A women's advocacy group leveled criticism yesterday at the Commission on Opportunity in Athletics, which could weaken the federal anti-discrimination law that has been hailed as a boon to female athletes.
The National Coalition for Women and Girls in Education organized a teleconference, during which invited panelists blasted the group formed by Secretary of Education Rod Paige.
The coalition charged that the commission is advancing the political agenda of the White House, that it has not fully researched the effects of Title IX and that it has ignored major funding questions, such as football scholarship levels and the escalation of coaching salaries.
"We did not need a commission on Title IX," said Christine Grant, the women's athletic director at the University of Iowa. "We need a commission on cost containment. We have a financial disaster waiting for us down the road because of the [athletic] arms race and salaries that are out of control."
Title IX is a 30-year-old law that ensures equal opportunity. Recently, its critics have used media outlets from 60 Minutes to Phil Donahue to spread a message that compliance procedures have cost males opportunities.
Yesterday's response comes as the commission prepares proposals that could provide more leeway for Title IX compliance.
From its makeup to the list of speakers at several "town hall" meetings, the NCWGE panelists echoed criticism of the commission that was raised in The Sun last month by Donna Lopiano, national director of the Women's Sports Foundation.
Grant, who is monitoring the issue for the National Association of College Women Athletic Administrators, said complaints were raised when the commission was announced last June. It was charged with being steered by White House appointees and having a skewed perspective.
Ten of its 15 members hail from NCAA Division I-A colleges; there is considerably less representation from other divisions, junior colleges and high schools.
"It is not fully representative of everyone who would be impacted," said Judith M. Sweet, a former NCAA president.
Commission member Debbie Yow, the Maryland athletic director, has said the Terps can't boost scholarship levels for lesser-funded men's teams without first adding women's scholarships.
Andrew Zimbalist, an economics professor and critic of the fiscal aspect of big-time college athletics, counters that scholarships for non-revenue teams could be maintained by taking some from football and that coaches' salaries are out of whack with the revenue produced by their teams.
"Coaches compensation packages," Zimbalist wrote on the NCWGE Web site, "have more in common with reported executives' stock option plans in Enron, WorldCom, and other corporations than they do with the competitive marketplace."