Who's Got Game? Candidates on Sports

McCain: In 1972, when Title IX was enacted, women were at a great disadvantage in many facets of our society. The law was designed to provide girls and women with equal opportunities in both academics and athletics through a balanced combination of access and funding. The relevant portion of the law reads, "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."

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However, the U.S. Department of Education under President Clinton took liberties in interpreting the law and without debate determined that universities must fund men's and women's sports programs in proportion to the ratio of male to female students, or else lose federal funding for any part of the university including financial aid. In doing so, the adverse consequence of this interpretation unfortunately has been that many schools have adopted policies of strictly equal funding for male and female athletic programs. Unfortunately, many popular athletic programs have been cut because the overall amount of funding available for athletics programs will not sustain identical men's and women's programs in every sport.

In 1972, women were disadvantaged in many facets of our society. In that year, Title IX was passed to provide equal opportunities for women in both academics and athletics through a balanced combination of access and funding. The positive effects of the law are indisputable, and John McCain supports the law's intent of providing equal opportunities to all students in a manner that does not unfairly penalize or limit opportunities for any students.

John McCain will bring people to work together to find ways to help make Title IX accomplish its original intent without causing the elimination of athletic programs.

Obama: For 36 years, Title IX has been a bulwark against sex discrimination against students and employees at all levels of education, and has led to a significant increase in the athletic participation of women and girls. We know that problems remain, however, as demonstrated by the number of complaints to the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights (OCR) about discrimination against female teams. Despite these ongoing problems, enforcement by the Office for Civil Rights has been ineffective. Although complaint volume remains high, compliance reviews have dropped, the focus of the reviews has narrowed, and the agency has taken a lax approach to enforcement. In addition, the Bush Administration undertook a review of Title IX that was apparently geared to killing this important policy.