body and mind. The greatest effects of Title IX can be seen in younger females’ participation in sports. Since 1971, the number of girl athletes has risen more than two million females. These young girls go out get exercise, have a good time, meet new people all while possibly earning a free college education. The great increase in numbers has not just been with younger females, but also with post-collegiate female athletes. Within the past five years, U.S. females have made great accomplishments in Olympic soccer, softball, basketball, and swimming. Two female professional basketball leagues have started, the U. S. women won the World Cup of soccer, and talks of starting a professional female soccer league have begun. All of these latest advancements have given young girls female role models to emulate and possible futures in sports that are not over seas. All of these latest advancements and steps to increase female athletics can be traced back to one simple piece of legislation, Title IX. No one could have ever imagined the tremendous effects of this simple law passed twenty-seven years ago. With all the great steps Title IX has allowed for women to make in intercollegiate sports, these steps have come at a price. With new pressures on schools to adequately fund the proper number of female teams, money has to come from somewhere. Many times this money comes from the reduction of male teams. Lazerson states “Higher education is caught in a complex dilemma. It would like to spend less on athletics, but greater equity and expansion of women’s sports are likely to require increased expenditures.”(51). Many people see Title IX as a way to bring big-time college sports such as football and men’s basketball back down to earth. Colleges must cut costs of these two sports that make millions of dollars to pay for new female teams. The current interpretation of the law discriminates against male at...
