Propaganda Disguised as "Research"

Don't quit now, Title IX Reformers, we've got them on the run!!!

The latest bit of "research" put out by the Women's Sports Foundation is evidence that they're becoming desperate. The tide is turning. America is waking up. We're going to win this war yet, soldiers!!

Read their report here and the executive summary here.

I'd planned to pull "highlights" out of the report and shoot holes in them, but there are just too danged many. Where to start?

Here's one:

The substantial variation in participation trends across sports has altered the extent of racial and ethnic diversity within college athletics. For men, some of the largest participation growth occurred in football and track and field, two sports that contain some of the highest levels of racial and ethnic diversity.

Translation:

Getting rid of all those white-boy swimmers and wrestlers hasn't provided a single extra opportunity for women, but we'll count it as a plus because it looks like a racial balance issue.

We won't tell you that it actually skews the race numbers.

We've been saying that gender balance is achieved when the women athlete numbers match the women undergrad numbers. When it comes to race, though, we'd rather not use that same formula.

That sort of data would actually show a huge racial imbalance between our athlete and undergrad populations.

See how ridiculous their quota system is?

Check out their "major findings" below. Instead of me having all the fun ripping holes in this garbage, I'll let y'all take your own shots.

You'll find a few truths (like overspending in football/basketball and over-recruiting of foreigners in tennis have hurt sports like swimming, tennis, and wrestling) sprinkled in with a Pack-O-Lies.

Their idea of research was to find a few stats that make Title IX look less harmful than we know it's been. They managed to leave out the mountain of data that shows how the insane enforcement of Title IX has severely damaged sports like ours.

Major Findings:

1. All available data on intercollegiate athletic participation produce the same conclusion: Both men’s and women’s participation levels have increased over the last 25 years.

• Analyses of Equity in Athletics Disclosure Act (EADA) data and National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) data demonstrate that men’s participation increased by around 6% between 1995-96 and 2004-05 and women’s participation increased by more than 20%.

• NCAA data, the only source of information for earlier years, indicate that similar trends occurred between 1981-82 and 1995-96. During this period, men’s participation slightly increased, while women’s participation grew at faster rates.

• In recent years, gains in women’s participation have slowed. NCAA data show that women’s participation increased annually by 3.6% between 1991-92 and 2001-02, but only by 1.5% between 2001-02 and 2004-05. As a result, the gap between men’s and women’s participation has not meaningfully narrowed since 2001-02.

2. Higher education institutions have responded to Title IX by increasing women’s participation rather than by decreasing men’s participation.

• Between 1992-93 and 2000-01, the period during which Title IX was most vigorously enforced, women’s participation increased annually by 4.5% and men’s participation increased annually by 0.3%. The corresponding figures are 2.5% and 0.2% for the periods 1981-82 to 1992-93 and 2000-01 to 2004-05. These findings indicate that the period containing the strongest enforcement of Title IX had substantially higher growth rates for women but did not contain substantially lower growth rates for men.

• The number of men’s wrestling teams fell by 36 between 1984-85 and 1987-88, one of the largest three-year declines in wrestling sponsorship. Because athletic programs were exempt from Title IX between 1984 and 1988, this finding suggests that Title IX is not the primary cause of the decline in wrestling sponsorship.

• Schools that were far from compliance with Title IX in 1995-96 were more likely to add women’s participants over the next nine years but were not more likely to drop men’s participants relative to schools closer to or in compliance (as measured by substantial proportionality).

3. Expenditures on intercollegiate athletics, especially for men’s basketball and football in Division I of the NCAA, have grown at unsustainable rates.

• Expenditure data collected under the EADA demonstrate that aggregate athletic expenditures increased annually by 7% between 1995-96 and 2004-05 after adjusting for inflation. Fulks (2008) found a similar rate of growth for the 2003-04 to 2005-06 period using NCAA data.

• While the overall rate of growth in athletic spending did not meaningfully differ by NCAA division, the growth rates for individual sports did. In Division I, the highest growth rates occurred in basketball and football, while in Divisions II and III, expenditure growth was more rapid in sports other than basketball and football.

• Because the scale of expenditures varies dramatically by NCAA division and sport, a comparison of growth rates can hide important differences. A 7% annual growth rate for the 1995-96 to 2004-05 period increased athletic expenditures per school by around $8.2 million in Division I, $1.2 million in Division II and $675,000 in Division III. Within Division I, a 7% annual growth rate increased expenditures in men’s football by approximately $2.45 million per team and increased the expenditures in women’s sports (other than basketball) by around $135,000 per team.

4. A variety of factors beyond Title IX and rapid athletic expenditure growth help explain why participation in certain sports (such as lacrosse and soccer) has grown steadily while participation in other sports (such as tennis, gymnastics and wrestling) has waned.

• In both men’s and women’s athletics, lacrosse experienced the largest percentage increase in high school participation between 1991-92 and 2004-05. Relative to most other athletes, lacrosse participants have stronger academic preparation and come from families with higher levels of income, traits that college presidents increasingly value.

• Tennis sponsorship has declined most rapidly in those NCAA divisions where international student-athletes are most prevalent. For example, men’s tennis sponsorship has remained steady in Division III (where only 2% of tennis participants are international) and has substantially dropped in Divisions I and II (where 20-25% of tennis participants are international).

• Over the last 15 years, gymnastics is the only sport to experience participation declines at the high school level. Gymnastics has higher injury rates than other sports at a time when health care costs are steadily rising.

5. While the early growth in women’s athletics favored those sports with the highest levels of racial and ethnic diversity, recent growth has favored women’s sports with less diversity. This latter shift has occurred because almost all NCAA schools already sponsor most of the sports with high participation by female athletes of color.

• Of the 10 sports that contain the largest percentages of athletes of color, five (basketball, volleyball, cross country, softball and tennis) are offered by more than 83% of NCAA institutions. Two other sports (indoor and outdoor track and field) are sponsored by 59-68% of NCAA schools.

• Of the 12 sports with the lowest levels of diversity, only one (soccer) is sponsored by more than 48% of NCAA schools.

• The implication of these sponsorship patterns for future participation growth is most severe for African-American female athletes because they are heavily segregated by sport; close to 68% participate in three sports: basketball, indoor track and field, and outdoor track and field. Available data indicate that the level of segregation for African-American female athletes did not change between 1999-2000 and 2005-06.

Wasn't that fun? Were you able to find the many flaws in their twisted "logic"?

I think every American with an ounce of common sense should be deeply offended by this report. The WSF obviously thinks the men and women of this country are ignorant enough to believe their "findings".

They should be ashamed of themselves!

CSC Issues National Appeal for “Common-Sense Reform” to Title IX

Read the petition here.

Sign the petition here.

See who signed here.

edited 9:13 p.m.:

Just read a great quote in a WSJ article on this WSF report:

"It sounds a lot like our study minus the accuracy," said Eric Pearson, chairman of the CSC, a coalition of athletes, coaches and parents pushing for Title IX overhaul.