Opening Statement

Nancy Hogshead-Makar
FL Coastal School of Law/Former President Women's Sports Foundation

We're here today to address the assertion by the Department of Education and some on the Commission that women are less interested in sports than men. This assertion is not only dangerously stereotypical and flawed, but it is an insult to all women.

I speak today with two voices: one as a female athlete whose career was made possible by Title IX, and another as an attorney who has practiced in this area. Personally, Title IX made my college scholarship to Duke University and my Olympic gold medals in 1984 possible, and it has opened innumerable professional doors. As an attorney, the United States Constitution prohibits these sorts of sex-based classifications based on unfounded gender-based stereotypes. They are flatly illegal.

But they're nothing new. Thirty years ago, when just one of every 27 high school girls played a sport, we were told the reason girls didn't play sports was because we weren't as interested in sports. Today, one out of every 2.5 high school girls plays a sport and more girls are playing all the time. Yet this assertion is still made with a straight face.

Just a short while ago, we heard that professions like science and the law were not for women. Yet today women account for roughly half of medical school students and law school students.

Because sports are sex-segregated, to accept the notion that women are less interested in sports than men would simply freeze into place existing discrimination and curtail future growth opportunities to artificially limited levels.

The Department of Education is urging the Commission to adopt surveys instruments, ostensibly to measure interest, but would effectively operate to limit the opportunities schools are to provide. But we know that interest is a reflection of opportunities provided. The dramatic increases we've seen in women's athletics demonstrates the correlation between interest and the availability of athletic opportunities. My own experience reflects this premise. My family moved to Jacksonville when I was eleven years old. My new school just happened to have a swim team with a great coach. After a few months of serious training, I was committed. My interest was a reflection of the opportunity my school provided.

The courts unanimously agree. In it's thorough analysis of this issue in Cohen v. Brown University, the federal appeals court stated: "Interest and ability rarely develop in a vacuum; they evolve as a function of opportunity and experience… [W]omen's lower rate of participation in athletics reflects women's historical lack of opportunities to participate in sports."

With 2,800,00 girls playing high school sports, it is inconceivable that colleges "cannot find" women to play on the teams they create. That's akin to the National Football League claiming it can't find enough football players to play in (and be financially rewarded by) its league, when each year they draft less than two hundred players from a pool of 60,000 NCAA football players.

No one should be surprised that women are as interested in athletics as men, because of the substantial benefits that all athletes enjoy from sports participation, such as greater physical health [including substantially lower rates of breast cancer, heart disease and osteoporosis] greater academic success, and higher rates of self-esteem. Women, in particular, are far more likely to graduate from college when they participate in athletics. And we cannot overlook that sports are fun! --Whether the participant is male or female.

Women's emerging participation in sports will be hampered only if we give credence to the unfounded stereotypical views of those who refuse to acknowledge the fact that sports are not the domain of boys alone, and instead on the reality of women rushing to fill genuine participation opportunities.

Thank you for this opportunity.