Why Sport?: The Development ofSport as a Policy Issue in Title IX of the Education Amendments of1972.

Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 is a thirty year old policy whose implementation continues to be debated today among all three institutions of government in the United States. Although the focus of these current Title IX debates surrounds the issue of gender equity in athletics, Title IX legislation as originally written and debated did not reference sport. Title IX states that: No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subject to discrimination under any educational program or activity receiving federal financial assistance. (P.L. 92-318 sec. 901) Title IX arrived on the agenda as a means of combating sex discrimination in education. In particular, those who fought for Title IX’s passage focused on issues such as equal pay, tenure track opportunities, and sex bias in school texts. So how and when was it that Title IX’s focus shifted from gender equity in education to gender equity in sport? What factors led to this shift in the agenda? Some would argue that Title IX’s policy focus shifted to sport because that’s where outside interest groups and lobbyists chose to focus their attention. This may be true to a certain extent, as there is a plethora of evidence that illustrates that interest groups were in fact focusing their arguments on gender inequity in athletics when Title IX’s proposed regulations were released; however, the question concerning agenda change is still left unanswered. Why did these groups shift and narrow their focus from larger issues of gender discrimination in education to gender equity in athletics at that particular time? Some would argue that discrimination in athletics was more easily quantifiable than discrimination in education in general; therefore, those groups fighting for equity in education used sport as a focal point. This paper, however, argues that Title IX’s history reveals the importance of political timing among all three institutions of government in understanding policy agenda change. As John Kingdon argues in his work, Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies, policy change is most likely to occur when problems, solutions and political events align themselves to open policy windows, which create opportunities for change. This paper goes a step beyond Kingdon by discussing the importance of all three institutions of government and their institutional processes for understanding policy change. Title IX’s history also reveals that the policy agenda within the institutions of government shifted to athletics within a political and social context that enhanced thed development of this policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]