CHICAGO -- The September 17-18 town hall meeting of the Secretary of Education's Commission on Opportunity in Athletics was a chance for the commission to focus on the impact of Title IX at the high-school and two-year college level.

Most of the invited panelists for this second meeting of the commission were from the high-school or junior college ranks, though two speakers -- Athena Yiamouyiannis, executive director of the National Association for Girls and Women in Sports, and Katherine Kersten, senior fellow for Cultural Studies at the Center of the American Experiment in Minneapolis -- went head-to-head on Title IX in general and also on the question of whether women are interested in sports.

There also was much talk of how to measure women's interest in sports. The commissioners asked Yiamouyiannis and Kersten several questions regarding that topic. They also probed the concept of interest surveys.

This was the second of four planned town hall meetings for the commission, which was announced in June by U.S. Secretary of Education Rod Paige.

The public comment time was not limited to high-school or two-year athletics, and many of the speakers chose to spend their five minutes speaking either in favor of or in opposition to the proportionality prong of Title IX regulations, much as other speakers had done in Atlanta at the commission's first meeting. (See the September 16 issue of The NCAA News for coverage of the Atlanta meeting.)

By the time allotted for public comment in the mid-afternoon of the first day, the meeting room held a standing-room-only crowd. At three- to five-minute intervals per speaker, the commission could accommodate only the first 40 wishing to speak. And unlike in Atlanta, where everyone who had registered ahead of time was able to comment, the commission didn't have time to hear from many who had preregistered. Commissioners also were unable to dip into the waiting list, which held another 80 people interested in commenting.

Perhaps the most notable comment at the Chicago meeting was from Laurie Priest, athletics director at Mount Holyoke College. She used her public comment time to question whether Gerald Reynolds, the assistant secretary for the Office for Civil Rights, was pushing the commission in a particular direction. Reynolds is an ex officio member of the commission, but he attends meetings and asks questions of panelists just as any other commissioner does.

"Based on the hearing in Atlanta, as well as sitting here in the audience today, it appears that Gerald Reynolds already has a predetermined political agenda," Priest told the commission. "With all due respect, it is clear that the direction he has been given is to use the commission, through these hearings, to get you to buy into the concept of changing Title IX and using a so-called interest survey to halt progress for women in sport.

"Before we even think about changing the law, or as Gerald Reynolds stated (in Atlanta), before we 'bless a survey instrument,' you as commission members have an obligation to the American people to understand the law and its existing guidelines and to try to work within these parameters toward a solution for all. I urge you to develop solutions that are truly the work of the commission and not someone else's political agenda."

Though commissioners do comment and ask questions during the panelists' time, they do not speak during the time for public comment, so they were unable to respond to Priest.

"I was disappointed that someone would criticize a commissioner's motives, especially when they had no evidence," said Ted Leland, athletics director at Stanford University and co-chair of the commission. "I thought the comments were unfortunate."

The second day of the commission meeting was the commissioners' first chance to discuss the issues among themselves. As required by federal law, that discussion also was open to the public, though it was primarily limited to subcommittee meetings focusing on what additional information the commission would like to see.

The commission's next town hall meeting is in Colorado Springs, Colorado, October 22-23.

Title IX panelists

Department of Education officials chose the following individuals to testify before the commission in Chicago. The focus of this meeting was athletics at the high-school and two-year college levels, though two panelists spoke more generally to Title IX and women's interest in sports.

Panel One