What Are Everyones View On Title Nine Sports

[Almighty Colin]

Extremely gray areas.

Should women be permitted to play in men's sports? On the one hand, the idea of equal opportunity for everyone is an important direction that society has moved and looks like it will continue to move. Many people made arguments against women being permitted into traditional men's schools for example. I know that women were not permitted into Yale as undergrads until 1969. In retrospect it seemed silly to not admit women but at the time it was a hotly contested question. Opposition was so strong in 1951 when it was first considered that the question was dropped.

People always worry about what might happen but seldom is the reality equal to the fear.
What happened at Yale is that there were suddenly twice as many applicants and therefor the school could be more selective. This increased the quality of the applicants. Not to mention the advantages of the diversity of a student body. By 1972, the school had instituted sex-blind admissions. Today, there are more women than men.

This debate occured more recently with the question of whether military academies had the right to have a male only-acceptance policy.

So what are the fears regarding women playing in men's sports? What if the best female basketball player tried out and made the NBA? What would happen? Besides having to build separate locker rooms, what are the issues? The issue ot pregnancy would probably be a huge issue. There would be a risk of a female athlete getting pregnant. Then what? If basketball teams consider risk and reward like insurance companies, they could quite naturally conclude that female athletes should make 10% below market value because 10% of female basketball players turn out to get pregnant. Well, here's a question. Have any WBA players become pregnant?

I don't have an opinion on Title 9. I think market forces do a fair enough job at deciding which
sports schools should or should not continue. On the other hand, sometimes pushing things a little in a direction creates a new market. Who should ultimately decide whether a new market gets a push or not? NCAA, individual schools, the government? Tough question.

Deeper. What do we mean when we say "We want equality"? Why do we want it? What has made us decide that equality is what we want or that it is best for society? Why have we changed? Equality is a fairly new and somewhat radical idea for societies to take on. What does it really mean? Equal opportunity? Unequal opportunity? Why is this idea so important as to come to the forefront of modern thought but not ancient?