested Towson University form a task force to study how better to deal with meeting Title IX rules on gender equity. The governor, who proposed giving state money to save the university's baseball program, told a group of reporters Monday that all his questions about the decision to eliminate some men's sports had been answered. But he suggested that perhaps the public would benefit from a task force. "I think a lot of us have trouble with the idea that to create more sports opportunities for our daughters, we have have to eliminate opportunities for our sons," O'Malley said.

The men who play baseball and soccer at Towson University, run track at the University of Delaware and wrestle, swim or golf at any number of other colleges all heard the same reason when their teams were cut: Title IX. To meet the federal law's goal of providing equal opportunities for athletes of both genders, schools have eliminated men's teams to keep their overall rosters in line with the number of women playing sports. But a growing chorus is crying foul. "People are really upset that they're dragging Title IX through the mud to cut sports teams," said Towson University graduate Scott Hargest.

Towson University baseball could live to fight another year after Gov. Martin O'Malley included an additional $300,000 in his 2014 budget to help the university sort through difficulties with its athletic funding. The baseball program had been slated for elimination after this season until O'Malley became interested in its fate. An O'Malley spokeswoman said Monday that the appropriation, still subject to General Assembly approval, resulted from a one-on-one meeting last week between the governor and Towson president Maravene Loeschke.

Towson University president Maravene Loeschke's defense of cutting the men's soccer and baseball teams was less than honest ("Towson president says cutbacks of baseball, soccer painful but necessary," March 15). Not once did she mention football, a major expense for a university and the real reason for cutting other men's sports. Instead she did a great disservice to her gender by using the smoke screen of Title IX as a factor. Just to mention equality for women's sports implicates Title IX, but she is talking about pennies and this is wrong.

My alma mater made it official this past Friday: Towson University has made the despicable choice to drop the mens' soccer and baseball programs. The decision-makers had the audacity to inform the student ballplayers, their parents, and the community it was due to Title IX mandates (which basically calls for equity among the genders in our NCAA colleges and universities). Being in its off-season, the mens' soccer program was cut immediately. The baseball team will play out the remainder of its season, but many players on the team now have to make contingency plans about where to further their college baseball passion.

MINNEAPOLIS -- Concerned that college football coaches will lobby a conservative Congress to weaken Title IX regulations, the Women's Basketball Coaches Association yesterday began efforts to head off the football coaches' efforts.The WBCA, meeting here in conjunction with the NCAA women's Final Four, announced a lobbying and letter-writing campaign of their own, to challenge the College Football Association and the American Football Coaches Association."We will be instrumental in our security.

While both sides in the gender equity debate raging through (( college athletic departments continue to squabble over the meaning of Title IX, the officials who must meet these federal requirements carry twofold concerns.Athletic administrators -- meeting in Baltimore yesterday for the first day of a two-day, NCAA-sponsored seminar on Title IX -- must identify new ways to bring the numbers of women who participate in athletics more in line with the overall campus population, while also finding the money to pay for the new sports.

Virginia Commonwealth will add women's lacrosse to its athletics lineup beginning with the 2015-16 season in order to maintain compliance with Title IX, the school has announced. The VCU Board of Visitors on Thursday approved adding the sport to its intercollegiate athletics program, which currently sponsors 16 intercollegiate sports programs -- eight men's teams and eight women's teams. Over the past four years, the number of student-athletes per academic year has consistently been between 265 and 279, and student-athlete composition has generally been equal between men and women.

A task force charged with evaluating Towson athletic director Mike Waddell's recommendation to cut baseball and men's soccer has yet to forward its findings to the university president's office. Part of the delay has to do with their revised understanding of Towson's Title IX situation, which was one of the reasons Waddell gave for wanting to eliminating 60 roster spots for male athletes. He has insisted the school needs to try to achieve athlete proportionality -- meaning the percentage of women athletes is about equal to the percentage of women enrolled at the school -- and that cutting sports was therefore necessary.