THE NUMBERS DON'T ADD UP SO SAYS A LAWYER FOR BROWN, WHICH IS FIGHTING TO ENSURE TITLE IX BENEFITS ALL STUDENTS

Everyone agrees that Title IX was supposed to end the reign of
athletic directors who thought women had no place on their
fields or in their arenas. But a Title IX class-action suit
filed in 1992, Cohen v. Brown University, raised a different
issue: Does a fair-minded university where half the students are
women have an obligation to try to fill its varsity rosters with
equal numbers of men and women even if far more men than women
want to participate?

Brown was at the forefront of the women's athletic movement when
it established 14 women's varsity teams shortly after it became
coed in 1971. Women now constitute 53% of the Brown student
body, but Brown doesn't want to count heads and set aside 53% of
its varsity positions for women because it believes that equal
opportunity can be afforded through a broad array of teams that
reflect the relative interests and abilities of both sexes.

In 1991, when Brown needed to make university-wide budget cuts,
it changed the source of funding for two men's teams and two
women's teams (37 varsity spots for men, 23 for women) so that
neither sex would receive preferential treatment. But Amy Cohen,
a gymnast, and the other plaintiffs said Title IX means ladies
first: Schools must fund all viable women's sports or
continually expand opportunities for women until gender parity
is achieved on the varsity level. The case isn't over yet, but
so far the courts have sided with the plaintiffs.

The federal trial and appeals courts ruled that Brown was not in
compliance with the cut-and-dried formula the courts adopted for
measuring equality under Title IX: A school must structure teams
so that the percentage of male and female varsity athletes
mirrors (or is moving toward mirroring) the gender ratio of the
student body, or it must fund every viable varsity sport that
its female students want to play. The appellate court told Brown
to find the necessary sources for all sports women want to play,
including fencing, skiing and water polo, or eliminate as many
as 213 varsity slots for men. Last week the Supreme Court chose
not to review this issue yet.

Is that a victory for women, for equal opportunity? I don't
think so. Shortly after I began representing Brown in this case,
a radio commentator asked me how I would feel, as a woman, if
Brown won and set back the movement for "gender equity." In the
eyes of the commentator, also a woman, Cohen v. Brown was
subtitled Women v. Men, and I was giving aid and comfort to the
enemy. I am the mother of a 12-year-old daughter who loves
sports, but I also have a 14-year-old son. In my eyes, Brown's
approach captures the essence of gender equity: The school has
welcomed women with open arms, and it has relied upon the good
faith and common sense of its faculty and administrators--not
mathematical formulas--to offer programs that nurture the
talents and interests of our sons and daughters.

Title IX should not be read to prohibit a varsity program that
is 60% male at a university where half the students are women
for the same reason that we do not prohibit a collegiate dance
program that is 90% female or an engineering program that is 70%
male. Who would advocate a rule requiring colleges that receive
applications from 100 qualified dancers--75 women, 25 men--to
set aside 25 spaces for men and 25 spaces for women to ensure
gender balance in a program with room for 50 dancers? Is it fair
to structure that dance program so that it affords qualified men
a far greater chance of participating and guarantees that many
more qualified women will be excluded? That's not equal
opportunity, that's preferential treatment--which Title IX
expressly says is not required.

So now we get to the heart of Brown's position in Cohen v.
Brown: Are there substantially more men than women who have the
desire and ability to compete on the varsity level? Because if
there are, accomplished male athletes should not have to duke it
out among themselves to get the slots that are left after all
the women have been accommodated. The court didn't require that
question to be answered. It said we should just presume that
"women, given the opportunity, will naturally participate in
athletics in numbers equal to men." That may be true someday,
but is it true now? How do we square that presumption with the
fact that the men in Brown's intramural program--which has no
limits on participation--outnumber the women by 8 to 1, or with
evidence that approximately 60% of students around the country
who want to play varsity sports are men? And why do we think
that it is so important to ensure that half the athletes are
women when we don't seem to care that far less than half the
dancers are men?

My bottom line is this: Women don't have to have 50% of the
varsity positions to succeed as athletes. They need equal
opportunity, and you don't get that from a numerical formula. It
comes from equality-minded athletic directors who try their best
to respond to the interests and abilities of all the students,
and it comes from universities like Brown that display the
courage to defend their principles and autonomy, even at the
risk of being accused of defending men in the gender-equity
battle. And someday equal opportunity will come from judges who
will recognize that Congress wanted athletic directors to be
guided by the rules of fair play.

COLOR ILLUSTRATION: EVANGELOS VIGLIS [Drawing of judge's gavel striking adding machine]