Title IX: Anti-Male Legislation Continues to Deny Education Opportunities

One of the most incredulous pieces of legislation that has had a detrimental impact on American Society is that of Title IX. Title IX states,

 "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."

Imagine yourself as a college athlete who has worked you entire life to earn a scholarship to a school and pursue a career as an NCAA student athlete. Then, drastically, you life as you know it ends because your scholarship is cut due to your institutions compliance to a Law called "Title IX". 

When initially passed through the legislation process Title XI's goal was to eliminate discrimination on the basis of sex in all academic institutions that receive federal aid, but throughout the years that has taken a drastic turn to reverse the discrimination against women and place it on men. 

Essentially the law states that scholarships and sports must be directly proportional to the student body percentage of males to females. So if a schools population is 60% male and 40% female and the total number of scholarships available to the institution is 300 scholarships then 180 scholarships can go to males and 120 scholarships can go to females. 

The entire basis for this law was to make the government and governmental institutions comply with the Equal Protection clauses of the 14th and 5th Amendments to the Constitution. Equality plain and simple is the state or quality of being equal. This law takes absolutely no consideration as to who is funding these scholarships and sports and what the cost and revenue these sports will provide. 

At any major SEC school the Men’s Football Team and Men’s Basketball team bring in more revenue than ALL FEMALE SPORTS COMBINED. Yet these women's sports leech off of the men’s sports that provide their funding and men’s sports are continued to be cut and eliminated due to different women's scholarships being given. 

There is nothing wrong with women's sports. Where this law becomes exceedingly unequal or unfair is when men’s sports are squeezed of their revenue and scholarships simply to support a woman's sport that will inevitably loose money for the institution. 

The line is drawn at the distinction of what equality is. True equality is men’s sports self providing for their services and women's sports doing the same. If a women's sport cannot get the revenue needed for their sport to participate then it is simply not right to eliminate an opportunity a male athlete may have to suffice for the female sports declination. 

Institutions play a major role in this in the way that athletic departments budget the money to different sports. Essentially unfair to a men’s sport, that is bringing in large amounts of revenue, to be forced to reallocate those funds to support a female sport struggling to obtain viewership and support from their fans. 

If you say that female sports are just as important as male sports then let the numbers prove that, but the numbers will say that female sports are just not close to the popularity of male sports. Because this is true, in the implementation of equality it is only fair or equal that male sports that bring in a significantly larger amount of revenue should not have to loose their opportunities in order to supply females with athletic opportunities that will drain large amounts of money from the male sports. 

Native American Mascots: Legitimate Complaint or Overly Sensitive

In recent years there has been a major uproar over the use of Native American tribes and characters as mascots for athletic teams. Teams like the North Dakota Fighting Sioux, Florida State Seminoles, Illinois Fighting Illini, and the Central Michigan Chippewas have been under extreme scrutiny and pressure from individuals who believe it is wrong for them to have these mascots. The criticism does not specifically focus on collegiate athletics. The NFL's Washington Redskins and Kansas City Chiefs have been criticized, along with the MLB's Atlanta Braves and Cleveland Indians and the NHL's Chicago Blackhawks.

In 2006, the NCAA banned the use of Native American mascots during post-season tournaments. This ban still allowed them to be used in other non post-season events. These teams a even the NCAA still face large amounts of public scrutiny over their mascots. Some schools have even be completely abandoned their Native American mascots to appease these critics. Syracuse University changed their mascot from "Orangemen" to the "orange". Stanford University changed their name from "Indians" to "the cardinal". Illinois changed their name from "the Fighting Illini" to simply the "Illini".


The only question to ask is WHY? People claim that these mascots are demeaning and stereotyping the native Americans. People claim that these mascots are racist and give native Americans a negative image. What these people fail to realize is that these mascots give them the ability to be noticed when otherwise they wouldn't. These ridiculous claims are completely unmerited and are a dynamic search for special privileges that others do not receive. For example, Norte Dame University has the mascot of the Fighting Irish. No one is up in arms about them having this mascot that is obviously very stereotypical of a particular people group. It gives the negative and false representation of Irish as being drunken brawlers, but no one even bats an eye at this mascot even though it is doing the exact thing that they claim that Native American mascots are doing. The University of Louisiana Lafayette has the mascot of the Ragin' Cajun's which also has stereotypical and racial overtones and yet they have received minimal if any criticism for their ethnically motivated mascots.



The singling out of only athletic teams that have mascots that are of Native American origin is simply the result of people being overly sensitive and because of that sensitivity those people then seek out special privileges for their people group that no other people group has. The self-victimize themselves and create a negative idea or mentality out of something that specifically has to do with mainly a school or teams geographic location. It would be different if the current push was to eliminate all mascots that stereotype a particular group of people but that is simply not happening and since they are not eliminating all people groups it is completely unfair to eliminate just one. Equality is a simple idea, and needs to be implemented as such. True equality is people groups being treated equally no matter what.

About this Blog and the 14th Amendment

One of the most pivotal moments in United States history came at the end of the Civil War. The Constitutional Amendments that came subsequent to the end of the war would be some of the most popular and polarizing subjects in American law and politics. These amendments to the constitution were the 13th, 14th, and 15th, amendments. The 13th Amendment essentially abolished slavery, the 14th Amendment protected every man from being provided the due process of the law and the equal protection from the law, and the 15th Amendment gave the right to vote to African-American men. This blog will mainly focus on different laws, rules, and regulations that have been created in the sports world, but the main focus of this blog is to analyse and assess different arguments of discrimination, prejudice, and inequalities in sports. This blog will also serve to analyse other different legal aspects of the sporting world.

Interesting contemporary topics that are arising in the sports world are Native American mascots, Title IX, Compensation for college athletes, faking an identity that is not your own online (AKA Catfishing, In reference to the Manti Te'o incident), the use of performance enhancing drugs, the rights of NCAA student athletes to Transfer after the coach that they signed to play for has left the school, the rights of Athletes and people in  general to freely be able to speak as the wish on a plethora of controversial issues, and many more.